A new study in the June issue of Emotion found a connection between people with the short version of gene 5-HTTLPR and a more significant sense of humor. The study looked at 336 adults, showing them humorous comics and film clips, and rating the participants intensities of smiles or laughter. Those with the shorter alleles had more intense reactions of laughter or smiles and rated the comics or film clips as funnier than those with the longer alleles of the same gene. In past research, the 5-HTTLPR gene has been linked to regulating serotonin, a neurotransmitter that is thought to be related to mood fluctuations.
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Amanda Knox travelled to Italy as an exchange student in 2007. She was twenty years old. It has been reported that her stepfather, Chris Mellas, believed that Amanda was too naive to live abroad. He surely could not have imagined that she would be arrested and tried four times for the murder of Meredith Kercher.
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Midlife, also known as middle-age, is by far the longest period of a person's life, due to a recent increase in lifespan thanks to healthier lifestyles and advances in medical care, but sadly it is commonly depicted in a negative light in our culture, especially during the post-parental period of midlife (McGoldrick, Carter & Garcia-Preto, 2011). Midlife crises, menopause, empty-nest syndrome, these are some of the things we think of when we think of midlife, which lends support to the negative view we have of it, and of aging in general.
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Astronaut and veteran Scott Kelly, 51, is preparing to live a full year in the international space station in order to study the impact a year in space could have physically, mentally, and emotionally. The objectives of this mission are to study the potential biological, as well as psychological, impacts of prolonged time in space on a human being. This mission could have broader implications as NASA looks to the future in creating space stations for human beings, as well as possible hubs on the moon where individuals would live and work.
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