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Be nice to people
Screen your genes preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, which can be used to ensure that any children born after IVF will not suffer from the disease. Then there is prenatal diagnosis, already widely used to screen for non-inherited genetic disorders such as Down’s syndrome. Finally, even if you opt for none of the above, simply knowing your child might have a genetic disorder will help ensure they get the right treatment from the start. In most countries, the decision, as it should be, is yours – and the earlier you discover your children might inherit a serious disease, the more choices you have. Michael Le Page
Be nice to people It sounds kind of obvious, and a little trite: the world would be a better place to live in if we were all a bit kinder to each other. But how can we make that happen? This is fast becoming a valid scientific question. Psychologists and neuroscientists are exploring how to increase people’s capacity for empathy and compassion, with two ongoing studies claiming that meditation not only increases compassionate feelings but also improves physical
32 | NewScientist | 19 September 2009
“In 2005 alone, divorced people in the US used an extra 73 billion kilowatt hours of electricity”
TESSA BUNNEY / MILLENNIUM IMAGES, UK
It’s debatable whether getting your genes tested can tell you anything very helpful about your health, for now at least. But it could make a huge difference to your children’s. Genetic tests can reveal if you are a carrier of disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and spinal muscular dystrophy. In some countries, tests for some genetic diseases are already recommended to would-be parents, but many couples, of course, do not consult their doctors before trying to conceive. If you are a carrier, various options are open to you. One is to ensure potential partners aren’t carriers, too, if you want to have children. By promoting this approach the Jewish organisation Dor Yeshorim has greatly reduced the incidence of Tay-Sachs, a genetic disorder that slowly kills young children. Another option, where there is a risk of passing on a serious disease, is
Eat more plants
and emotional health. But you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk or an expert on brain plasticity to help increase global compassion. There is evidence that altruistic acts spread through social networks. In other words, if you are kind to a friend, they are more likely to be kind to someone else they know. To demonstrate this, Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School in Boston designed a cooperation game in which 120 students were organised into groups of four and asked to give money to their group. The game lasted five rounds, and after each round the students were reorganised so that no two appeared in the same group twice. The researchers told the participants at the end of each
Eat less meat and more vegetables if you want to help save the world
round how much the others in their group had given. They found that generosity is infectious. If someone gave a dollar more than the predicted group average, the others in that group gave approximately 20 cents more than expected in the next round. This altruism persisted into the third round. Christakis’s team found in a separate study that cooperative behaviour spreads to three degrees of separation – from friend to friend to friend. So if you are popular and well connected, you could have a special role to play: your compassionate acts could resonate further through the network, and you are also more likely to benefit from other people’s kindness. Michael Bond
Divorce is bad for the environment as well as for families
Be nice to people It sounds kind of obvious, and a little trite: the world would be a better place to live in if we were all a bit kinder to each other. But how can we make that happen? This is fast becoming a valid scientific question. Psychologists and neuroscientists are exploring how to increase people’s capacity for empathy and compassion, with two ongoing studies claiming that meditation not only increases compassionate feelings but also improves physical
32 | NewScientist | 19 September 2009
“In 2005 alone, divorced people in the US used an extra 73 billion kilowatt hours of electricity”
TESSA BUNNEY / MILLENNIUM IMAGES, UK
It’s debatable whether getting your genes tested can tell you anything very helpful about your health, for now at least. But it could make a huge difference to your children’s. Genetic tests can reveal if you are a carrier of disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and spinal muscular dystrophy. In some countries, tests for some genetic diseases are already recommended to would-be parents, but many couples, of course, do not consult their doctors before trying to conceive. If you are a carrier, various options are open to you. One is to ensure potential partners aren’t carriers, too, if you want to have children. By promoting this approach the Jewish organisation Dor Yeshorim has greatly reduced the incidence of Tay-Sachs, a genetic disorder that slowly kills young children. Another option, where there is a risk of passing on a serious disease, is
Eat more plants
and emotional health. But you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk or an expert on brain plasticity to help increase global compassion. There is evidence that altruistic acts spread through social networks. In other words, if you are kind to a friend, they are more likely to be kind to someone else they know. To demonstrate this, Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School in Boston designed a cooperation game in which 120 students were organised into groups of four and asked to give money to their group. The game lasted five rounds, and after each round the students were reorganised so that no two appeared in the same group twice. The researchers told the participants at the end of each
Eat less meat and more vegetables if you want to help save the world
round how much the others in their group had given. They found that generosity is infectious. If someone gave a dollar more than the predicted group average, the others in that group gave approximately 20 cents more than expected in the next round. This altruism persisted into the third round. Christakis’s team found in a separate study that cooperative behaviour spreads to three degrees of separation – from friend to friend to friend. So if you are popular and well connected, you could have a special role to play: your compassionate acts could resonate further through the network, and you are also more likely to benefit from other people’s kindness. Michael Bond
Divorce is bad for the environment as well as for families