http://singularityhub.com/2011/04/02/accidental-find-may-lead-to-a-cure-for-baldness-2/
Science is full of stories in which great discoveries are made by accident: The discovery of radiation, the discovery of the universe's shape through x-ray detection, and... the cure for hair loss?
Maybe.
At the time they returned to the cages to find that their bald mice had miraculously grown their hair back, the scientists at UCLA had no intention of curing baldness. Originally, theirs was in fact a study aimed at reducing the harmful effects of chronic stress. The unanticipated side effect of their treatment could prove a boon to balding men and women everywhere, not to mention to the drug company that delivers the cure to them.
Stress is beneficial in small doses, heightening our ability to run away from predators or to concentrate while taking an exam. But chronic stress can bring about an array of mental or physical disorders such as high blood pressure, anxiety disorders, rheumatic deseases, muscle pain, a weakened immune system and neurodegenerative diseases. Chronic stress also causes our hair to fall out.
The UCLA team was investigating the role of corticotropin-releasing factor in the stress. CRF is one of a number of hormones that mediate the body's stress response. Secreted from the hypothalamus, CRF acts at various sites in the brain and other parts of the body to mediate the stress response. In the gut, CRF stimulates a colonic stress response that include motility, defecation, and diarrhea. But animal models of high anxiety show that elevated CRF can exacerbate irritable bowel syndrome. Trying to find a way to block these effects, Tache's team employed a mouse genetically altered to produce abnormally high levels of CRF. These mice always lost their hair, initially a side effect of little importance to the researchers. In an effort to allay the harmful effects of elevated CRF Tache's team injected the CRF-overexpressing mice with CRF blockers. They injected the mice once a day for five days then put them back in their cages. Three months later they returned to the cages to find that the once-bald mice had grown their hair back. Surprised, the researchers actually thought that someone had mixed up the mice. But going back to the records confirmed that these were indeed the same CRF-overexpressing mice. So then they reported the experiment and again turned bald mice into mice with backs of lush, full hair convincing to the touch, ready to step out into the field with a newly found confidence. The effect was fast, too.
2011年4月8日金曜日
2011年4月7日木曜日
Even happier
Week1 On Being Grateful
Psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough conducted a series of studies in which they asked participants to write down on a daily basis at least five things, major or minor, for which they were grateful. Participants' responses included everything from their parents to the Rolling Stones, from waking up in the morning to God. It turns out that putting aside a minute or two every day to express gratitude for one's life has far-reaching consequences. Compared with the control group, the grateful group not only became more appreciative of life in general but also enjoyed higher level of well-being and positive emotions: they felt happier, more determined, more energetic, and more optimistic. They were also more generous and more likely to offer support to others. Finally, those who expressed gratitude also slept better, exercised more, and experienced fewer symptoms of physical illness.
I have been doing this exercise daily since September 19, 1999 (three years before Emmons and McCullough published their findings), when I heard Oprah tell her viewers to do it -- and so I did! From around the time my son David turned three, we have been doing a variation of this exercise together. Every night I ask him, "What was fun for you today?" and then he asks me the same question. my wife and I regularly remind ourselves what we are grateful for in each other and in our relationship.
When we make a habit of gratitude, we no longer require a special event to make us happy. We become more aware of good things that happen to us during the day, as we anticipate putting them on our list. The gratitude list can include the name of a person you care about, something that you appreciate that you or someone else did, or an insight that you had as a result of writing in this journal.
Week 2 Rituals
There is much research suggesting that change - learning new tricks, introducing a new behavior, replacing old habits, -- is extremely hard. Most attempts at change, whether by individuals or organizations, fail. In their book The Power of full engagement, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz provide a different way of thinking about change: they suggest that instead of focusing on cultivating self-discipline as a means toward change, we need to introduce rituals.
