British scientists have proven that not all research can be trusted. Three young people, in fact, circled almost the entire scientific community around their fingers. They wrote articles on the most meaningless topics, but they designed them as real works. And sent to reputable magazines around the world. The most surprising thing is that many publications published them.
Do miniskirts make you live longer? Do ducks love rain? Did the chicken come before the egg? Every time you read such “scientific discoveries”, you just want to ask the author: are you serious? And now attention, the correct answer: scientists have proved that the results of such studies can be a common fiction.
The revelation of the century looks like this. Three scientists from Britain and the USA have fooled the elite of world science. For the results of serious research, they gave out their extravagant ideas. And prestigious editors published this nonsense. Here is the response from the editor of Gender, Place and Culture. It focuses on feminist issues.
Laughter through tears. The authors allegedly established that men should be trained like dogs, and white students should be chained in lectures on the history of slavery. The more absurd the idea, the more likely it is to be published. Scientists have come to the conclusion: the truth no longer interests anyone. They wrote about this in their appeal, published on the Internet.
“The current culture tells us that only certain kinds of conclusions can be acceptable - for example, white skin or masculinity must necessarily be a problem. And the fight against manifestations of social injustice is placed above objective truth.
One example of such social injustice in the West is the attitude towards transgender people. The cutting-edge scientific idea is that a child can decide for himself whether to be a girl or a boy. Therefore, the most advanced parents buy women's clothes for their sons. In the US, uncles dressed as aunts come to kindergartens. And, according to scientists who wrote fake articles, the main problem of modern science is that research is in demand that only confirms such ideological norms. The recipe for successful publishing, in their opinion, is simple.
We take an actual problem that everyone is talking about - for example, obesity. We add some very advanced idea there (freedom of choice), and we also add a small pinch of humor. And cook it all until it turns into a single mass. And, please, a new theory is ready: “overweight is not a problem, but a free choice of every person!”. It would seem nonsense! But this is a quote from an article in Obesity Research.
In total, seven works of scientists-provocateurs were published. This theory of the big lie was not born yesterday, according to the Russian Academy of Sciences. Fake articles, like plagiarism, are like weeds in the field of fundamental research. Russian scientists are sure that such pseudoscientific works can be recognized, but only if there is a desire.
“The most striking example that I remember was when there was a dissertation on meat, which was copied, replacing meat with chocolate with just autocorrect. However, everything else remained in place. Red meat has become bitter chocolate, poultry meat has become white chocolate,” said Alexander Panchin, a member of the commission for combating pseudoscience and falsification of scientific research at the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
When scientists admitted that they had deceived everyone, a scandal erupted. Some demanded that they be punished, others praised them for their courage and offered to continue their research. True, the scientists themselves are not laughing now. For these fake publications, they are threatened with dismissal from universities. This experiment may be the last in their scientific career.
"British scientists have found that miniskirts prolong women's lives." "British researchers have proven that sleeping on the left side helps you fall asleep faster and better." "Scientists have found out that when playing bowling, children or adults can start running along the lanes and end up getting stuck in the mechanism that sets the pins." By the way, 10 years and 250 thousand pounds were spent on the last study.
Such messages are weekly in the news feeds. Scientists from the UK write so many scientific articles on such different, and sometimes large-scale topics, that the expression "British scientists" has already become a meme and a synonym for crazy researchers who produce unnecessary and even pseudoscientific results. This is evidenced by a common joke: "British scientists have proven that people are not able to take seriously anything that is discovered by British scientists." How much truth is in this joke, and how much is fiction?
British scientists are the smartest in the world. This became known in 2004 during one study. It showed that the UK is only second only to the US in terms of annual scientific discoveries and developments. But when experts compared their number with the number of researchers and the amount of funding for science, they found that the British are still more productive than their colleagues. You can see the statistics. But if you do not follow the link for the numbers, then you will miss the interesting thought of the newspaper Financial Times. They believe that the increase in the number of scientific developments occurred due to cuts in the UK's scientific budget and the awakening of enthusiasts who are ready to work for the idea. Reminds no one?
So British scientists do write a lot of papers and create a lot of things. But why has their activity always been so prominent in the world? There are several reasons.
First, it happened historically.
English monks, like any monks of medieval Europe, accumulated knowledge in manuscripts, until Oxford and Cambridge universities were founded in the XII-XIII centuries - the first universities in the world and still operating universities. Later, England contributed to the series of great geographical discoveries, published scientific journals, founded the oldest scientific society (the Royal Society of London) and became the country from which the industrial revolution began, giving the world factories, urbanization and a rapid increase in the quality of life of people.
