ScienceDaily: Living Well News

While having a variety of choices is widely seen as a positive consequence of economic development, what impact does this explosion of choice have on the psyche of the individual, and further, society as a whole?

Domestic cats that regularly catch wild animals still get most of their nutrition from food provided at home, new research shows.

How do social conventions change? Robotic engineers and marketing scientists joined forces to study this phenomenon, combining online experiments and statistical analysis into a mathematical model that shows how a committed minority can influence the majority to overturn long-standing practices.

People benefit from deep and meaningful conversations that help us forge connections with one another, but we often stick to small talk with strangers because we underestimate how much others are interested in our lives and wrongly believe that deeper conversations will be more awkward and less enjoyable than they actually are, according to new research.

A study of 29,685 American women finds postpartum depression (PPD) is a significant health issue, with nearly 13 percent of the sample being at risk. Results showed that women who were currently breastfeeding at the time of data collection had statistically significant lower risk of PPD than women who were not breastfeeding. There also was a statistically significant inverse relationship between breastfeeding length and risk of PPD. As the number of weeks that women breastfed increased, their PPD decreased. Surprisingly, there was no significant difference in PPD risk among women with varying breastfeeding intent (yes, no, unsure).

Only a handful of oral hygiene tools actually prevent gum disease. At the moment, all other tools are only supported by insufficient evidence, say researchers.

A new study has found that a child's reading speed can be improved by simply increasing the space between letters within a piece of text. The study discovered that text with increased space between each letter provided a benefit to both dyslexic and non-dyslexic children. On average, the dyslexia group showed a 13% increase in reading speed, while the comparison group of non-dyslexic children showed a 5% increase in reading speed.

Young people who are repeatedly bullied by siblings are more likely to suffer from poor mental health and wellbeing issues later in adolescence, a new study has suggested.

In a negotiation, how tough should your first offer be? New research shows the first offer can have a significant impact on the eventual outcome.

Immersive virtual reality disrupts the child's default coordination strategy, scientists show, something that should be taken into account when developing virtual reality rehabilitation protocols for children.