Initiating a ritual is often difficult, but maintaining it is relatively easy. Top athletes have rituals:They know that at specific hours during each day they are on the field, then in the gym, and then they stretch. For most of us, brushing our teeth at least twice a day is a ritual and therefore does not require special powers of discipline. We need to take same approach toward any change we want to introduce.
According to Loehr and Schwartz, "Building rituals requires defining very precise behaviors and performing them at very specific times - motivated by deeply held values." For athletes, being a top performer is a deeply held value, and therefore they create rituals around training;for most people, cleanliness is a deeply held value, and therefore they create the ritual of brushing their teeth.
If we hold our personal happiness as a value and want to become happier, then we need to form rituals around that too.
Psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough conducted a series of studies in which they asked participants to write down on a daily basis at least five things, major or minor, for which they were grateful. Participants' responses included everything from their parents to the Rolling Stones, from waking up in the morning to God. It turns out that putting aside a minute or two every day to express gratitude for one's life has far-reaching consequences. Compared with the control group, the grateful group not only became more appreciative of life in general but also enjoyed higher level of well-being and positive emotions: they felt happier, more determined, more energetic, and more optimistic. They were also more generous and more likely to offer support to others. Finally, those who expressed gratitude also slept better, exercised more, and experienced fewer symptoms of physical illness.
I have been doing this exercise daily since September 19, 1999 (three years before Emmons and McCullough published their findings), when I heard Oprah tell her viewers to do it -- and so I did! From around the time my son David turned three, we have been doing a variation of this exercise together. Every night I ask him, "What was fun for you today?" and then he asks me the same question. my wife and I regularly remind ourselves what we are grateful for in each other and in our relationship.
When we make a habit of gratitude, we no longer require a special event to make us happy. We become more aware of good things that happen to us during the day, as we anticipate putting them on our list. The gratitude list can include the name of a person you care about, something that you appreciate that you or someone else did, or an insight that you had as a result of writing in this journal.
Week 2 Rituals
There is much research suggesting that change - learning new tricks, introducing a new behavior, replacing old habits, -- is extremely hard. Most attempts at change, whether by individuals or organizations, fail. In their book The Power of full engagement, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz provide a different way of thinking about change: they suggest that instead of focusing on cultivating self-discipline as a means toward change, we need to introduce rituals.
Initiating a ritual is often difficult, but maintaining it is relatively easy. Top athletes have rituals:They know that at specific hours during each day they are on the field, then in the gym, and then they stretch. For most of us, brushing our teeth at least twice a day is a ritual and therefore does not require special powers of discipline. We need to take same approach toward any change we want to introduce.
According to Loehr and Schwartz, "Building rituals requires defining very precise behaviors and performing them at very specific times - motivated by deeply held values." For athletes, being a top performer is a deeply held value, and therefore they create rituals around training;for most people, cleanliness is a deeply held value, and therefore they create the ritual of brushing their teeth.
If we hold our personal happiness as a value and want to become happier, then we need to form rituals around that too.
2011年4月6日水曜日
The Sleepless Elite
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576242701752957910.html
For a small group of people perhaps just 1% TO 3% OF the population, sleep is a waste of time.
Natural "short sleepers," as they're officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through the day without needing to take naps or load up on caffeine.
They are also energetic, outgoing, optimistic, and ambitious, according to the new researchers who have studied them. The pattern sometimes starts in childhood and often runs in families.
While it's unclear if all short sleepers are high achievers, they do have more time in the day to do things, and keep finding more interesting things to do than sleep, often doing several things at once.
Nobody knows how many natural short sleepers are out there. "There aren't nearly as many as there are people who think they're short sleepers," says Daniel J. Buysse, a psychiatrist at the Unviersity of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a professional group.
Out of every 100 people who believe they only need five or six hours of sleep a night, only about five people really do, Dr. Buysse says. The rest end up chronically sleep deprived, part of the one-third of U.S. adults who get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to a report last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To date, only a handful of small studies have looked at short sleepers - in part because they're hard to find. They rarely go to sleep clinics and don't think they have a disorder.