And in the middle of the 19th century, the country decided to increase the degree of the nation's attention to science. Scientists began to give open lectures for ordinary citizens, and popular science magazines appeared on newsstands. Over time, journalists began to write a lot about science. They were not afraid of sensitive topics and sometimes openly criticized scientists and universities. A century later, their defenders came to science - the press services of universities and institutes. It was the activities of journalists and press secretaries that caused the most powerful flow of information that fell upon ordinary people. In order to attract the reader and focus his attention on complex scientific topics, the texts were simplified as much as possible. They wrote about the unusual and sensational. As a result, the brand "British scientists" is firmly stuck in people's heads.
No powerful PR of universities and research institutes will create an information background if the media are not strongly interested in this topic, - says Alexandra Borisova, ex-head of the TASS scientific and educational project "Attic", visiting researcher of scientific communications at the University of Rhine-Waal, co-founder of the Association on communications in the field of education and science (AKSON). - So, the British media are interested. First of all, the BBC (BBC), which exists on a special tax and is not obliged to think about earnings, produces scientific news, films, programs, and even magazines. Most newspapers have a "Science" tab right on the front page. For example, in tabloids The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph. And it's not about science politics or astrology, it's the truth about science. There is objectively a lot of scientific information, so strange things also get into it.
By the way, the statistics on this issue are also on the alert: 71 percent of Britons surveyed think that the media make a sensation out of scientific discoveries. What the Russians think is unknown. On the other hand, it is known that the vast majority of Russian general media read ready-made news (that is, not the original scientific articles themselves). They read them in Russian, select the brightest, the funniest and the absurd, rewrite them and publish them on their own. They do not have the task of creating a general picture of the world, they just need to entertain the people. And so there are hypertrophied strange stories.
The third reason for the existence of the phenomenon of "British scientists" was loudly announced by one of the scientific journals of Great Britain at a special conference four years ago. It turned out that some scientific articles are of poor quality, while others are completely falsified.
To understand why this is so, the British Dr. Andrew Higginson (Andrew D. Higginson) and Professor Marcus Munafo (Marcus R. Munafo) conducted their own scientific investigation. They suggested that scientists, as well as representatives of other professions, are driven by material incentives - salaries and grants. Then the researchers took the requirements of the grant committees and, using a mathematical model, calculated the most profitable path that an aspiring scientist could take. And they found that they were given points for the novelty of the work, thereby encouraging not the depth of research and immersion in one topic, but the discovery of ever new effects and patterns. To be more precise, the grant givers hardly wanted such an outcome, but in the end they got it.
Higginson and Munafo think there is still room for change if grant requirements are tightened up. By the way, the researchers only talked about the biomedical field of science, because in physics and genomics (the science of genes) things are better.
There is a fourth possible reason for the existence of the phenomenon: British scientists do what they want. This does not mean that they go to their own devices for the sake of satisfying their curiosity. This means that they have comfortable working conditions: modern equipment, reagents, students and graduate students who do not suffer from a lack of money. Therefore, they can research faster and take on new topics. Even if at first glance, and trifling.
When you skim through the news about the next achievements of British scientists, you don’t understand why it was worth studying? Some look for correlations (statistical connections) in seemingly unrelated subjects: "British scientists have proven that the most objective test for determining temperament is the yellow color of a traffic light" or "Scientists have found out what a smartphone can tell about a person." It occurs to other researchers to check, for example, why we cannot get certain melodies out of our heads. And sometimes scientists manage to come to amazing conclusions that "a man differs from a woman only by sex." The third conditional group of researchers likes to do completely useless work, finding out the reasons for the optimism of pigs or the strength of the psyche of pioneers.
Before we taboo the results of British scientists and scroll the news feed further, let's be respectable researchers and take a closer look at their work.
We open a search engine, enter the phrase "British scientists" and find the text about why some songs are attached to people more than others. This scientific news, like almost any other, is made on the basis of an article. An article on obsessive melodies was written with colleagues by research psychologist Kelly Jakubowski, a blonde with a wide smile from Goldsmiths University London. The girl determined that a catchy song should be upbeat and rhythmic, not too simple or too complex. Such music usually goes well with walking at an average pace or jogging. You ask: what, it was not clear before? Yes and no.
The fact is that we are constantly trying to predict the outcome of an event and betting on one of its outcomes. When the outcome is clear, we say, "I knew it! It was obvious." In fact, this may not be true. This psychological trick is also called the hindsight fallacy. You've probably experienced this when you took a test like "Are you an introvert or an extrovert?", cheered for the football team, or gossiped in the kitchen or chatting about the future president of the United States. With the results of scientific articles, everything is the same: scientists are looking for scientific confirmation of some phenomenon, they find it, and then we say that everything was obvious anyway.
The study was carried out quite qualitatively, - Elena Bakhtina, a graduate of the Faculty of Psychology at St. Petersburg State University, an individual consultant, comments on the work of British scientists. - It has one good idea: the song must evoke a personal association in order to be popular. This has been proven in literature and cinema a long time ago, but if the idea has not been put forward before in music, researchers can become innovators, and research can have value.
