happiness

What makes us happy? There's no simple answer (sorry), though this 70-year-long longitudinal study on well-being offers some fascinating insight. Humility helps, so do our reactions to life's woes, and "the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people."

Also in today's links: customer-unfriendly shopping innovations, it pays to be tall, and more.

This is strange: to predict how successful your marriage will be, take out an old yearbook picture of yourself. Are you smiling big, just like the class photographer wanted you to do? That's a good indicator that you're not going to get divorced.

Also in today's links: wolves in Montana, allergies to fruit and veggies, and more.

I was feeling sick I was losing my mind I heard about these treatments
From a good friend of mine he was always happy smile on his face
He said he had a great time at the place...
Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment
Gimme gimme shock treatment I wanna, wanna shock treatment....
Peace and love is here to stay
and now I can wake up and face the day
Happy happy happy all the time shock treatment, I'm doing fine
- The Ramones

Don't stick you finger in the electrical socket! That's one of the first things you learn as a kid, right? Otherwise, as all proper cartoons show, you'll end up with singed eyebrows and a wild poufy Einstein-style 'do. But all joking aside, electrocution is a serious business. People die from electrical burns, whether they have been hit by lightening or deliberately executed in the electric chair. (If you're worried about the former, and you find yourself the tallest object in an open field during an electrical storm, LIE DOWN. If you are worried about the latter...stay out of trouble. Or write to your congress person.) Bottom line, most people prefer not to be zapped with electricity...except when it can cure disease.

Psychiatrists currently use electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for a variety of psychiatric disorders, but most commonly ECT is used for severe, treatment-resistant major depression, usually for inpatients who are too depressed to function outside the hospital.

A smile is infectious, as the saying goes, and now scientists have proven it. In spades. A study published today in British Medical Journal shows that happiness acts like a blessed disease: it can spread from person to person through social channels. On average, the study finds, every happy friend increases your own chance of being happy by 9 percent.