A few studies have suggested that some short sleepers may have hypomania, a mild form of mania with racing thoughts and few inhabitions. "These people talk fast. They never stop. They're always on the up side of life," says Dr.Buysse. He was on the authors of a 2001 study that had 12 confirmed short sleepers and 12 control subjects keep diaries and complete numerous questionnaires about their work, sleep and living habits.One survey dubbed "Attitude for Life" that was actually a test for hypomania. The natural short sleepers scored twice as high as the controls.
There is currently no way people can teach themselves to be short sleepers. Still, scientists hope that by studying short sleepers, they can better understand how the body regulates sleep and why sleep needs vary so much in humans.
"My long-term goal is to someday learn enough so we can manipulate the sleep pathways without damaging our health," says human geneticist Ying-Hui Fu at the University of California-San Francisco. "Everybody can use more walking hours, even if you just watch movies."
Dr. Fu was part of a research team that discovered a gene variation, hDEC2, in a pair of short sleepers in 2009. They were studying extreme early birds when they noticed that two of their subjects, a mother and a daughter, got up naturally about 4 a.m. but also went to bed past midnight.
Genetic analyses spotted one gene variation common to them both. The scientists were able to replicate the gene variation in a strain of mice and found that the mice needed less sleep than usual, too.
News of their finding spurred other people to write the team, saying they were natural short sleepers and volunteering to be studied. The researchers are recuruiting more candidates and hope to find more gene variations they have in common.
Potential candidates for the gene study are sent multiple questionnaires and undergo a long structured phone interview. Those who make the initial screening wear monitors to track their sleep pattern at home. Christopher Jones, a University of Utah neurologist and sleep scientist who oversees the recruiting, says there is one question that is more revealing than anything else: When people do have a chance to sleep longer, on weekends or vacation, do they still sleep only five or six hours a night? People who sleep more when they are not true short sleepers, he says.
To date, Dr Jones says he has identified only about 20 true short sleepers, and he says they share some fascinating characteristics. Not only are their circadian rhythms different from most people, so are their moods (very upbeat) and their metabolism(They're thinner than average, even though sleep deprivation usually rises the risk of obesity). They also seem to have a high tolerance for physical pain and psychological setbacks. "They encounter obstacles, they just pick themselves up and try again," Dr Jones says.
Some short sleepers say their sleep patterns go back to childhood and some see the same patterns starting in their own kids, such as giving up naps by age 2. As adults, they gravitate to different fields, but whether they do, they do full bore, Dr. Jones says.
"Typically, at the end of a long, structured phone interview, they will admit that they've been texting and surfing the Internet and doing the crossword puzzle at the same time, all on less than six hours of sleep," "There is some sort of psychological and physiological energy to them that we don't understand."
Drs. Jones and Fu stress that there is no genetic test for short sleeping. Ultimately, they expect to find that many different genes play a role, which may in turn reveal more about the complex systems that regulate sleep in humans.
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Leonardo da Vinci were too busy to sleep much, according to historical accounts. Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison came close but they were also fond of taking naps, which may disqualify them as true short sleepers.
Nowadays, some short sleepers gravitate to fields like blogging, videogame design and social media, where their sleep habits come in handy. "If I could find a way to do it, I'd never sleep," says Dave Hatter, a software developer in Fort Wright, Ky. He typically sleeps just four to five hours a night, up from two to three hours a few years ago.
"It's crazy, but it works for me," says Eleanor Hoffman, an overnight administrator at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York who would rather spend afternoons playing mahjong with friends than sleep anymore than four hours. Sometimes she calls her cousin, Linda Cohen, in Pittsburgh about 4 a.m., since she knows she'll be wide awake as well just like they were as kids.
"I come to life about 11 at night," says Mrs. Cohen, who owns a chain of toy stores with her husband and gets up early in the morning with ease. "If I went to bed earlier, I'd feel like half my life was missing."
