The 178-nation "Happy Planet Index" lists the south Pacific island of Vanuatu as the happiest nation on the planet, while the UK is ranked 108th. The index is based on consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, rather than national economic wealth measurements such as GDP. The study was compiled by think-tank the New Economics Foundation (Nef).

One of the authors, Nef's Nic Marks, said the aim of the index was to show that well-being did not have to be linked to high levels of consumption. "It is clear that no single nation listed in the index has got everything right, but it does reveal patterns that show how we might better achieve long and happy lives for all while living within our environmental means," Mr Marks said. The small island state of Vanuatu is situated in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, and has a population of 209,000. Its economy is built around small-scale agriculture and tourism.

Latin American nations dominate the top 10 places in the index, while African and Eastern European nations fill most of the bottom 10. Among the world's largest economies, Germany is ranked 81st, Japan 95th, while the US comes in at 150th. Richard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance, said that the index was an interesting way to tackle the issue of modern life's environmental impact. "It reminds us that it is not good enough to be happy today if we are impoverishing future generations through global warming.

"Over the last 50 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously but we have become no happier," Mr Layard told the BBC. "This shows we should not sacrifice human relationships, which are the main source of happiness, for the sake of economic growth."

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The Myths Of The Maternal Instinct

Just in time for Mother's Day, The New York Times features a horrifying article about the myth that mothers naturally care for their offspring and will fight to protect them. Taking some really gross examples from the animal world, the articles details how animal mothers routinely kill, eat and abandon their young, and why nature set things up that way.

Among several mammals, including lions, mice and monkeys, females will either spontaneously abort their fetuses or abandon their newborns when times prove rocky or a new male swaggers into town.

Other mothers, like pandas, practice a postnatal form of family planning, giving birth to what may be thought of as an heir and a spare, and then, when the heir fares well, walking away from the spare with nary a fare-thee-well. "Pandas frequently give birth to twins, but they virtually never raise two babies," said Scott Forbes, a professor of biology at the University of Winnipeg. "This is the dark side of pandas, that they have two and throw one away."

*****

Unlike humans, Dr. Hardy said, the apes never abandon or reject their young, no matter how diseased or crippled a baby may be. Yet because female chimpanzees live in troops with other nonrelated females, a ravenous, lactating mother feels little compunction about killing and eating the child of a group mate. "It's a good way to get lipids," Dr. Hrdy said. As meal plans go, cannibalism can be no-muss, no-fuss.

Nooooo! Not the pandas!! Worst. Mother's Day. Feature. Ever.

Posted on May 9, 2006
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Are You A Blogoholic?

Fraywatch examining the tragic addiction pattern of blogoholics.

Blogoholism. Sarah Hepola's confessional piece on her recent decision to shut down a long-running blog prompted fraysters to share their own struggles of addiction. synesthesia offers words of solidarity in admitting it happened to me, too. 4cabbage describes the same painful withdrawal symptoms as being like "quitting smoking or drinking."

*****

According to rundeep, here's the real problem with blogging:

1) It causes the untalented to believe themselves writers with something of interest to say, and;

2) He who blogs is often not reading books, so as to develop the ability which might cure 1) above.

Blogoholic? We don't think so. We can quit anytime we want, like that. But first maybe we'll just head on over to PerezHilton to see what's new since we just checked it five minutes ago. (Well, you never know...what if Charlie Sheen's "Denise" Tattoo-Removal scars aren't healing properly and we don't hear about it?) What does David Spade think about Denise's latest revelations that Heather was the cheater? This is important stuff.

Oh, wait.... that article is about people who can't stop actually blogging, not people who just obsessively read blogs all day. Nevermind.

Posted on May 3, 2006
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Bad News for the Ugly

As if the unattractive don't have enough problems in life: a new study concludes that the uglier you are, the more likely you are to commit a crime.

Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they're also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood.

"We find that unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones, and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking," claim Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University.

Mocan and Tekin analyzed data from a federally sponsored survey of 15,000 high-schoolers who were interviewed in 1994 and again in 1996 and 2002. One question asked interviewers to rate the physical appearance of the student on a five-point scale ranging from "very attractive" to "very unattractive."

These economists found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent. Cute guys were uniformly less likely than averages would indicate to have committed seven crimes including burglary and selling drugs, while the unhandsome were consistently more likely to have broken the law.

The advice here is clear: be sure to have attractive parents, otherwise you're facing a life of crime.

Posted on February 20, 2006
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Jessica Simpson and the Therapist

All those rumors and reports that Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are getting a divorce have apparently really gotten to Jessica. She tells Teen People that she's been seeing a therapist to deal with the stress.

