'The Asch Conformity', the series of experiments carried out
in 1950s, was designed to study an individual's behaviour in a group. The group
consisted of actors and a person that was not aware of having been the subject
of the study. Showing everyone a picture with three numbered lines of different
lengths, an animator asked to choose the longest line. The actors deliberately
pointed out the incorrect line to see if an individual would indicate the
correct line or the line chosen by the group. The experiment showed that most
people usually reinforced the group's answer, proving that we are prone to
follow the crowd.
This experiment reminds me of a situation at University a
few years ago. During our introductory lecture, one of the professors conducted
a few funny quizzes that included answering in the public by showing one of the
three cards that differed in the colours and letters on them. We got those
cards with our student pack. It was quite interesting to see that people who
sat close to each other showed the same card as an answer; moreover, the
students' hands with the incorrect answer tended to quickly vanish from the air
and the professors' eyes.
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This is my homework: write an essay on childhood obesity, as persuasive and dramatic as you can, even rude. The audience: parents. Well, I do not like to be rude, but I tried. The research is made up by me, just to sound balanced and credible. Probably I should write one more paragraph about why fast food is unhealthy - a bit of science with the gory examples of the impact of junk food on child's development. And another one showing that healthy food does not mean the expensive food.
'80 percent of the young generation (aged 6-16) is either heavily overweight or clinically obese', admonish scientists from the UK Health and Wellbeing Organisation. Just look at the report.
(Every parent has a copy.)
We have been raising monsters! Fat monsters with greasy fingers, unable to use a fork and a knife, because their diet consists only of chips, pizza and Mc chicken. Clumsy, fatty monsters hidden in their rooms, with parents deaf and blind to their children's despair. Shame on you!
The kitchen is a messy store of half-eaten food in boxes, drinks in cans and bottles because no one cares to cook. The microwave is the queen of this wreckage, used in case that in the morning we will warm up the leftovers from the previous evening: it might serve as breakfast for kids, right? When the whole pizza was eaten, the sugary cereals are our resort - we put cereals, cold milk and it is done, fast and clean, and we are happy; why bother with cooking something nutritious
when there are many junky but ready to eat food?
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Third-hand smoke risks
Bo Hang, Ph.D. and Hugo Destaillats from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
presented the the results of their research into the dangers of third-hand smoke at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Dallas in March in 2014.
Smoking, both first- and second-hand, is dangerous to our health and banned in public areas in many countries. The idea of third-hand smoke is quite new, but the evidence shows that it could seriously damage human health. Leftover cigarette smoke, consisting of over 4000 second-hand smoke components, clings to the surfaces and reacts with the indoor air, creating brand-new components that constitute third-hand smoke. Some of these components, like a tobacco-specific nitrosamine, attach to DNA causing cancer and genetic mutations.
Third-hand smoke is the biggest potential health risk for babies and toddlers who touch items and put them into their mouths, getting into direct contact with those new dangerous substances. The researchers warn that over 30 million Americans still smoke in private and rented residences, living with the threat every day. One way to minimalize the risks of third-hand smoke is to get rid of or thoroughly wash things affected by second-hand smoke.
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'The Last Night of the World' by
Ray Bradbury is a short story published in February 1951, a year of the beginning of the Korean War, and the start of testing nuclear bombs in Nevada.
The narrator depicts an ordinary family's evening in any industrial country, with parents having coffee and the daughters playing outside. The title of the story is repeated in the first sentence, which is a question like from a social game. With this difference that it is not a game: we slowly get to know that all people had the same dream in which a voice told them that 'things would stop here on Earth'. The couple discusses the reasons for 'closing a book', other people's reactions, what others might be doing during the last few hours of that last day, and their feelings towards the end of the world. They are calm, reflective and follow their daily routine with a kind of satisfaction. Children are not informed of the situation.
This is a very strange story because of the lack of the emotions in it. Its political and moral motifs are obvious, but it misses any moralisation or religious symbols. We have been bad, well - not everyone - but as a race we are guilty of many terrible things, and one of them is our indifference towards the other people's ordeal. Yes, I am guilty, too, but - as we are still on this planet - can we try to write a better book?
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