For a small group of people perhaps just 1% TO 3% OF the population, sleep is a waste of time.
Natural "short sleepers," as they're officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through the day without needing to take naps or load up on caffeine.
They are also energetic, outgoing, optimistic, and ambitious, according to the new researchers who have studied them. The pattern sometimes starts in childhood and often runs in families.
While it's unclear if all short sleepers are high achievers, they do have more time in the day to do things, and keep finding more interesting things to do than sleep, often doing several things at once.
Nobody knows how many natural short sleepers are out there. "There aren't nearly as many as there are people who think they're short sleepers," says Daniel J. Buysse, a psychiatrist at the Unviersity of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a professional group.
Out of every 100 people who believe they only need five or six hours of sleep a night, only about five people really do, Dr. Buysse says. The rest end up chronically sleep deprived, part of the one-third of U.S. adults who get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to a report last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To date, only a handful of small studies have looked at short sleepers - in part because they're hard to find. They rarely go to sleep clinics and don't think they have a disorder.
A few studies have suggested that some short sleepers may have hypomania, a mild form of mania with racing thoughts and few inhabitions. "These people talk fast. They never stop. They're always on the up side of life," says Dr.Buysse. He was on the authors of a 2001 study that had 12 confirmed short sleepers and 12 control subjects keep diaries and complete numerous questionnaires about their work, sleep and living habits.One survey dubbed "Attitude for Life" that was actually a test for hypomania. The natural short sleepers scored twice as high as the controls.
There is currently no way people can teach themselves to be short sleepers. Still, scientists hope that by studying short sleepers, they can better understand how the body regulates sleep and why sleep needs vary so much in humans.
"My long-term goal is to someday learn enough so we can manipulate the sleep pathways without damaging our health," says human geneticist Ying-Hui Fu at the University of California-San Francisco. "Everybody can use more walking hours, even if you just watch movies."
Dr. Fu was part of a research team that discovered a gene variation, hDEC2, in a pair of short sleepers in 2009. They were studying extreme early birds when they noticed that two of their subjects, a mother and a daughter, got up naturally about 4 a.m. but also went to bed past midnight.
Genetic analyses spotted one gene variation common to them both. The scientists were able to replicate the gene variation in a strain of mice and found that the mice needed less sleep than usual, too.
News of their finding spurred other people to write the team, saying they were natural short sleepers and volunteering to be studied. The researchers are recuruiting more candidates and hope to find more gene variations they have in common.
Potential candidates for the gene study are sent multiple questionnaires and undergo a long structured phone interview. Those who make the initial screening wear monitors to track their sleep pattern at home. Christopher Jones, a University of Utah neurologist and sleep scientist who oversees the recruiting, says there is one question that is more revealing than anything else: When people do have a chance to sleep longer, on weekends or vacation, do they still sleep only five or six hours a night? People who sleep more when they are not true short sleepers, he says.
To date, Dr Jones says he has identified only about 20 true short sleepers, and he says they share some fascinating characteristics. Not only are their circadian rhythms different from most people, so are their moods (very upbeat) and their metabolism(They're thinner than average, even though sleep deprivation usually rises the risk of obesity). They also seem to have a high tolerance for physical pain and psychological setbacks. "They encounter obstacles, they just pick themselves up and try again," Dr Jones says.
Some short sleepers say their sleep patterns go back to childhood and some see the same patterns starting in their own kids, such as giving up naps by age 2. As adults, they gravitate to different fields, but whether they do, they do full bore, Dr. Jones says.
"Typically, at the end of a long, structured phone interview, they will admit that they've been texting and surfing the Internet and doing the crossword puzzle at the same time, all on less than six hours of sleep," "There is some sort of psychological and physiological energy to them that we don't understand."