Kelly Jakubowski herself, in a conversation with Life, explained that her work can be useful to musicians and producers when creating memorable compositions, as well as computer programs that select songs depending on the preferences of the listeners. Suffice it to recall the "Recommendations" button in the "VKontakte" playlist or music from Last.fm.
The headline "British scientists: Scouts and pioneers have a stronger psyche" brings a smile. A further explanation that these people in adulthood have a more stable psyche than peers who did not join public organizations clarifies the situation, but the smile does not leave their faces. Professor Rich Mitchell of the University of Glasgow and colleagues analyzed data on the lives of a thousand people born in 1958 in the UK. These numbers and the details of the study completely change the way the job is done, although of course the bottom line is not that big: the difference in disease risk between scouts and non-scouts is only 18 percent.
What gives us such a seemingly useless study? Probably, the knowledge that in public organizations children receive stress resistance skills, curiosity, perseverance, conscientiousness and other qualities that help them in adulthood. Therefore, it makes sense to enroll your children in such organizations, and this sense has been scientifically proven.
Any scientific journal, like any hotel, has an indicator of its coolness - the impact factor. This is a number, and it is obtained by dividing the number of citations of articles in this journal in other places by the number of articles in this journal. British scientists who found optimists and pessimists among pigs published their work in the journal Biology Letters. Its impact factor does not exceed 4 (for comparison: the most status journal Nature- almost 40). If a person is accommodated in a two-star hotel or even in a hostel, he most likely cannot pay for expensive apartments. If a scientist does not publish an article in a high-ranking journal, he lacks depth, novelty, research scope, or something else.
Professor Lisa Collins of Lincoln University and colleagues eventually concluded that the decisions made by pessimistic pigs were more dependent on environmental conditions (for example, the hardness of the litter), while optimistic pigs remain cheerful under any circumstances. . The study included only 36 test subjects, and its results still need to be refined and combined with other experimental criteria. In addition, only pigs took part in it. Thus, sometimes the impact factor of a journal tells even people who are far from science how valuable research can be.
If we return to the study of the psyche of scouts and look at the impact factor of the journal with Professor Mitchell's article, then it also does not exceed four. It's all about the topics of the journals: the best journals in psychology live with an impact factor of six, and in biology - forty.
By the way, British scientists recently promised to rid society of unpleasant splashes in the toilet: experts have come up with ways to eliminate the problem of unplanned water from the toilet getting on the body. Robert Style (Robert W. Style) from the University of Oxford with other researchers proposed to change the shape of the toilet and use coatings that will not allow splashes. For example, a thin layer of ethanol and silicone paste. The problem was not solved, but the amount of spray was noticeably reduced. The toilet theme is funny and drastically reduces the public's trust in scientists, but the study itself was carried out correctly, and if you think about it, there are a lot of things that are being improved every year, but sometimes we don't notice it.
If far from all research is stupid and useless, then why do "British scientists" exist? Researchers and communications experts interviewed by Life agree that our attitude to news largely depends on how the media presents it. They can make a loud headline and weighted text, or they can pull out the main thing from the news and get the news from a completely different angle. But it would be foolish to say that a funny headline about pig temperament ruined the study. Not only the media, but also the researchers themselves, donors and working conditions leave their mark on scientific work. But the most important thing is that not only British scientists do strange at first glance research, but journalists write about it with their tongues on their shoulders.
Is it only in the UK that scientists do strange things? No, believe me, they do it everywhere, and it's even relatively normal, - Alexandra Borisova is convinced. - In any business there are leaders and outsiders, it is important to keep the proportion. In Russian institutes, sometimes they also do things of little use, and the fact that they do not sound funny (“20 people masturbated in a tomograph”), but smart (“Coordination polyhedron of a metal in trifluoroacetates”) only says that this is a difficult to interpret field of research.
Professor Munafo, who has scanned career scientists, is of the same opinion. He believes that the problem is global. In America, there is even the so-called United States effect, where scientists exaggerate the conclusions of their work if their careers depend on publishing only the most exciting results.
Then, in the 19th century, not only Great Britain called on scientists and journalists to tell the public about science. America did the same by creating the powerful Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Now, not only the UK receives the Ig Nobel Prize for achievements that make you first laugh, and then think. Finally, not only the UK has its own press services in universities and institutes that provide journalists with information to create news. Russia is currently experiencing a period of rapid growth in the field of scientific communications.
With the start of the "5-100" program, communication departments were opened at universities, after the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences, press secretaries appeared at the institutes, granting organizations also took a more active position, - says Alexandra Borisova. - For example, the Ministry of Education and Science finances a number of popular science projects. We already have a MOOC course in science communication (online education) and the first specialized master's program at ITMO University, the Open Science press release aggregator. The difficulty is that we have to face all the challenges at once, while the same British communicators went through them gradually.
