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Fun fact: People who regularly play non-digital games (such as cards and board games) are more likely to score better on...
14/11/2022

Fun fact: People who regularly play non-digital games (such as cards and board games) are more likely to score better on memory and thinking tests when they’re in their 70s.
If you’re interested in maintaining your mental acuity over time, board games for the brain may just help you out!

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If you want to stay sharp in your 70s, games are a great way to exercise your brain. But digital games (such as video games and games on your phone) just won’t cut it. The link between mental acuity in later life and games seems to apply only to physical games like board games and playing cards.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh “tested more than 1000 people aged 70 for memory, problem solving, thinking speed and general thinking ability,” according to Science Daily (cited below). “Those who regularly played non-digital games scored better on memory and thinking tests in their 70s, the research found.”

The power of board games for the brain
Interestingly, the study also found that “People who increased game playing during their 70s were more likely to maintain certain thinking skills as they grew older.”

Scientists discovered the connection after testing their subjects every three years, until they reached age 79. They compared test results to how often people reported playing games like cards, chess, bingo, or crossword puzzles.

The team also factored in the scores from the subject’s intelligence tests when they were 11 years old and considered factors like lifestyle, economic status, and activity levels so that they could be reasonably sure that the games were the underlying factor for better memory test scores. (The participants were part of a group called the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. They were all born in 1936 and have been tracked in a variety of ways throughout their lives.)

They found that: “People who increased game playing in later years were found to have experienced less decline in thinking skills in their seventies — particularly in memory function and thinking speed.”

Protecting cognitive health
Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK, said of the study: “Even though some people’s thinking skills can decline as we get older, this research is further evidence that it doesn’t have to be inevitable. The connection between playing board games and other non-digital games later in life and sharper thinking and memory skills adds to what we know about steps we can take to protect our cognitive health, including not drinking excess alcohol, being active and eating a healthy diet.”

A popular claim that watching scary movies burns as many calories as a walk re-circulates each year around during spooky...
14/11/2022

A popular claim that watching scary movies burns as many calories as a walk re-circulates each year around during spooky season. But in reality, movies don’t really burn calories. The claim wasn’t the results of a rigorous study and was misleading. In fact, it was only made for publicity purposes.

What’s the claim about movies burning calories
From clickbait site to serious websites like The Guardian, it’s common to the headline once a year that watching movies like The Shining burn calories because they get your heart racing. And while that’s not false, the claim that watching a scary movie is somehow equivalent or better to exercise is untrue.

According to The Guardian’s piece the year the study came out:

“Those who watched a 90-minute horror film were likely to burn up to 113 calories – the same sort of figure as a half-hour walk. Some movies were more effective than others, however: of the 10 films studied, the top calorie-burners were the classic Stanley Kubrick chiller The Shining (184 calories), Jaws (161 calories) and The Exorcist (158 calories).”

For starters, sitting and doing nothing for 90 minutes can burn anywhere from 60 to 130 calories, depending on the person. You get those points for just existing. So go ahead and watch Steel Magnolias because scaring yourself silly isn’t going to help you lose weight.

The “study” is not really a study
What’s even more problematic is that while there is an academic behind the claims (and metabolism measurements):

He didn’t set out to perform a rigorous scientific study.
The data was never published in a scientific journal (which is important because that requires a study to be worthwhile, constructed correctly, and subjects it to peer review).
The results are unimpressive at best (and genuinely misleading at worst).
The source of the info is Dr. Richard Mackenzie, listed as “senior lecturer and specialist in cell metabolism and physiology at the University of Westminster in London” at the time. He is cited as saying (via university press release, not a journal study) that:

While the scientists did measure heart rate, oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output, the study involved just 10 people and was commissioned by the movie rental firm Lovefilm (now owned by Amazon).

Mackenzie noted that:

“As the pulse quickens and blood pumps around the body faster, the body experiences a surge in adrenaline. It is this release of fast-acting adrenaline, produced during short bursts of intense stress (or in this case, brought on by fear), which is known to lower the appetite, increase the basal metabolic rate and ultimately burn a higher level of calories.”

The top 5 movies he asked people to watch (with calories burned during viewing) were:

1. The Shining: 184 calories
2. Jaws: 161 calories
3. The Exorcist: 158 calories
4. Alien: 152 calories
5. Saw: 133 calories

No, movies don’t burn calories in any helpful way
When Snopes (cited below) checked up on the even more bombastic claim people had made after hearing about the study (that watching horror movies could help reduce obesity), the noted: “The study was neither peer-reviewed nor published (nor, apparently, meant to be taken seriously). No follow-up studies replicating its findings, and people who wish to lose weight are probably better advised to get some exercise.”

Snopes then went on to point out the obscenely small sample size, the lack of replication of the study (mandatory of a study to actually make its way towards being considered scientific), and the failure to follow-up with subjects’ actual weight loss.

But the most important point is that even if everything had been done properly, the results aren’t impressive.

The average length of a feature film is around 90 minutes, during which the average person sitting on their butts and doing nothing burns 60 – 130 calories. If you stand, you might burn 100 – 200 calories, more than the 184 that people watching The Shining burned. The person watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the “study” only burned 107 calories – so we’re pretty skeptical of all of these measurements at this point.

The best we can say is that maybe some people burn a couple of extra calories watching scary movies that they would if they were just watching a blank wall. In other words, get your exercise if you want to burn calories in a meaningful way.

The dementor wasp sounds like a character from Harry Potter. But somehow it’s much worse (mostly because it’s real). The...
11/11/2022

The dementor wasp sounds like a character from Harry Potter. But somehow it’s much worse (mostly because it’s real). These wasps can turn their prey into “zombies” before eating them alive. Isn’t nature wonderful?

Dementor wasp tactics
The Ampulex dementor is actually named after the soul-sucking Harry Potter characters, so you know they must have made a big impression.

The wasps have a pretty unconventional and gruesome way of preparing their prey for mealtime. First, they inject venom into their favorite snacks, cockroaches. And while you might not have a lot of sympathy for roaches, they do die in a pretty awful way.

The venom from the dementor wasp leaves them without control over their own bodies. That usually has the effect of forcing them to run right into their tormentor’s nest so that they can be eaten alive. The World Wildlife Fund said it rendered the roaches “passive zombies” in the process.

How do roaches turn into zombies?
According to the Washington Post (cited below), the WWF report states:

“Cockroach wasp venom blocks receptors of the neurotransmitter octopamine, which is involved in the initiation of spontaneous movement. With this blocked, the cockroach is still capable of movement, but is unable to direct its own body. Once the cockroach has lost control, the wasp drags its stupefied prey by the antennae to a safe shelter to devour it.”

Sounds like the stuff of nightmares.

Luckily, the wasps seem confined to just one place in the world – Thailand – and are pretty recognizable with their red and black bodies (not that the venom is enough to turn any of us into a zombie).

What’s in a name?
The Post also described the dementor wasp naming process:

“The Museum für Naturkunde, a natural history museum in Berlin, asked 300 visitors to pick the wasp’s name from among four options: ‘Bicolor,’ after its red-black pattern; ‘Mon,’ after a local ethnic group where the wasp lives; ‘Plagiator,’ since it mimics, or ‘plagiarizes,’ ants; and ‘Dementor,’ described to visitors as ‘magical beings, which can consume a person’s soul, leaving their victims as an empty but functional body without personality and emotions.'”

Frankly, the other options were pretty lame, and we doubt anyone was surprised people chose the Harry Potter-themed name.

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