Oct.17: AROUND THE WORLD
- Posted by CERC India
- Posted in October 2017, Uncategorized
USA
Writing by hand will make you smarter
Choosing a pen over a keyboard does wonders for your memory. Researchers conducted a series of studies to demonstrate the differences between students who wrote out their notes and those who typed notes. The findings, published in the journal Psychological Science, revealed that students who took notes by hand had a stronger grasp of overall concepts.
They were able to remember things better and were more open to understanding new ideas. It was found that laptop note takers tend to transcribe lectures verbatim which is detrimental to learning. They do not process the information and reframe it in their own words like those who take handwritten notes do.
FRANCE
Laziness and impatience are contagious
Do you have lazy friends or co-workers? Their attitudes toward laziness and impatience can rub off on you, a study has found. Researchers in France have found that people tend to imitate the three personality traits – laziness, impatience and prudence – of those around them. Earlier, these three traits were thought to be unique among individuals.
The findings were published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. Prudence, impatience and laziness are the personality traits that guide how people take decisions. Prudence is a preference for avoiding risk while impatience is a preference for quick options. Lazy people are those who determine that the potential rewards are not worth the effort.
AUSTRALIA
How Australia is stubbing out smoking
It’s not easy being a smoker in Australia. Apart from the graphic images on packaging, taxes and anti-smoking campaigns, smoking is banned almost everywhere. A culture of shame surrounding smoking has begun to emerge, and that itself has become a smoking deterrent.
A 10-year anthropological study, conducted at Australian National University, has found that strict legislation has led to many smokers feeling marginalised from society. Smokers feel marginalised because they can’t be citizens in public spaces anymore and are restricted to ‘dirty spaces’, according to the study.
USA
Do you suffer from ‘social jet lag’?
After working hard through the week, we tend to reward ourselves with a couple of hours of extra sleep during the weekend. This is harmful, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
Having one sleep schedule on workdays and another on weekends or holidays is known as ‘social jet lag’. The study says that social jet lag increases risk of diabetes and heart disease. It has been linked with extra girth around the waist, higher levels of sugars and fats in the blood and low levels of ‘good’ cholesterol. Social jet lag is worse than actual jet lag as it involves people shifting in and out of different routines.