The UK has 64.7 million people and 1.2 million scientists. The population of Russia is 143.5 million people, and scientists - about 750 thousand. The difference is many times, but not orders of magnitude. Moreover, the media in Russia write about space and genes less often than about banks and officials.
So Russian science is underrepresented in the media, and the growth in the number of scientific news is normal. And if, in the course of such a presentation, we find out that the quality of science in Russia is very low, this is sad, but people have the right to know this, - sums up Alexandra Borisova.
Now that we know how much of that joke about British scientists is true and how much is false, attitudes are starting to change. We all want to do what we love, get enough money, sometimes we face failures. But we are trying to make the world a better place, as the British and any other scientists do. And the study of frog levitation or the psyche of pioneers may suddenly become necessary for humanity. And no one knows when and at what moment.
"article" British scientists have found that...", where we will talk about what British scientists have found out.
British scientists have found that ducks love the rain. that it took scientists three years and 300 thousand pounds to discover what every villager knows.
Finding out that ducks love the rain cost British taxpayers £300,000. This is the amount spent by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on research that lasted about three years, according to The Daily Mail.
Another group of scientists found that dogs yawn after their owners. The surprising addiction is due to the dog's cognitive-behavioral instincts.
Experiments by scientists from the University of London have shown that domestic dogs begin to yawn after their owners. According to the researchers, this indicates that pets tend to empathize and copy the emotions of the owners.
Also, British scientists conducted a study, during which it was found that cats prefer to use their right front paw to perform complex actions, and cats prefer their left. However, on average, all cats are ambidexters, that is, they are equally good at both the right and left front paws.
By the way, there was already an article about this study -
Also, British scientists have found that among the ants there are also scammers and corrupt officials. Which, however, is logical, since ants are social insects with a rigid hierarchical system of life organization.
An unusual discovery was made by scientists from the UK and Denmark: it turns out that ants are also characterized by dishonest behavior and corruption. An article in which scientists describe how ants deceive their fellows was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Another discovery of British scientists looks almost touching: they found that nine out of ten London ladybugs suffer from a fungal venereal disease. However, venereal diseases in insects are mild.
A person can die of boredom - this is also one of the recent statements of British scientists. By the end of the study, approximately 40% of the subjects who suffered from boredom had died.
Being a straight A student is dangerous for mental health. According to British scientists, students with only excellent grades are significantly more likely to suffer from manic-depressive psychosis than students with average academic performance.
British scientists from the University of Kiel (Keele University) conducted an experiment proving the fact that swearing and foul language can reduce physical pain. This was reported by The Telegraph newspaper.
In another experiment, it turned out that no one gets better from smiling. It is strange that the experiments were carried out on laboratory snails and snakes.
Parents scold their children for fiction, and they themselves tell lies on average 100 times a year, British scientists have calculated. However, there is another study that clearly demonstrates that, on average, a modern person tells a lie 3.5 times a day.
The world of science does not stand still! "British scientists have proven ..." Recently, we often hear this expression, and it has already managed to turn into a cliché. Today, a selection of what grandmothers are for and which scientists are the best.
10th PLACE:About the benefits of long sleep
Every student dreams of a day when it will be possible to get enough sleep. But it was not there! Scientists advise not to stay in bed for more than 8 hours, or you risk increasing the risk of developing diseases.
9 PLACE:Mat is good for health
The conversation will not be about sports mats, on which they hone their physical skills, but about those very mats, without which, as they say, the Russian language is impossible.
Scientists from England say that the mat is good for health - it helps to cope with pain. Moreover, the efficiency of the mat in people who hardly use it or do not use it at all will be higher. Young people took part in the experiment, they had to keep their hands in ice water. When the students became unbearably cold, they were offered to use a mat, which made it easier to keep their hands in the water.
8 PLACE:Stay away from hand dryers in malls
Such an announcement should be hung by British scientists in all the toilets of shopping centers. The fact is that hand dryers in public places are the perfect breeding ground for germs. Better use paper towels, the British advise.
7th PLACE:Old phones are best kept in colors
And all this is not because we want to perpetuate the memory of what we do not part with even for a minute. But because phones in flower pots under the influence of the environment will begin to decompose and create favorable conditions for some plants. Most of all, sunflowers need your old mobile phone.
6 PLACE:Miniskirt as a guarantee of a long life
The study included about 5,000 women, whose age reached 70 years. The results are simply amazing: the less clothes a woman has, the more chances she has to cross the line of her seventh decade.
There are several hypotheses about this:
- Clothes after washing one way or another contain the remnants of chemicals that react with sweat and can adversely affect health: up to the development of cancer.
- Also, one of the conclusions of British scientists was that in order to maximize the attraction of a man, a woman should have 40% of her body open. Therefore, she is more likely to get married. And it's no secret that married couples live much longer than bachelors.
