Health & Science

A genetic guide to true happiness

Human beings appear to be genetically engineered to be happiest and healthiest when we spend a lot of time selflessly helping others—and unhealthy when we’re mostly devoted to self-gratification. That’s the eye-opening conclusion of University of North Carolina researchers, based on a study of 80 volunteers. The study subjects were asked how often they felt hedonic pleasure—the kind of happiness brought about by enjoying a tasty meal or buying themselves something. They were also asked how often they contributed something important to society that gave them a deeper sense of purpose. The researchers then drew the subjects’ blood, and found that the genes of the volunteers whose lives contained lots of pleasure but little meaning were priming cells to express high levels of inflammation—which is linked to cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease—and a weaker anti-viral response to infections. “Their daily activities provide short-term happiness yet result in negative physical consequences long-term,” psychophysiologist Barbara Fredrickson tells ScienceDaily.com. People who emphasize service to others and a connection to community, on the other hand, showed a pattern of gene expression linked to less inflammation and stronger immunity. There are two distinct kinds of happiness, says study co-author Steven Cole, and “our genes can tell the difference.”

A new, molten planet

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NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft was officially retired in August after a fatal malfunction, but new planets are still materializing in the vast data Kepler has already collected—including an Earth-size planet some 700 light-years away orbiting a star roughly the size of our sun. This bizarre planet, Kepler-78b, orbits its sun so quickly that a year there lasts only 8.5 hours, NationalGeographic.com reports. “We’ve gotten used to planets having orbits of a few days,” says MIT physicist Josh Winn. “But we wondered, what about a few hours? Is that even possible? And sure enough, there are some out there.” Kepler-78b’s speedy orbit is the result of it being 100 times closer to its host star than Earth is to the sun. Its surface is likely composed of molten lava, with temperatures up to 5,000 degrees. In fact, Kepler-78b is so close to its sun that researchers may be able to measure the tug of its gravity against the star, which would allow them to calculate its mass—a first for an Earth-size planet outside our solar system.

Why wolves howl

When wolves let loose with their lonely-sounding howls, they are actually expressing loneliness rather than acting on pure instinct, as researchers long thought. That’s the conclusion of animal behaviorists at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, who experimented with members of a captive wolf pack by taking each member of the pack out for a walk, one at a time, and observing the howls of the wolves left behind while testing their levels of the stress hormone cortisol. They found that all of the wolves howled—and showed signs of stress—when the pack leader left their sight. But the wolves also howled particularly long during the absence of the “preferred partners that they play with, groom, and lie close to when sleeping,” study author Friederike Range tells ScienceMag.org. Those howls, it seems, were a way of asking for companionship, rather than pure expressions of stress. “Social relationships are very important to them,” Range says, “and the howling patterns reflect that.”

Chiropractors for pets?

The latest trend among pet owners anxious about the health of their animals is taking them to see a chiropractor—sometimes their own. San Diego yoga instructor Dee Hayes has shared her chiropractor with her cocker spaniel for six years. “If it’s good enough for us, why not them?” she tells The New York Times. Options for Animals, a school that trains veterinarians and chiropractors how to adjust the joints of animals, has increased its enrollment by 50 percent over the past few years, and many experts promote chiropractic as an inexpensive and effective way to treat animals for arthritis, joint pain, and sprains and other injuries. But veterinarians warn that there is no scientific proof that the practice is safe or effective for animals. “Chiropractic methods potentially can cause injury through the use of inappropriate technique or excessive force,” says the American Animal Hospital Association. Some pet owners insist that chiropractors have helped their pets. Mary Arabe took her cat to a chiropractor when he developed a painful limp. “The next day he was walking fine,” Arabe says. “It worked. He healed him.”