Drs. Jones and Fu stress that there is no genetic test for short sleeping. Ultimately, they expect to find that many different genes play a role, which may in turn reveal more about the complex systems that regulate sleep in humans.
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Leonardo da Vinci were too busy to sleep much, according to historical accounts. Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison came close but they were also fond of taking naps, which may disqualify them as true short sleepers.
Nowadays, some short sleepers gravitate to fields like blogging, videogame design and social media, where their sleep habits come in handy. "If I could find a way to do it, I'd never sleep," says Dave Hatter, a software developer in Fort Wright, Ky. He typically sleeps just four to five hours a night, up from two to three hours a few years ago.
"It's crazy, but it works for me," says Eleanor Hoffman, an overnight administrator at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York who would rather spend afternoons playing mahjong with friends than sleep anymore than four hours. Sometimes she calls her cousin, Linda Cohen, in Pittsburgh about 4 a.m., since she knows she'll be wide awake as well just like they were as kids.
"I come to life about 11 at night," says Mrs. Cohen, who owns a chain of toy stores with her husband and gets up early in the morning with ease. "If I went to bed earlier, I'd feel like half my life was missing."
2011年4月2日土曜日
Are we spending too much?
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2011/01/31/are-we-spending-too-much/
Americans are, once again, no longer letting their meager incomes get in the way of a good trip to the mall. Consumer spending rose 0.7% in the last month of 2010. That was not only a bigger than expected jump in spending, but it was more than double the 0.3% rise in the month before. But here's the problem: The income of the average American only rose 0.4%. That means our spending rose nearly twice as fast as income. So are Americans digging themselves back into the debt hole that started the financial crisis, and is this a risk for the economic recovery? Perhaps not, at least not yer. Here's why:
In the past few months, a number of economists and commentators have worried that American consumers were too quickly returning to their spending ways. Here's what the blog had to say about it:
When the recession began, I expected the saving rate to rise to 8% or more. With a rising saving rate, consumption growth would be below income growth. But that 8% rate was just a guess. It is possible the saving rate has peaked, or it might rise a little further, but either way most of the adjustment has already happened.
And a few weeks ago in a post about surprisingly strong retail sales in December, I quotad credit card expert, who had this to say:
My concern is that people have the false notion that when the economy recovers they will be able to return to the levels of consumption they had before the recession, says Papadimitriou. There's just no way to fund that anymore.
But my look at the personal consumption and income numbers today makes me a little less certain that overspending is a real problem, at least right now. First of all, historically, for the past 20 years, the gap between income growth and consumption growth has averaged 0.015 percentage points. Meaning we typically spend more than we earn. The 0.3 percentage point faster growth in concemption in December is much larger than average, but its not really an outlier. We have regularly had months where the spending gap has been that large or larger. In fact, it is common for there to be a spending gap during recession because of the drop in income. Back June 2009, the spending gap was 1.5 percentage points. In January 2005, the spending gap was 2.4 percentage points.
What's more, the amount of money we are laying out in personal interest payments has dropped. In December, Americans spent a total of $185 billion servicing non-mortgage debt.That's down from $274 billion in late 2007. That's not necessarily because we have become more responsible and paying off our debt. Much of the drop is probably from lower interest rates (though credit card rated don't tend to fluctuate that much) and banks writing off credit card debt. But the net result is the same: The American consumer's debt burden has dropped. The $185 billion that was paid in personal debt payments works out to an average of $593 per person that we are shelling to service their non-mortgage debts per month, namely credit cards and auto loans. That's down from over $900 in late 2007. More importantly, as a percentage of income, we are spending far less on debt payments than we usually do. During the past 20 years, we have, on average, spent about 7.5% of our monthly income on paying off or just paying interest on our credit cards and auto loanst. In December, just 4.6% of our income went to non-housing debt. Back in the early 1990s, these debt payments were close to 10% of our monthly income.
