ABC Student News: People who laugh a lot are much healthier than those who don't

Dr. Lee Berk at the Loma Linda School of Public Health in California found that laughing lowers levels of stress hormones, and strengthens the immune system.

Laughter increases levels of a hormone called beta-endorphines (which elevates mood state) by 27% and increases human growth hormone by 87%. Human growth hormone (HGH) is used to treat patients with hormone deficiencies and has been shown to improve the immune system, bone and muscle mass, and reduces body fat. This is the same hormone that athletes use to improve their athletic performance in their sports.

Laughter also has been shown to reduce levels of three stress hormones: cortisol, dopac, and epinephrine. Epinephrine is also known as adrenaline, the hormone that triggers the "fight-or-flight" response when we are afraid. At chronic levels, these three hormones can harm the immune system's function as well as contribute to other detrimental health effects.

Berk also found that mirthful laughter raised good cholesterol and lowered inflammation during a test of the effects of laughter on diabetic patients.

ABC Student News: Curious Facts

Blue M&M's might be able to treat spinal injuries, scientists say

Researchers have been testing the effects of a compound called "Brilliant Blue G" on lab rats. The compound is a blue dye found in blue M&M's that gives them their distinctive color.

The researchers injected rats with spinal injuries with Brilliant Blue G. The compound improved recovery and reduced the lesions that came along with the injury. The way it worked is that the compound blocks another chemical that causes more cell damage during an injury, thus reducing the "secondary spinal cord damage" that the chemical causes. The result? The rats with spinal injuries that received treatment with Brilliant Blue G were able to walk again, while the control group rats that weren't treated were not. 

Now, before you start picking out blue M&M's to put into your first aid kit, it's important to note that the dye was only effective 15 minutes after sustaining the injury, it has to be absorbed intravenously, and one of the side effects is that the rats' skin turned blue.

Written by: Camila Vega 

ABC Student News: Curious Facts

Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words without Using the Letter "E"

Gadsby: Champion of youth is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized thanks to the efforts of protagonist John Gadsby and a youth group he organizes.

The 136-page novel is written as a lipogram and does not include words that contain the letter "e". The novel's 50,110 words don't contain a single "e." In Gadsby's introduction Wright says his primary difficulty was avoiding the "-ed" suffix for past tense verbs. He focused on using verbs that don't take the -ed suffix and constructions with "do" (for instance "did walk" instead of "walked"). Scarcity of word options also drastically limited discussion involving quantity, pronouns, and many common words. Wright was unable to talk about any quantity between six and thirty. Wright used abbreviations on occasion, but only if the full form is similarly lipogrammatic, such as with "Dr.", and "P.S.". Wright "blacked" the E key of the typewriter with string, so as to forbid E-words that might slip in... and many did try to do so. Wright's book inspired other "lipogrammatic" works, including the famous novel A Void, which doesn't use the letter A.

Written by: Camila Vega

ABC Student News: Curious Facts

How Much Weight Can One Human Hair Hold?

From Rapunzel to the Hair Club Men, hair holds a prominent role in culture and society. But the story goes deeper. Some scientists believe that different kinds of hair evolved for different reasons, such as curly hair to keep people cool in warmer climates and straight hair to keep those in colder climates warm. In fact, so much of your body heat escapes from your head that it is no wonder that hair plays at least some part in keeping your body warm. But how much weight can your hair actually hold?

Dr. Frederic Leroy estimates that a head of human hair (about 150,000 strands) is strong enough to support the weight of two full grown elephants; that’s twelve tons! Even a single hair can support a surprising amount – 3 ounces (which is like a travel-sized bottle of shampoo). If a human were to attempt to climb a rope of human hair like in the fairy tale “Rapunzel,” it is estimated that a 63 lb person could climb a 90-foot tower! 

Pound for pound, hair is as strong as Kevlar, so enough hair could stop bullets and arrows. One woman reported that her hair weaved deflected a bullet that could have killed her! 

Written by: Camila Vega