Group items tagged

Although Jupiter’s orbit, and therefore its year, is so much longer than the Earth’s, its day is much shorter.  The Earth turns on its own axis, turning away from the Sun and so giving us day and night, once every 24 hours.  Jupiter spins round much faster, turning on its axis once every 9.84 hours!

We tend to equate buying things with positive emotions. Subsequently, we think that purchasing new stuff makes us happy. It's a pretty clear correlation. In a study published in Neuron, researchers looked at what's going on in the brain when we think about buying stuff. When a product image flashed before people's eyes, an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens lit up when a subject liked what they saw. Essentially, the brain's pleasure center kicks into gear and floods the brain with dopamine at the very thought of getting something we want. The weirdest thing about this is that just thinking about buying something is pretty much the same as actually buying it.

"Thinking about acquisition provides momentary happiness boosts to materialistic people, and because they tend to think about acquisition a lot, such thoughts have the potential to provide frequent mood boosts," Richins wrote, "but the positive emotions associated with acquisition are short-lived. Although materialists still experience positive emotions after making a purchase, these emotions are less intense than before they actually acquire a product."

It's probably no surprise to most of us, but study after study shows that buying stuff doesn't make us happy. More importantly, we're actually unhappy when we put too much value on material objects.The big problem here isn't just that we're a little bummed out when someone else has more stuff than we do. It's that when we put a lot of emphasis on materialistic value, we're prone to depression, personality disorders, and more. One study from

Whenever we don't have a good understanding of a subject, say, of people or countries, then we tend to make assumptions about them. Stereotype is nothing but those assumptions that have become common knowledge. Whenever you make judgments about people without knowing them, you are stereotyping them. Stereotyping makes people generalize things. More often, they are all false assumptions. Though there are both positive and negative stereotypes, a majority of them are offensive. People generally stereotype out of bias against a particular group of people or religion. Stereotyping becomes a way of conveying their dislike. Of course, stereotyping stems from a commonly held view of a particular group or race. This view may arise from an incident or false assumption, and then maybe used to color the entire community with the same brush. There are various types of stereotypes. However, the most common ones are racial stereotypes and gender stereotypes. Race, nationality, gender and sexual orientation are the main factors of stereotyping. Stereotyping must be avoided at all costs, as it leads to treating groups as a single entity. Given below are examples of stereotypes that people commonly use.

Examples Of Stereotypes Negative Stereotypes All blond women are dumb. All red heads are sluts. Christians are homophobic. They are blinded by God and will recruit you if you go near them. All politicians are philanders and think only of personal gain and benefit. If I wear Goth clothing I'm a part of a rock band, depressed, or do drugs. Girls are only concerned about physical appearance. Guys are messy and unclean. Men who spend too much time on the computer or read are geeks. Men who are not into sports are termed as gay. All librarians are women who are old, wear glasses, tie a high bun, and have a perpetual frown on their face. Girls are not good at sports. All teenagers are rebels. All children don't enjoy healthy food. Only anorexic women can become models. Women who smoke and drink do not have morals. Men who like pink are effeminate.

Positive Stereotypes All Blacks are great basketball players. All Asians are geniuses. All Indians are deeply spiritual. All Latinos dance well. All Whites are successful. Asians have high IQs. They are smarter than most in Math and Science. These people are more likely to succeed in school. African Americans can dance. All Canadians are exceptionally polite. French are romantic. All Asians know kung fu. All African American men are well endowed. Italians are good lovers

When you have a cold or allergies, and your nose is stuffy, you might notice that your food doesn't seem to have much flavor. That's because the upper part of your nose isn't clear to receive the chemicals that trigger the olfactory receptors (that inform the brain and create the sensation of flavor).

As the Earth rotates it turns away from the sun’s light, and the sky becomes dark. However, if you think about the millions and millions of bright stars all around the sky at night, you might start to wonder why it isn’t just as bright as it was when we were facing the sun!

ARE YOU A SUPERTASTER? To find out, put blue food coloring on your tongue. Blue dye doesn't stick to taste papillae, so if your tongue doesn't get very blue, you're probably a supertaster. The bluer it gets, the greater the chance you are a subtaster. More hot sauce!

People who have a lot of papillae—the bumps on our tongue, most of which house our taste buds—often find flavors overwhelming. They're "supertasters," and as such they add cream to their coffee and order food mild instead of spicy. Subtasters, on the other hand, have low papillae density and prefer their chicken wings "atomic."

Most toxic plants taste bitter, and nomadic groups that came into contact with a variety of plants would have, over time, developed a variety of receptors. People from malaria-infested parts of the world tend to carry a gene that makes them less sensitive to some bitter compounds, specifically those that contain cyanide.

Want to find out just how much you use your tongue? Try eating an ice-cream cone or singing your favorite song without it. You need your tongue to chew, swallow, and sing. And don't forget talking and tasting!

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Its famous 'Red Spot' and raging gas storms give it an impressive if not intimidating appearance. As well as having many moons, Jupiter also has a number of rings similar to that of Saturn but much less noticeable.  

“Crying is a natural emotional response to certain feelings, usually sadness and hurt. But then people [also] cry under other circumstances and occasions," says Stephen Sideroff, PhD, a staff psychologist at Santa Monica--University of California Los Angeles & Orthopaedic Hospital."People cry in response to something of beauty. There, I use the word 'melting.' They are letting go of their guard, their defenses, tapping into a place deep inside themselves."

Champlain returned to Quebec in 1604 on Pierre de Mont’s expedition. For the next three years, Champlain explored much of the coast of Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy and the coasts of Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

One of the most common reasons for bullying is image. Anyone who looks the least bit different from what is considered to be normal will likely face bullying at some point in his life. Kids with freckles, acne, moles, buck teeth and other physical differences will be targeted by bullies.

Kids who go out of their way to sit in the front of the class, answer the teacher’s questions and do well on exams are also convenient targets because they are considered to be “nerds”.

Kids who don’t have the same style of clothing as their peers are often the targets of bullies.

it’s Daylight Saving Time! Daylight Saving Time (or “Summer Time,” as it’s known in many parts of the world) was created to make better use of the long sunlight hours of the summer. By “springing” clocks forward an hour in March, we move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening. On the first Sunday in November, we “fall back” and rewind our clocks to return to Standard Time.

Huge meat-eating, land-living dinosaurs evolved into birds by constantly shrinking for over 50 million years, scientists have revealed.

Previous work has shown that theropod dinosaurs, the dinosaur group which included Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor and gave rise to modern birds, must have decreased in size at some point in their evolution into small, agile flyers.

But size changes frequently occurred in dinosaur evolution, so the research team members, led by Mike Lee, from the University of Adelaide, Australia, wanted to find out if the dramatic size reduction associated with the origin of birds was unique. They also wanted to measure the rate of evolution in dinosaurs using a large data set