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The Science Of Robberies, The New Death Clock, And More Surprising Studies
This is exactly what science is for: to understand exactly why burglars stole your heater, but left your stereo intact. In a recent University of North Carolina study, researchers awkwardly interviewed 400 burglars, both male and female. What was your primary motivation, they asked, for all of that stealing? Ninety percent of robbers said they had been after drugs or after cash to buy drugs, and were typically high or drunk at the time. Meaning that we don't have to rethink our stereotypes about burglars anytime soon: Science says they're not trying to, say, feed their family.
More importantly, what red flags will stop a burglar from breaking into your home? Well, surveillance cameras, and any type of security presence, replied the burglars. Also dogs. For more of the week's most surprising studies, read on...
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Happier In A Crowd? Here's Why
Hey, some people just like crowds, right? Well, it may just be that they just like that crowd: new research from a bunch of British universities suggests that the the more people felt affiliated with the crowd, or "part of it," the less likely they were to feel, uh, crowded. If people were at a protest or a festival, for example, and they felt very zen and "at one" with the crowd, then they were more than happy to be squeezed in.
Researchers speculated that, yes, we need our personal space — but less so when we feel a sense of group identity. They wrote: "The salience of different identities varies according to social context. At those times when people share a social identity with us, their presence is not an invasion of our space at all. They are not 'other' - they are 'us.'" Or, you know, maybe we just feel closer to other humans when we're squashed between twenty of them.
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Insomnia And Depression Can Go Hand-In-Hand
A spat of pilot studies are investigating the link between sleep problems and depression, and are hypothesizing that the two can go hand-in-hand. This is great news for effective depression treatment: Initial research from the small-scale study suggests that participants who suffered from both insomnia and depression saw their chances of recovery doubled after the insomnia was cured.
Federal figures indicate that more than half of Americans who struggle with depression also face insomnia. “It makes good common sense clinically,” one psychiatry professor told the New York Times. “If you have a depression, you’re often awake all night, it’s extremely lonely, it’s dark, you’re aware every moment that the world around you is sleeping, every concern you have is magnified.”
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Want To Know How Long You'll Live?
Ever wondered how much longer you'll live? Um, that might not be just a hypothetical anymore: a new study examining the effectiveness of regular checkups and blood tests has found that blood tests can predict life expectancy. Harvard and Boston researchers found that the "complete blood count risk score," basically a round-up of all the info in your blood test, does a pretty good job of knowing how long you'll live.
The "risk score" has been used by doctors for years to measure general health, but it took this long for the medical community to figure out that it's also a great predictor of life expectancy. Good job, guys.
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Your College Major Won't Determine Your Career
It's college application season, so someone tell the nervous seniors: Your college major does not define the rest of your life. At least, not for two-thirds of people. Well, that's vaguely comforting, right?
Turns out that a third of Americans never found a job related to their major. The national survey by job site CareerBuilder involved more than 2,000 participants across a range of industries, and researchers found that 32 percent of Americans never found a job related to their major. When it comes to your first job, the odds are worse: nearly half of the people surveyed said that their job had absolutely nil to do with their major. Well, if you're going to insist on that Art History major...
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Babies Know Themselves Pretty Quick
Well, this is adorable. A British university discovered that babies seem to be aware that they're little people as young as two days old, recognizing their bodies as their own and distinguishing themselves from other babies. In the small study of 40 babies, researchers stroked babies' cheeks with a paintbrush as the babies watched the same thing happening to another newborn on a TV screen: the idea was that the newborns wouldn't be able to distinguish their own face from that of the baby on he screen.
Except they totally did, because in spite of being tiny they're smarter than we give them credit for. The babies stopped looking at the kid on the screen pretty quickly, and were like: "Um, why are you all up in my face with a paintbrush?" (We're extrapolating a little here.) Which is a very valid question. You go, babies. Keep it cute.
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