- According to scientists, women whose wardrobe has more skirts than pants are more intelligent, independent and take good care of themselves.
5th PLACE:The student's everything falls on a newspaper
You thought it was a joke, but University of Manchester researchers proved it wasn't. Sandwiches with jam, cheese, ham took part in the experiment. The result did not cast doubt on the usefulness of the actions of scientists. If something very sweet or, on the contrary, salty, has slipped out of your hands, feel free to pick it up and chew it! The fact is that substances with a high content of sugar or salt are not the most favorable environment for the reproduction of bacteria. Microbes do not have time to multiply in it so quickly
4 PLACE:The perfect sandwich
If you think that the ideal sandwich is the one that was made to you, then this is so only if it has ideal proportions.
Ideal, according to British scientists, should be the sandwich for which you need:
- a slice of white bread 9 mm thick (no more and no less);
- millimeter layer of butter, weighing 7.1 grams;
- 2 mm of good jam, weighing 11 grams.
3RD PLACE:Why do we need grandmothers?
After going through a lot of literature and studying the features of modern life, British scientists have found out why grandmothers exist! The study found that grandmothers living next to their grandchildren ... affect the survival rate of the latter. After a woman is more able to raise and take care of her own children, she switches to grandchildren.
2ND PLACE:The smartest scientists are British scientists!
We hear the expression "British scientists ..." so often that we completely forget about the existence of others. It is known that Great Britain ranks second in the world in terms of the number of discoveries in the field of science per year, after the United States.
1 PLACE:What is the reason for being overweight?
The discovery, for which, probably, such a large budget was allocated in vain, still takes place, since it has already been done. Scientists have found an explanation for the problem of overweight people. The thing is that thin people tend to eat less than fat people.
Lesya Slutskaya
British scientists once found that British scientists are the smartest. And this is not a newspaper joke at all, such a study was actually conducted. Here is a selection of the most interesting and absurd things that British scientists have been doing.
Bowling is hazardous to health.
This study took about two years and 250 thousand pounds. Scientists have found out that when playing bowling, children or teenagers can start running along the lanes and eventually get stuck in the mechanism that sets the pins. The publication notes that such cases have not been previously recorded, however, according to scientists, there is a high probability of such situations. In addition, the report from the Health, Safety and Safety Administration also noted that adults would be at just as high a risk if they chose to walk down the lane and knock down a pin with their hand.
To be successful in men, a woman must expose 40% of her body surface.
Scientists from the University of the English city of Leeds have found the answer to a question that has worried women and men for centuries: where exactly is the line between too modest and too frivolous women's clothing. The study is based on observations made by four female researchers who secretly observed the patrons of the city's largest nightclub from a balcony above a dance floor. The authors of the study observed how many men approached girls with an offer to dance, dividing the girls by the number of clothes they wore. According to research, the ideal proportion of exposed skin to clothing is 40:60. At the same time, women who were naked too much enjoyed less success than women who were dressed too modestly.
Pets pollute the planet more than cars.
British scientists Brenda and Robert Weil published a book under the shocking title "Time to Eat a Dog?". This phrase came to us from those times when people conquered Antarctica. In those cases when the provisions ran out, travelers had to eat sled dogs. The authors have a message for the reader: at a time when natural resources are depleted, pets are becoming a luxury that, for the good of the planet, we cannot afford. According to the Weils, on average each dog needs 164 kg of meat and 95 kg of grain per year. To produce these products, 0.84 hectares of land is required (1.1 hectares for a German Shepherd).
According to scientists, to build and drive an SUV 10 thousand km, energy is needed in the amount of 55.1 gigajoules. And one hectare of land can produce energy equal to 135 gigajoules per year. In other words, the polluting impact of a car on the environment is half that of a dog. Similar equations apply to other pets as well. It turns out that a cat consumes energy (in terms of hectares - 0.15) as much as a large van, a pair of hamsters with 0.28 hectares is comparable to a plasma TV, a red fish (0.00034 hectares) consumes energy like two mobile phones.
British scientists have understood why grandmothers exist.
A large-scale study in the villages of Japan, Ethiopia, the Gambia and Malawi, the cities of Germany, England and Canada was carried out by anthropologist Leslie Knapp, together with colleagues from the University of Cambridge. An article about the study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society. After collecting some historical data and studying the features of modern life, Leslie Knapp proposed the X-chromosome "grandmother hypothesis". A meta-analysis during the study found that grandmothers who live close to their grandchildren affect grandchildren's survival rate. According to anthropologists, after the reproductive age, women have the opportunity to better protect their genes, that is, the inherited parts of DNA. Losing the opportunity to care for her own children, a woman switches to caring for her grandchildren. At the same time, she passes on her accumulated experience to her grown children.
