In Italy and Spanish-speaking countries, people tend to "talk
with their hands" as well as their voices. If you can't always
find the right word, you might want to start doing this too,
because new research suggests that gesturing while you talk
may improve your access to language. One thing you should
definitely do with your hands is wash them often. Doctors
think that the reason SARS
never
reached Japan is that Japan is a nation of hand-washers.
Dr. Elena Nicoladis studied the hand gestures of bilingual
children as they told the same story twice, first in one
language and then the other. The researchers were surprised
by what they saw. Nicolandis says, "The children used
gestures a lot more when telling the story in what they
considered to be their stronger language?We thought the
children would be more inclined to use gestures to help them
communicate in their weaker language. What we think is
going on here is that the very fact of moving your hands
around helps you recall parts of the story?the gestures help
you access memory and language so that you can tell more
of the story." She thinks this could be a boon to older people
who are having ?senior moments."
Nicoladis also discovered that Chinese women who spoke
English at a higher level than Chinese men also used more
hand gestures when speaking English than the men did. Girls
generally use more hand gestures to tell a story than boys
do, and it's well-documented that girls develop language skills
faster than boys.
Hand washing with soap could cut the incidence of infections
in children in developing countries in half, according to The
Lancet.
The CDC's Stephen Luby studied side-by-side squatter
settlements in Karachi, Pakistan, to measure the health
benefits of washing your hands with soap. He studied 36
neighborhoods with a total 600 households. 300 households
were told about the benefits of washing their hands regularly,
especially after coming home from shopping or visiting friends,
and were given soap. Half of these received antibacterial
soap and the other half were given plain soap. The other 300
were not informed or given soap, as a control. Fieldworkers
visited households once a week for a year to distribute the
more soap and remind everyone to wash their hands. During
these visits, they recorded the symptoms of everyone in the
household. It was found that washing their hands with soap
reduced the incidence of pneumonia by 50% in children under
5 and reduced the incidence of diarrhea, which is one of the
biggest childhood killers, by 53%. There was no difference
between households given antibacterial soap and those given
plain soap. In fact, some researchers say that antibacterial
soap can be dangerous, because it leads to the formation of
superbugs.
Art credit: http://www.freeimages.co.uk
Where else are you going to find information like this? Keep us
going?
subscribe
today. It's a lot less expensive than you think!
What's that woman doing in the kitchen? (At least she
washed her hands) Is she cooking?or
practicing witchcraft?
