Friday FYI: Toothache Be Gone

How a Segway can make your toothache go away.

Reason #138 to stop hating on Canadians: in a 1980 study, they found a neat trick to make toothache go away without even parting your lips. All you need is an ice cube and a loser to sign-diss.

Fine, you don’t really need the loser — you just need to rub the ice cube on the V-shaped area that forms between your thumb and your index finger when you show that dude on the Segway just what you think of him: 5-7 minutes should do.

That V-shaped area contains the nerve endings of neurological pathways connected to brain centers that control the sensation of pain in the hands and face. Rubbing the ice cube on it helps block those centers — 90% of the study participants reported this technique helped nix the toothache. (The other 10% probably owned Segways.)

Nifty, eh?

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Friday FYI: Stop the Hiccups

Why anticipation makes things not happen but helps your friends’ love lives.

Your buddy’s got the hiccups right before a big date and just can’t make it stop? Be a hero: ask him to pay attention and give you a sign as he feels the next hiccup coming on, right before it happens.

It’ll never come.

Before you scream “Witch!,” here’s how it happens: pure brain geekery. You see, the hiccups are essentially a series of involuntary, spasmodic contractions of the diaphragm. Unlike voluntary contractions like breathing and blinking, involuntary ones like the hiccups and your heartbeat are orchestrated by parts of your brain you can’t directly command.

But when you ask your buddy to predict the next hiccup, you’re essentially messing with his brain: because one can’t predict what one can’t control, it essentially forces the brain’s inner control freak to turn its attention to the pesky spasms and switch the involuntary contractions off.

Think of it as reverse psychology on a neurological level.

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Friday FYI: Hate Mornings Less

Why orchids are better than coffee.

Feel anything from grumpy to homicidal when you have to get up in the morning? Yeah, we hear ya. Luckily, a bunch of researchers at — where else — Harvard have discovered a neat trick to soften the punch of the alarm clock: stick a bouquet in your bedroom.

The behavioral study found that those of us who don’t consider ourselves “morning people” report feeling happier and more energized after looking at flowers first thing in the morning. This, in turn, makes us more positive throughout the day, which makes those around us a tad friendlier too, thanks to the whole “emotional contagion” thing. (We won’t get into the mirror neurons shenanigans, but it’s compelling and legit stuff.)

(And another study in that series found that flowers in the home make people feel less anxious and more compassionate. Which, you know, really helps in case the “emotional contagion” stuff didn’t work on that jerk at work.)

via

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Friday FYI: Auditory Freedom

We’re starting a new thing: every Friday, you get a quick everyday good-to-know. So go ahead, know.

GET A SONG UNSTUCK FROM YOUR HEAD

Blame your brain for that horrid Britney track stuck in your head since Monday’s morning drive — a glitch in your auditory cortex is causing the record to spin round’n’round endlessly.

Two ways to get it out:

1. Listen to the song in its entirety

2. Do some math

No joke, folks. This stuff works like magic.

>>> via Wired