A woman passes on about 31% of her genes to her sons' daughters. The sons of sons get only 23% of the grandmother's genes. Grandchildren by daughter (both sexes) are approximately in the middle - 25%. If we talk about the X chromosome, then the sons of the son have nothing to do with their grandmother at all (they get their X chromosome from their mother). Closest to the grandmother, again, is the son's daughter.
The myth of Santa Claus owes its appearance to hallucinogenic mushrooms.
English scientists believe that the myth of Santa Claus traveling on flying reindeer owes its appearance to hallucinogenic mushrooms, which the inhabitants of Lapland loved to indulge in. It is known that the story of Santa Claus was born in Lapland, in the north of modern Finland. Lapps lived there, who, as scientists found out, quite often drank the urine of deer, which ate fly agaric. Under laboratory conditions, scientists have obtained from these mushrooms the strongest hallucinogenic substance. No wonder, scientists believe, that Lapps dreamed of flying deer, which then turned into a legend about the good Santa Claus. Scientists explain the bright red robe of the New Year's character with the color of a hallucinogenic mushroom. The red and white color of the fly agaric turned into an old man in a red caftan with a white beard in the inflamed imagination of people.
Miniskirts prolong life.
The less clothes a woman wears, the longer she lives - British scientists led by anthropologist Sir Edwin Burkhart came to such an interesting conclusion. More than 5,000 women over 70 took part in the study. The result of the analysis amazed anthropologists: the less clothes the respondent wore, the more chances she had to live to an advanced age.
Scientists have several theories explaining this relationship. First, clothes contain residues of chemicals used in cleaning and laundering, which, when reacting with sweat, can form compounds that penetrate the skin and adversely affect health, up to the development of cancer. Secondly, a woman in revealing clothes attracts men and is more likely to get married. It is known that the health of family people is better and they live longer than single people. Thirdly, women who wear a minimum of clothing are exposed to natural factors that affect longevity. Fourthly, according to British scientists, such ladies are more open, smart, independent and take more care of themselves. Fifth, women who wear revealing outfits are more likely to have sex, which researchers say is another beneficial factor influencing longevity.
Socializing reduces the risk of heart attack, stroke, and the flu.
Social activity is as important to maintaining a person's health as exercise, diet, or medication. The results of a study by British and Australian scientists are published by the London newspaper Daily Express. Active communication within various social groups and collectives helps to reduce the risk of myocardial infarction, stroke, and even influenza. The publication cites the results of a study by Professor Jolanda Jetten from the Australian University of Queensland, according to which enthusiastic conversations at the table, including in restaurants and cafes, increase the activity of the brain, which has the most positive effect on health.
The smartest scientists live in the UK.
British scientists are the most productive in the world. According to a study, the UK ranks second after the US in terms of the number of scientific discoveries and developments made in a year. Comparing this with the amount of funding for the scientific industry and the number of people working in it, we can conclude that British scientists work much more efficiently than their overseas counterparts.
The study, based on counting the number of scientific papers, their impact in the world of science and the frequency of citations, showed that between 1997 and 2001, the UK produced 9.4 percent of scientific publications, which is 12.8 percent of the most cited papers. For comparison, the indicators of Germany are 8.8 and 10.4 percent, Japan - 9.3 and 6.9. Although the United States is far ahead in terms of total volume - 35 and 63 percent, however, the efficiency of American scientists has decreased significantly compared to previous years.
Blueberries protect against senile dementia.
British scientists have found that daily consumption of blueberries or a blueberry milkshake increases concentration and prevents the development of senile dementia. For research, scientists invited 40 volunteers aged 18 to 30 years. The subjects drank a glass of blueberry milkshake every morning and followed a diet prescribed by doctors. During the day, they did several physical exercises, during which the level of concentration was monitored. A few weeks later, the berries were excluded from the diet of volunteers. As a result, the level of concentration of attention of the participants in the experiment after two hours of exercise decreased by 15-20 percent.
Cell phones are killing bees.
Radiation from cell phones has an extremely negative effect on bees, leading to the collapse of the colony and even to their mass extinction. This conclusion was made by British experts led by Dr. Daniel Fevre. Scientists set up an experiment by placing a working mobile phone under the hive. It turned out that the bees become very anxious if the phone receives an incoming call. They gather in a swarm, and after interrupting the signal, they calm down.
In previous experiments, a phone left near a beehive led to the collapse of a bee colony and to the mass extinction of bee colonies. Radiation from mobile communications kills 43% of bees, while only 3% of these insects die from, for example, pesticides. The fact is that cellular networks under the GSM protocol operate at frequencies from 800 to 1200 MHz. At the same frequencies, bees communicate and, most importantly, orient themselves. Cellular networks "clog" the channel, and disoriented bees do not find a place where they live and eat.
It's good to swear from time to time.