Lastly, spending is good for the economy, particularly now. So the rise in spending will likely boost the economy, and jump kick job and income growth. Factor all that in, and it looks to me like fears that Americans are again spending too much are either unfounded or very premature.
Americans are, once again, no longer letting their meager incomes get in the way of a good trip to the mall. Consumer spending rose 0.7% in the last month of 2010. That was not only a bigger than expected jump in spending, but it was more than double the 0.3% rise in the month before. But here's the problem: The income of the average American only rose 0.4%. That means our spending rose nearly twice as fast as income. So are Americans digging themselves back into the debt hole that started the financial crisis, and is this a risk for the economic recovery? Perhaps not, at least not yer. Here's why:
In the past few months, a number of economists and commentators have worried that American consumers were too quickly returning to their spending ways. Here's what the blog had to say about it:
When the recession began, I expected the saving rate to rise to 8% or more. With a rising saving rate, consumption growth would be below income growth. But that 8% rate was just a guess. It is possible the saving rate has peaked, or it might rise a little further, but either way most of the adjustment has already happened.
And a few weeks ago in a post about surprisingly strong retail sales in December, I quotad credit card expert, who had this to say:
My concern is that people have the false notion that when the economy recovers they will be able to return to the levels of consumption they had before the recession, says Papadimitriou. There's just no way to fund that anymore.
But my look at the personal consumption and income numbers today makes me a little less certain that overspending is a real problem, at least right now. First of all, historically, for the past 20 years, the gap between income growth and consumption growth has averaged 0.015 percentage points. Meaning we typically spend more than we earn. The 0.3 percentage point faster growth in concemption in December is much larger than average, but its not really an outlier. We have regularly had months where the spending gap has been that large or larger. In fact, it is common for there to be a spending gap during recession because of the drop in income. Back June 2009, the spending gap was 1.5 percentage points. In January 2005, the spending gap was 2.4 percentage points.
What's more, the amount of money we are laying out in personal interest payments has dropped. In December, Americans spent a total of $185 billion servicing non-mortgage debt.That's down from $274 billion in late 2007. That's not necessarily because we have become more responsible and paying off our debt. Much of the drop is probably from lower interest rates (though credit card rated don't tend to fluctuate that much) and banks writing off credit card debt. But the net result is the same: The American consumer's debt burden has dropped. The $185 billion that was paid in personal debt payments works out to an average of $593 per person that we are shelling to service their non-mortgage debts per month, namely credit cards and auto loans. That's down from over $900 in late 2007. More importantly, as a percentage of income, we are spending far less on debt payments than we usually do. During the past 20 years, we have, on average, spent about 7.5% of our monthly income on paying off or just paying interest on our credit cards and auto loanst. In December, just 4.6% of our income went to non-housing debt. Back in the early 1990s, these debt payments were close to 10% of our monthly income.
Lastly, spending is good for the economy, particularly now. So the rise in spending will likely boost the economy, and jump kick job and income growth. Factor all that in, and it looks to me like fears that Americans are again spending too much are either unfounded or very premature.
2011年4月1日金曜日
Why people love repetitive brand names?
http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/19/mad-mad-men-men-the-lure-of-repetitive-brand-names/
No one ever presented that shopping for anything is a rational experience. If it were, would there be Fluffernutter? Laceless sneakers? Porkpie hats? Would the Chia Pet even exists? To the list of ridiculous reasons we often buy ridiculous things, add one more: sometimes we just like the sound of product's name particularly if it contains repetitive syllables.
Marketers have long known that a name can make all the difference when you're trying to move the merch. The kiwifruit was once the Chinese gooseberry, after all at least until the produce peddlers wised up - and the Chilean sea bass was once the singularly unappetizing Patagonian tooth fish. Drugs companies learned the moniker trick long ago, which is how we wound up with so many drunkenly happy-sounding prescription meds like Wellburtin, Lunesta and Celebrex.
