WEDNESDAY, Nov. 21, 2012 — The happiness of chimpanzees and orangutans follows a U-shape curve, according to new research. High in youth, their happiness levels fall in middle age, and rise into old age — suggesting that great apes experience midlife crises similar to those of humans.
An international team of researchers studied 508 great apes in zoos and sanctuaries across the globe, in the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, and Singapore.
"We hoped to understand a famous scientific puzzle: Why does human happiness follow an approximate U-shape through life? We ended up showing that it cannot be because of mortgages, marital breakup, mobile phones, or any of the other paraphernalia of modern life," said economist Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in a release. "Apes also have a pronounced midlife low, and they have none of those."
The findings were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Real-Life 'Sleeping Beauty'
If you've ever wished you could sleep for days, you probably haven't heard the story of Nicole Delien. The 17-year-old suffers from Kleine-Levin Syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by excessive sleep — up to 20 hours per day, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). It took almost two years for doctors to diagnose Delien with the condition, also known as "sleeping beauty disorder."
There's no cure for Kleine-Levin Syndrome. The best form of treatment, according to NINDS, is watchful waiting at home. Episodes, which come on without notice, can last for days.
"I would want people to know that it's not fun," Delien told the Today show, "because you miss a lot."
Inside the Minds of Mediums
A new study sheds light on what goes on in the brains of mediums during trance states. Mediums claim to be in communication with, or under control of, the mind of someone who has died. Well-known mediums include John Edward and Theresa Caputo, the "Long Island Medium."
To look for potential associations between trance states and brain activity, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil focused on psychography, a process in which the spirit is believed to write through the medium's hand.
They found that experienced mediums showed lower levels of activity in certain areas of the brain during psychography, suggesting a loss of focus, self-awareness, and consciousness during the trance. Less-experienced psychographers, however, showed increased brain activity in those areas, related to a more purposeful attempt at performing the psychography, according to the researchers.
The findings were published this week in the journal PLOS ONE.
The Moon Doesn't Make Us Mad After All
A team of researchers from in the School of Psychology at Université Laval in Quebec have debunked the myth that lunar phases play a role in the incidence of psychological problems.
For the study, researchers examined the association between the moon's phases and the number of patients who visited hospital emergency rooms experiencing panic attacks, anxiety and mood disorders, or suicidal thoughts, and found no full-moon or new-moon effect.
The findings, published in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry, contradict what many people (including health care professionals) believe. According to a release from Université Laval, 80 percent of nurses and 64 percent of doctors are convinced that the lunar cycle affects patients' mental health.