British scientists report that sometimes swearing is good for health. Moreover, swearing helps those people who usually do not use profanity in their speech. In particular, strong words have a pronounced analgesic effect. The researchers conducted an experiment in which 70 students participated. They had to keep their hands in the ice water for as long as possible. When it became completely unbearable, they were asked to use foul language. At this time, scientists measured the activity of their brain centers and other reactions of the body. As it turned out, the cursing participants in the experiments were able to keep their hands in the water longer than those who could not pronounce these words. At the same time, those who usually rarely use obscene expressions achieved the greatest effect.
A person can become seriously ill while sleeping.
Sound healthy sleep can lead to serious illnesses. This conclusion was made by British scientists. In particular, sleeping on your back is fraught with asthma and heart problems, since in this position the body is poorly supplied with oxygen. Sleeping on your side can lead to early wrinkle formation. And if the sleeper takes the "fetal position", he risks getting migraines and problems with the cervical spine. The neck will also suffer when sleeping on the stomach. In addition, in this position, the sleeping person's hands will go numb, and in certain cases, you can also curl your jaw. Those who love to sleep in an embrace will begin to experience pain in the back, neck, legs, arms. British scientists did not consider other options for sleeping positions.
Women like gloomy men.
Women are more attracted to sullen men than those who look happy. This conclusion was made by scientists from the University of British Columbia. The study involved a group of thousands of volunteers. They were asked to look at photographs of people of the opposite sex and rate them in terms of sexual attractiveness. All photographed people had different facial expressions associated with manifestations of emotions (from a wide smile to downcast eyes).
Psychologists evaluated the first impression, which consisted in the sexual attractiveness of the images. It turned out that women are more attracted to gloomy, concentrated faces. Smiling, cheerful men they do not like. Scientists believe that the gloomy look of a man is associated in women with his status, wealth, reliability, and the ability to provide for a partner and children. But a smile indicates weakness and defenselessness. In turn, men pay more attention to smiling, joyful women, as the representatives of the stronger sex prefer ladies who are easier to make contact and obey.
Old mobile phones should be buried in plant pots.
A group of British scientists have invented an original way to get rid of old mobile phones. They suggest not to throw them away, but to bury them in pots with plants. Cell phone elements decompose biochemically over time. Together with the soil, they create favorable conditions for the growth of some plants. Best of all, sunflowers grow in a pot with a telephone. Scientists have not yet determined whether the phone model affects the growth rate of plants.
Among the ants, there are also scammers and corrupt officials.
“The first thing you notice when you study the social structure of ant and bee societies is that they are cooperative,” says Bill Hughes of the University of Leeds. - However, looking closely, you can see that they are also characterized by conflicts and fraud - and in this they are very similar to human society. Previously, we thought that ants were an exception, but our genetic analysis showed that corruption reigns in their society, in particular royal.” The inequality that is present in anthills, scientists compared with what happens in the hives, where drones and ordinary bees live. Ants, like bees, have their own carriers of “royal genes”. Dr. Hues and Jacobus Boomsma of the University of Copenhagen found that the daughters of some fathers become "queens" more often than others. In addition, ants carrying special royal genes have the ability to fool their relatives and deprive them of the opportunity to leave offspring.
The oldest joke of man.
Scientists from the UK have found the world's oldest joke text. It is noteworthy that this discovery allows us to conclude that “below the belt” humor was as popular in antiquity as it is today. Researchers from the University of Wolverhampton have determined that the oldest joke was recorded in 1900 BC. It belongs to the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq. Rough translation: “It has not happened since time immemorial that a girl farts while sitting on her husband’s lap.”
Excess alcohol leads to mutations in DNA.
As researchers write in the journal Nature, acetaldehyde, a by-product of ethanol processing in our body, can lead to catastrophic DNA damage. And we would die from the first glass if the cells did not have a two-stage defense system: the first includes enzymes that neutralize acetaldehyde itself, the second - a set of proteins that take on emergency repairs of damaged DNA. Scientists experimented with pregnant mice in which both systems were turned off - in such animals, even a small single dose of alcohol led to the death of the fetus; moreover, in the adult mice themselves, the death of blood stem cells was observed.
To check the effect of alcohol on DNA, scientists were prompted by two groups of information. Firstly, people suffering from Fanconi syndrome, a severe hereditary disease, are extremely sensitive to alcohol. In these patients, proteins responsible for DNA repair do not work, as a result of which acetaldehyde causes irreversible damage to genes, and this leads to blood diseases and cancer. On the other hand, people with congenital alcohol intolerance are highly susceptible to esophageal cancer, while their acetaldehyde neutralization system does not work. In both cases, the consequences of alcohol intake are expressed in diseases affecting the molecular genetic apparatus of the cell.
Why drunk men are less demanding on beauty.
