In a study published in the journal Aging on May 21, researchers surveyed people who were over the age of 95 and found that most of them had positive personality traits, making them upbeat and relaxed about life. That suggests personality traits such optimism could be part of the longevity genes mix, they said.
The breastfeeding by humans of animals is a practice that is widely attested historically and continues to be practiced today by some cultures. The reasons for the practice are varied: to feed young animals, to drain a woman’s breasts, to promote lactation, to develop good nipples, to prevent conception and so on. One example of the practice being used for health reasons comes from late 18th century England. When the writer Mary Wollstonecroft was dying of puerperal fever in 1797 following the birth of her second daughter, the doctor ordered that puppies be applied to her breasts to draw off the milk, possibly with the intention of helping her womb to contract to expel the infected placenta that was slowly poisoning her. Similarly, English and German physicians between the 16th and 18th centuries recommended using puppies to “draw” the mother’s breasts, and in 1799 the German Friedrich Benjamin Osiander reported that in Göttingen women suckled young dogs to dislodge nodules from their breasts.
Image: csmonitor.com
Homeschooling is legal in many countries. Countries with the most prevalent home education movements include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some countries have highly regulated home education programs as an extension of the compulsory school system; others, such as Germany, have outlawed it entirely.
Recent research suggests that the bigger your plate, the likelier it is you’ll overeat. The same logic may apply to fast food, where according to a new infographic by the Centers for Disease Control, portion sizes for popular items have increased dramatically since the 1950s.
A team of researchers led by the psychologists and neuroscientists at the University of Freiburg, Germany, examined in a study how men react in stressful situations. In the study, subjects who were under stress showed significantly more positive social behavior than control subjects who were not in a stressful situation. Negative social behavior, on the other hand, was not affected by stress.