"Yes I have," the singer-actress tells Teen People in its December-January issue, on newsstands Friday. "I respect knowledge of the psyche. I would be a therapist if I weren't an entertainer." Jessica, 25, posed for the cover of the magazine with her sister, Ashlee. Both talk about the difficult challenges of the past year.

Jessica, who had a starring role in The Dukes of Hazzard movie this summer, has been the queen of the tabloids this year — much of the coverage dissecting the marriage of the Newlyweds couple. The pair have denied persistent rumors of a split. "Hopefully mine and Nick's story will continue for the rest of our lives, like what we vowed, through sickness and in health."

Ashlee, 21, recently released her second album, I Am Me, and it debuted at the top of the charts. But she has still had to live down her embarrassing lip-synch disaster on Saturday Night Live last year. "Yeah I messed up in front of everybody," she says. (Last month, Ashlee revisited the scene of her musical flub, performing on SNL— really live, this time.) However, she adds: "I love to sing. It's a joy to me. I don't do it for anyone else — I do it for me."

Ashlee sounded fine on SNL -- guess those proton pump inhibitors are really working for her.

Posted on November 2, 2005
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Jessica Turns to Self-Help Book

According to Gawker, Jessica Simpson got spotted by Us Weekly reading Dealing With People You Can't Stand. And according to Page Six, she's going to need all the self-help books she can get.

NICK Lachey and Jessica Simpson may have just had a "romantic" Italian vacation on OK! magazine owner Richard Desmond's dime, but they continue to lead separate lives. Upon their return last Friday, Lachey ditched Simpson to party in Las Vegas, and "Jackass" star Bam Margera — who had a fling with Simpson earlier this year — confirmed to Us Weekly that she had left Lachey. More evidence the two have split? Simpson, who now lives with her assistant Cacee Cobb, is spending her third wedding anniversary alone, in Africa. Sources tell PAGE SIX that Simpson, her dad, Joe, and Cobb will travel to Nairobi for Operation Smile — her pet charity that fixes cleft lips — for 10 days. The trio will have a safari elsewhere in Kenya — all without Lachey. A rep for Simpson says: "Operation Smile is an organization that is very special to Jessica, and she is looking forward to participating in more missions. Nick will be unable to join Jessica on the next trip because of work commitments in Los Angeles."

Jessica and Nick's reps continue to deny that the couple is headed for divorce. Sure, we believe that.

Posted on October 19, 2005
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Gossip Sites Crucial For Human Survival

Those of you who feel guilty as you furtively check the Web to see what Philanderer Extraordinaire Jude Law has been up to or to obsessively check to see if Angelina Jolie has adoped yet another child can relax. Gossip is not only important: it's crucial for human society to function. The New York Times reports in an incredibly long article on a group of investigative researchers who have discovered the benefits of gossip.

Gossip has long been dismissed by researchers as little more than background noise, blather with no useful function. But some investigators now say that gossip should be central to any study of group interaction.

People find it irresistible for good reason: Gossip not only helps clarify and enforce the rules that keep people working well together, studies suggest, but it circulates crucial information about the behavior of others that cannot be published in an office manual. As often as it sullies reputations, psychologists say, gossip offers a foothold for newcomers in a group and a safety net for group members who feel in danger of falling out.

"There has been a tendency to denigrate gossip as sloppy and unreliable" and unworthy of serious study, said David Sloan Wilson, a professor of biology and anthropology at the State University of New York at Binghamton and the author of "Darwin's Cathedral," a book on evolution and group behavior. "But gossip appears to be a very sophisticated, multifunctional interaction which is important in policing behaviors in a group and defining group membership." When two or more people huddle to share inside information about another person who is absent, they are often spreading important news, and enacting a mutually protective ritual that may have evolved from early grooming behaviors, some biologists argue.

We're performing a crucial societal function here, people.

Posted on August 18, 2005
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Stupid, But Happy?

WebMD reports on a new study that found that being smart doesn't make you happy over time.

"If you are 80 and healthy, then your satisfaction with how your life has turned out bears no relation to how you scored on an IQ test recently or 70 years ago," says researcher Ian Deary, professor of differential psychology at the University of Edinburgh, in a news release. The results of the study appear in the July 16 issue of the British Medical Journal.

Researchers compared satisfaction in old age with intelligence in a group of 550 healthy men and women with no signs of dementia who were born in Scotland in 1921. Each of the participants had their mental abilities tested at age 11 and again at about age 80 when they also filled out a questionnaire on life satisfaction. After researchers converted the test scores to IQs (intelligence quotients) and adjusted them for age, they found satisfaction with life or happiness in old age was not related to intelligence across the person's life span. Although a relationship between happiness and intelligence may have been expected because intelligence is highly valued by society, researchers say that intelligence has its plusses as well as its minuses. For example, higher intelligence may lead to greater achievement, but it also brings with it greater awareness of alternatives, which may lead to frustration.