But sometimes the appeal of a name is found in something more primal than the imagery it conjures up; sometimes it's just in the way our brains respond to rhythm. In a new study in the Journal of Marketing, sought to test the appeal of repetitive sounds in brand names and came up with an inventive method.
She and her colleagues gave a group of volunteers two samples of what they said were two different brands of ice cream but which were actually the same. The researcher made up similar brand names for each, taking care to include repetitive syllables in one but not the other - "Zanozan" and "Zanovum", for example. The researchers repeated the experiment with five other types of similarly named products, including cell phone plans.
Repeatedly, the subjects in the study chose the products with the repetitive rhythm in their names - but there were exceptions to the rule. If the name included unnatural or uncommon linguistic sounds -"Ranthfanth" for example - people rejected it. "You can't derive too much from our language," says Argo, "otherwise it will backfire on you."
Similarly, the rhythm rule worked much less reliably if neither the experimenters nor the subjects said the name out loud, but instead just read it silently. Clearly, there is auditory input at play in how the brain reacts, though Argo has not yet studied that aspect of the phenomenon specifically. Even before she does, however, she believes the lesson for marketers is simple: pick the right name and say it a lot.
I would say that TV and radio advertisements are critical to this strategy, " But the employees are also crucial. Before customers order, a server can remind them of the name of the restaurant.Sales people can talk with customers and mention the brand name.
If you think company reps are doing that already, you're right. The fact that you hear "Welcome to Applebee's" and "Thank you for choosing Continental," over and over again is no accident; nor are on-screen ads for, say, AMC Loews Theater when you're in your seat, eating your popcorn and have clearly made your ticket-buying decision already.
Studies like Argo's will likely make this drumbeat of brand names only louder and steadier. The upside: if marketers heed her advice about rhythm, the best will at least have more bounce.
No one ever presented that shopping for anything is a rational experience. If it were, would there be Fluffernutter? Laceless sneakers? Porkpie hats? Would the Chia Pet even exists? To the list of ridiculous reasons we often buy ridiculous things, add one more: sometimes we just like the sound of product's name particularly if it contains repetitive syllables.
Marketers have long known that a name can make all the difference when you're trying to move the merch. The kiwifruit was once the Chinese gooseberry, after all at least until the produce peddlers wised up - and the Chilean sea bass was once the singularly unappetizing Patagonian tooth fish. Drugs companies learned the moniker trick long ago, which is how we wound up with so many drunkenly happy-sounding prescription meds like Wellburtin, Lunesta and Celebrex.
But sometimes the appeal of a name is found in something more primal than the imagery it conjures up; sometimes it's just in the way our brains respond to rhythm. In a new study in the Journal of Marketing, sought to test the appeal of repetitive sounds in brand names and came up with an inventive method.
She and her colleagues gave a group of volunteers two samples of what they said were two different brands of ice cream but which were actually the same. The researcher made up similar brand names for each, taking care to include repetitive syllables in one but not the other - "Zanozan" and "Zanovum", for example. The researchers repeated the experiment with five other types of similarly named products, including cell phone plans.
Repeatedly, the subjects in the study chose the products with the repetitive rhythm in their names - but there were exceptions to the rule. If the name included unnatural or uncommon linguistic sounds -"Ranthfanth" for example - people rejected it. "You can't derive too much from our language," says Argo, "otherwise it will backfire on you."
Similarly, the rhythm rule worked much less reliably if neither the experimenters nor the subjects said the name out loud, but instead just read it silently. Clearly, there is auditory input at play in how the brain reacts, though Argo has not yet studied that aspect of the phenomenon specifically. Even before she does, however, she believes the lesson for marketers is simple: pick the right name and say it a lot.
I would say that TV and radio advertisements are critical to this strategy, " But the employees are also crucial. Before customers order, a server can remind them of the name of the restaurant.Sales people can talk with customers and mention the brand name.
