Facebook likes reveal your secrets? "Liked" Lord of the Rings: High IQ, "Liked" Rocky: Non smoker

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A study suggests that private traits and attributes are predictable from behavior deducted from your Facebook likes. Although the study has been carried in the US, it is fun to try it! Here is a short summary on some of the findings:

• Liked Hello Kitty? Then you are high on Openness and low on “Conscientiousness”, “Agreeableness,” and “Emotional Stability.” More likely to have Democratic political views and to be of African-American origin, predominantly Christian.
• Liked Bruce Lee? Then you are a heterosexual male.
• Liked Jennifer Lopez? Then you have many friends.
• Liked Science? Then you are dissatisfied with life.
• Liked Harley Davidson? Then your IQ is likely to be low.
• Liked Morgan Freeman´s voice? Then your IQ is likely to be high.

and much more that can be found in the entire table here.

References:
Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior, by Kosinsky et al., 2013.

Circadyan rythms: Girls prefer evening to morning schedules (true?)

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On a previous post, I wrote about the difficulties I have when trying to work at night, and I presented some links that suggested that there are health risks on shift work and night work. Now after reading this article, I realize that I might be wrong, because according to research at Stanford (cited by Dr. J. Gumbiner), pubescent matured girls prefer evening to morning schedules (Carskadon, 1999). Perhaps because of that their sleepover parties?

References.

- The Teenage Mind, by Jann Gumbiner, Ph.D. 

- Carskadon, M. A. "When Worlds Collide: Adolescent Need for Sleep Versus Societal Demands, " Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 80, No. 05, Jan. 1999, pp.348-353.

Amazonian tribes: The use of plants to cure small diseases and even birth control (Manu-Peru, and the Machiguenga)

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On the virgin jungle of the Amazon in South America several tribes still remain, struggling against the expansion of the civilization. A (virtual) visit to those places would always permit the explorer to discover new things, keeping several yet to be discovered if such will ever be possible some day. Among all the samples, the Machiguenga of the Manu National Park in the Peruvian Amazon provide only an example of the enormous bank of knowledge yet to be discovered. Among all the knowledge provided, we all know that the use of plants for the treatment of diseases is a known fact applied until our days in the cities that lay aroud the Amazon basin and far beyond, but something I did not know is that those plants would even provide the means for contraception for locals. On the documentary of Alejandro Guerrero on the Machuiguenga tribe, what grabbed my attention was the point where he mentioned the properties of an interesting species that is used as a contraceptive mean; the name is "unchashi" which I could not find in Google, perhaps because it remains as an unclassified species....only an example of the richness hidden in the jungle.

References.-

John W. Terborgh: He is one of the scientists who work at the Park.

"The people of Manu". A blog with some information on the site.

La Reserva de Biósfera del Manu. The documentary from which I take the brief info described,

Sounds of animals and language phonetics.

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When residing in Japan, my friends and I used to have fun around the styles of trivial customs all the international students had. The discussions began when in our Japanese Language textbook (Minna no Nihongo), we found a page that taught us some signs that are commonly used by the Japanese society. From simple hand waving to ask people to move apart because we are walking through, sounds for recognizing animals, to the way we use our fingers to count. A press article published in the BBC site, reminded me those fun times we used to have. In the following entries I will write a short summary on the customs we used to discuss about. The current entry is the first part; it is about the sounds of animals. The picture on the left is a snapshot of a very interesting site written in Spanish (http://www.esl-idiomas.com/es/voces-animales.htm) that is by far the best on this topic. I am sure you will have as muuuuuuuch fun as I had.