So, to sum up: smarter people get more opportunities in life, but they also are better able to realize how much better it could have been if things weren't so miserable. Or something like that.

Posted on July 15, 2005
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Psychiatrists Not Feeling the Love For Cruise

The fallout from Tom Cruise's Today Show appearance last week (when he lectured Matt Lauer about the evils of the "pseudo-science" called psychiatry) continues unabated. Today The American Psychiatric Association put the smackdown on the actor with a sharply-worded statement about Cruise's Today Show ravings about the evil history of psychiatry--which only he knows. They also seemed furious (in a restrained, scholarly way) about Cruise's denial that chemical imbalances do not exist and his insistence that the Attention Deficit Disorder drugs Ritalin and Adderall are "street drugs."

"It is irresponsible for Mr. Cruise to use his movie publicity tour to promote his own ideological views and deter people with mental illness from getting the care they need," APA President Dr. Steven Sharfstein said in a statement. The rebuke from the APA, which represents nearly 36,000 physicians specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, challenged Cruise's assertion that psychiatry lacks scientific merit.

Rigorous, published, peer-reviewed research clearly demonstrates that treatment (of mental illness) works," the APA statement said. "It is unfortunate that in the face of this remarkable scientific and clinical progress that a small number of individuals and groups persist in questioning its legitimacy."

Posted on June 27, 2005
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The Powerful Spell of Grapefruit

A new study has found that men under the powerful spell of grapefruit aroma think the women around them are six years younger than they actually are. The effect is similar to beer goggles, only the men are totally sober. An article at Phillyburbs.com describes the study:

They took 37 men and women and asked them to estimate the age of models in photographs while wearing masks infused with the odors of grapefruit, cucumbers and grapes and then while wearing plain surgical masks.

Grapes and cucumbers produced no results, but when wearing the grapefruit masks, the participants overall estimated the models to be three years younger.

But when it was broken down by gender, the women smelling grapefruit registered no perceptible difference in the models' ages, while the men guessed them to be six years younger.

The article also says that the researchers literally smeared middle-aged women with broccoli, banana, spearmint leaves and lavender but this did not make men think they were younger. Only grapefruit worked. So, if you want to look younger we recommend carrying a grapefruit or two around in your purse. Or, you could carry a grapefruit spray and secretly release it when in the presence of a man you want to think you are six years younger. As long as the object of your affections a) isn't allergic to grapefruit, b) hasn't read the medical study in question or c) really prefers older women, it's absolutely foolproof.

Posted on June 21, 2005
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Live Longer With Friends

Discovery Channel reports on a new study of 1,500 Aussies over a 10 year period that found that friends can help you live longer. The people who had the strongest group of friends lived longer on average than those who had fewer friends. The study also found that close contact with kids or relatives did not change survival rates -- only friends did.

Close contact with children and relatives had little impact on survival rates over the 10 years.

A network of good friends was, in statistical terms, equivalent to a 22 percent reduction in the risk of dying during this period when compared to those who had close ties with their children or other relatives.

An editorial released along with the study speculated that the stress-reducing benefit friends can provide might explain why good friends can prolong life.

Posted on June 20, 2005
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Brooke Shields Strikes Back

He's not a doctor, nor does he play one on TV. But that didn't stop "Dr." Tom Cruise from offering medical advice to Brooke Shields. Now, The Sunday Times reports on Brooke's reaction to Tom's comments that she should have just taken some vitamins to get over her severe postpartum depression, instead of using "mind-altering drugs" aka the prescription antidepressant Paxil. Let's just say that she was less than thrilled with his advice -- not to mention his catty comments that the new mom's career is going nowhere. And who could blame her?

Until Cruise took a swipe at her, she had been under the impression her career was going well. "Tom Cruise’s comments are irresponsible and dangerous," Shields said in London last week. "Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them."

Shields was referring to Cruise’s new sci-fi film, but she might have equally been thinking of Scientology, his religion, one aspect of which teaches that Xenu, an extraterrestrial, brought aliens to earth and exterminated them with hydrogen bombs but their souls stuck to the bodies of humans.

Brooke is now appearing in the musical Chicago in London, she has a new book out, her two-year-old daughter Rowan seems quite happy, and she hasn't physically attacked Oprah Winfrey lately. Sounds like her career is doing just fine to us.

Posted on May 31, 2005
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