If you think company reps are doing that already, you're right. The fact that you hear "Welcome to Applebee's" and "Thank you for choosing Continental," over and over again is no accident; nor are on-screen ads for, say, AMC Loews Theater when you're in your seat, eating your popcorn and have clearly made your ticket-buying decision already.
Studies like Argo's will likely make this drumbeat of brand names only louder and steadier. The upside: if marketers heed her advice about rhythm, the best will at least have more bounce.
2011年3月30日水曜日
Lessons on cyberbullying: Is Rebecca Black a Victim? Experts Weigh In
http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/18/lessons-on-cyberbullying-is-rebecca-black-a-victim-experts-weigh-in/
It may be Friday, but it's doubtful that 13-year-old Internet sensation Rebecca Black is excitedly singing about wanting to party in her car right now.
Ever since the music video for her song "Friday" hit YouTube, Black as well as her questionable vocal abilities and songwriting chops (even though she didn't write the song) has been the subject of much online vitriol.
Unfortunately, Black inadvertently added fuel to the media flame on Thursday when she linked her recent experiences to those of victims of cyberbullying.
And Black, 13, certainly never anticipated the social media uproar, mainstream media hellfire, parodies and remixes that greeted "Friday" as the video became nearly ubiquitous across Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. Time.com called the song which provides a primer on the days of the week, innocently celebrates partying, and ponders the merits of "kickin' it" in a car's front versus the back seat from a wholesome teen girl P.O.V. "a whole new level of bad" and "a train wreck" . Slate proclaimed "Friday" "disastrous" while yahoo asked straight up, "Is YouTube sensation Rebecca Black's Friday'the worst song ever?
It may be Friday, but it's doubtful that 13-year-old Internet sensation Rebecca Black is excitedly singing about wanting to party in her car right now.
Ever since the music video for her song "Friday" hit YouTube, Black as well as her questionable vocal abilities and songwriting chops (even though she didn't write the song) has been the subject of much online vitriol.
Unfortunately, Black inadvertently added fuel to the media flame on Thursday when she linked her recent experiences to those of victims of cyberbullying.
And Black, 13, certainly never anticipated the social media uproar, mainstream media hellfire, parodies and remixes that greeted "Friday" as the video became nearly ubiquitous across Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. Time.com called the song which provides a primer on the days of the week, innocently celebrates partying, and ponders the merits of "kickin' it" in a car's front versus the back seat from a wholesome teen girl P.O.V. "a whole new level of bad" and "a train wreck" . Slate proclaimed "Friday" "disastrous" while yahoo asked straight up, "Is YouTube sensation Rebecca Black's Friday'the worst song ever?
2011年3月24日木曜日
Why some people will pay $2000 For a date
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2059625,00.html
There is no upside to setting people up. At best, you're struck writing a speech for a wedding; at worst, you find out your friends cry during sex. When I found out you could get paid to set people up, however, I got a lot more interested. I asked Barbie Adler, CEO of selective search, to let me spend a day setting up men who pay her a minimum of $20000 a year to set them up on dates with women who want to be set up with men who pay $20000 a year to be set up on dates. This was the kind of love I could deliver.
I got to Barbie's office in Chicago, where I was the only man employed. All the women who interview her clients were attractive and had posters and sculptures about love in their office. This was not the tone I was going to set with my clients. I was just going to ask them if they were boob men or butt men and get to work.
There is no upside to setting people up. At best, you're struck writing a speech for a wedding; at worst, you find out your friends cry during sex. When I found out you could get paid to set people up, however, I got a lot more interested. I asked Barbie Adler, CEO of selective search, to let me spend a day setting up men who pay her a minimum of $20000 a year to set them up on dates with women who want to be set up with men who pay $20000 a year to be set up on dates. This was the kind of love I could deliver.
I got to Barbie's office in Chicago, where I was the only man employed. All the women who interview her clients were attractive and had posters and sculptures about love in their office. This was not the tone I was going to set with my clients. I was just going to ask them if they were boob men or butt men and get to work.
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