Yawning can cool your brain
Yawning helps cool your brain. Yawning frequencies of people also vary with change in seasonal temperature, a research said. “The contagious yawning is constrained to an optimal thermal zone or range of ambient temperatures. Yawning subsequently functions to keep the brain temperature balanced and in optimal homeostasis,” explained psychologist Andrew Gallup from State University of New York at Oneonta (SUNY Oneonta). Jorg Massen and Kim Dusch of University of Vienna measured contagious yawning frequencies of pedestrians outdoors in Vienna, Austria and during both the winter and summer months. Pedestrians were asked to view a series of images of people yawning, and then they self-reported on their own yawning behaviour. Results showed that in Vienna people yawned more in summer than in winter, whereas in Arizona, people yawned more in winter than in summer.
Toilet bacteria can reach your toothbrush
Your toothbrush may harbour intestinal bacteria, staphylococci, yeasts and even fecal germs, scientists have warned. Appropriate toothbrush storage and care are important to achieving personal oral hygiene and plaque removal, said Maria l Geisinger, assistant professor of periodontology in the School of Dentistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “The oral cavity is home to hundreds of different types of microorganisms, which can be transferred to a toothbrush during use,” Geisinger said. “Furthermore, most toothbrushes are stored in bathrooms, which exposes them to gastrointestinal microorganisms that may be transferred via a fecal-oral route. The number of microorganisms can vary wildly from undetectable to 1 million colony-forming units (CFUs). Proper handling and care of your toothbrush is important to your overall health,” she said. Bacteria, which mostly occur in the intestines, can transfer to toothbrushes and thus into your mouth.
Senior citizens should walk faster
Risks of heart attack increases as one advances in age but a new study suggests that older adults can reduce their risks and even improve their cardiac health by maintaining or increasing the level of their physical activities. In a new study published in the in the journal Circulation, researchers followed nearly 1,000 adults who were part of the community-based Cardiovascular Health Study. They were 71 years old on average at the start of the study, wore a heart monitor 24 hours daily for a period of five years, during which their heart rate variability, or the time interval between heartbeats, was recorded. Study author luisa Soares-Miranda from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston explained that cardiac health and the nervous system, which regulates the heart, influence the small changes in heart rate variability. Early anomalies in the system therefore manifest as changes in heart rate variability which predicts the likelihood of future heart attacks and even death.