British scientists sometimes take on the most unexpected topics. This time they wanted to know why drunk men, as folk wisdom says, are less demanding on the appearance of women. The study involved students, the male half of which had to ... get drunk. After such an exciting stage of scientific work, they were asked to evaluate photographs of girls who had already been “sorted” in terms of attractiveness by a fairly large group of sober respondents. Needless to say, there was no sensation: the assessments of drunken volunteers turned out to be less strict. After looking closely at the photographs and analyzing the ratings, the scientists came to the conclusion that alcohol takes people away from the opportunity to adequately assess the symmetry of the face (after all, as you know, the more symmetrical a face is, the more beautiful it seems, based on current standards). Well, the fuzziness of the lines always gave everything a certain mystery ... That, in fact, is the whole story.
Men and women are awakened by different sounds.
Many mothers, tired of constantly getting up at night and calming a crying child, begin to hate their husbands, sleeping peacefully nearby and, it seems, completely unaware of the shrill infant roar. This hatred, as proved by British scientists, in most cases is absolutely groundless. It turns out that nature has tuned our body to the perception of very specific sounds in a dream, so men really do not hear the crying of their tiny offspring.
For the representatives of the weaker sex, children's sobs are the most annoying sound of those that can awaken from any, even the most sound sleep. For men, he is not in the top ten. The most effective “alarm clocks” for the stronger sex are car alarms, wind howls and a fly or mosquito buzzing over your ear.
Enormous sex differences in the perception of sounds during sleep were revealed in an experiment measuring the level of brain activity. It was carried out simply: the subjects immersed in sleep were “played” different noises, simultaneously removing the encephalogram. It turned out that any woman reacts sharply to children's crying and wakes up, even if she herself is not a mother. At the same time, nature also provided for a compensatory mechanism: the fair sex falls asleep much faster after sudden nightly “wake-ups”. But the men, awakened by some extraneous sound, then cannot fall asleep for a long time, spin in bed and suffer.
A serving of hookah is five times more harmful than a cigarette.
The study showed that a person who smokes hookah inhales the same amount of carbon monoxide as if he were breathing through the exhaust pipe of a car. That is, one “portion” of hookah can be five times higher than one cigarette in terms of carbon monoxide content.
The best morning exercise is sex.
British scientists, in particular sexologists at the Queen's University of Belfast, managed to prove that morning sex is more useful than morning exercises. In the process of sex, the muscles of the arms are strengthened, the chest, pelvis and buttocks are strengthened, as well as blood circulation improves and proper breathing is restored. In addition, sex has a clear preventive effect, in particular, the risk of cardiovascular diseases is significantly reduced, morning sex can fight arthritis and migraines, burn more than three hundred calories at a time, which, in turn, reduces the risk of diabetes.
Tea helps in the fight against nightmares.
In the course of research, experts have found that those who drink more than one cup of tea a day have a 50% reduction in the threat of unpleasant dreams compared to those who practically do not use this drink. Exactly why this happens, scientists can not. However, they believe that the active chemicals contained in tea, in particular the amino acid tannin, relieve stress and calm the negative electrical activity of the brain.
The average temperature on Earth will rise by 4 degrees by 2060.
According to a published report commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, serious temperature changes as a result of global warming will not come in the distant future, but already within the current generations. “An average increase in temperature on Earth by four degrees will lead to a sharper increase in certain regions, along with a sharp change in the amount of precipitation. And if emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are not reduced in the near future, our generation will already face critical changes in the climate,” said Dr. Richard Betts, head of the Hadley Climate Prediction Center at the British Met Office. At the same time, in the Arctic, as well as in the west and south of the African continent, warming can reach 10 degrees.
The more you run, the better you remember.
Scientists have discovered a new way to improve memory - for this you need to constantly jog. It turns out that regular jogging has a beneficial effect not only on the psyche and body of a person, but also on his brain. As scientists from the University of Cambridge have proven, jogging stimulates the production of new gray matter cells in the brain area responsible for memory, notes Compulenta. Experimental data from British scientists suggest that just a few days of running lead to the growth of hundreds of thousands of new cells in the brain area associated with memory.
Found a way to reduce a hangover.
Scientists have found a way to reduce a hangover after drinking alcohol - for this you should saturate them with oxygen. According to British media, this discovery was made by scientists from the National University of Chungnam in the South Korean city of Taejon.
It is known that oxygen is involved in the chemical process in the human body, during which the consumed alcohol breaks down into water and carbon dioxide. Scientists took the same portions of the same alcoholic drink, saturated them with oxygen to varying degrees, and gave the volunteers participating in the experiment a drink. After some time, the scientists asked the subjects about their feelings and measured the alcohol content in their blood. It turned out that those who had a higher oxygen content in the drink felt better and had less alcohol in their blood.
The head of the experiment, Professor Kwang Il Kwon, stated that after drinking an oxygenated alcoholic drink, the blood plasma alcohol content decreases faster than after a drink with a normal oxygen content. Scientists, however, did not specify what kind of drink they used in the experiment and how oxygen affects its taste.
