Thanksgiving 2012 Myths and Facts

Before the big dinner, debunk the myths—for starters, the first "real" U.S. Thanksgiving wasn't until the 1800s—and get to the roots of Thanksgiving 2012.

Thanksgiving Dinner: Recipe for Food Coma?

Key to any Thanksgiving Day menu are a fat turkey and cranberry sauce.

An estimated 254 million turkeys will be raised for slaughter in the U.S. during 2012, up 2 percent from 2011's total, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service. Last year's birds were worth about five billion dollars.

About 46 million turkeys ended up on U.S. dinner tables last Thanksgiving—or about 736 million pounds (334 million kilograms) of turkey meat, according to estimates from the National Turkey Federation.

Minnesota is the United States' top turkey-producing state, followed by North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia, and Indiana.

These "big six" states produce two of every three U.S.-raised birds, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

U.S. farmers will also produce 768 million pounds (348 million kilograms) of cranberries in 2012, which, like turkeys, are native to the Americas. The top producers are Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

The U.S. will also grow 2.7 billion pounds (1.22 billion kilograms) of sweet potatoes—many in North Carolina, Mississippi, California, and Louisiana—and will produce more than 1.1 billion pounds (499 million kilograms) of pumpkins.

Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio grow the most U.S. pumpkins.

But if you overeat at Thanksgiving dinner, there's a price to be paid for all this plenty: the Thanksgiving "food coma." The post-meal fatigue may be real, but the condition is giving turkeys a bad rap.

Contrary to myth, the amount of the organic amino acid tryptophan in most turkeys isn't responsible for drowsiness.

Instead, scientists blame booze, the sheer caloric size of an average feast, or just plain-old relaxing after stressful work schedules. 

First Thanksgiving Not a True Thanksgiving?

Long before the first Thanksgiving, American Indian peoples, Europeans, and other cultures around the world had often celebrated the harvest season with feasts to offer thanks to higher powers for their sustenance and survival.

In 1541 Spaniard Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his troops celebrated a "Thanksgiving" while searching for New World gold in what is now the Texas Panhandle.

Later such feasts were held by French Huguenot colonists in present-day Jacksonville, Florida (1564), by English colonists and Abnaki Indians at Maine's Kennebec River (1607), and in Jamestown, Virginia (1610), when the arrival of a food-laden ship ended a brutal famine. 

Courtesy: NGC

Math Can Be Truly Painful, Brain Study Shows

Actually doing math, as is this girl in Cambodia, seems to be less painful than contemplating it.

Does the thought of 1+1=ouch?

If you hate math, it might—literally. According to a new study, the mere prospect of a math problem causes pain centers to light up in number-phobic brains.

Researchers at the University of Chicago measured the neural activity of 28 adults—14 who'd been identified with high math anxiety and 14 with low math anxiety. Each subject was given a series of word and math questions (some of which are below) while his or her brain was scanned.

Result: When those in the high-anxiety group saw a math task was coming, their dorso-posterior insulas and mid-cingulate cortexes—the parts of the brain that perceive pain and bodily threats—reacted as if the subject's hand had been burned on a hot stove. Those in the low-anxiety group showed no such response.

What's more, said study co-author Ian Lyons, "the anxiety occurred only during anticipation. When they actually did the math problems, they didn't seem to experience pain. That suggests it's not the math itself that hurts; it's the thought of it that's painful."

Previous studies have shown that psychologically stressful events—like the end of a romantic relationship—can cause physical discomfort. This study, published last week by Lyons and co-author Sian Beilock in the journal PLOS ONE, may be the first to show that anticipation alone can register in the brain as pain. 

"It's purely a psychological interpretation," said Lyons, and X at Y. "Math is just numbers on a page—there's no way that they can actually hurt you."

Still, he says, "People who have high math anxiety typically do badly at math, on everything from SAT scores to laboratory tasks. And they tend to avoid math-related career paths."

Could some of us have evolved that way?

"We don't think so," Lyons said. "Math is a relatively recent cultural invention—it's just a few thousand years old. So this response seems to be driven by a person's direct experiences. But if those experiences have been bad, the person interprets the notion of math as being threatening, and in this case, even painful."

Lyons thinks his team's findings might apply to things beyond math. "We would not at all be surprised to see this generalized to other phobias—fear of heights, for instance—or other types or testing anxiety."

Can anything quell a math hater's brain pain?

"The initial step is to get over the anxiety," Lyons said. And this is one case where practice doesn't make perfect: "Doing piles of math homework isn't a good idea. But finding a way to be more comfortable with the idea of math is."

Does fear of math hurt your head?

Take this quiz and see. (Note: In the actual experiment, problems were presented one at a time. Each one had to be solved in five seconds. And participants couldn't use scratch paper—they had to solve everything in their heads.)

1) Does 8×9-16=56?

2) Does 7×8-19=37?

3) Does 5×9-16=27?

4) Does 8×5-19=23?

5) Does 6×7-17=27?

6) Does 9×4-17=19?

Scroll for answers.

Answers

1. yes
2. yes
3. no
4. no
5. no
6. yes

Courtesy: NGC

Pratibha Cauvery Drifted to the shores of Marina Beach

An Indian flag vessel, Pratibha Cauvery, with 37 members on board and carrying bunker oil, drifted to the shores of Marina beach  from the Chennai port’s outer anchorage in the strong winds and ran aground.

The 28,741 dead weight tonne Pratibha Cauvery, which belongs to the Mumbai-based Pratibha Shipping, was in the Chennai port’s outer anchorage since yesterday afternoon, but drifted ashore at 2. 21 p.m. following heavy winds of nearly 100 kmph. The ship is currently sighted at Besant Nagar beach in South Chennai, and is lying 3.50 nautical miles south off the port.

The ship was carrying two tonnes of light diesel oil and 355 tonnes of furnace oil. About 20 crew members jumped into the water to take the life boat. However, the boat capsized and the crew members tried to swim ashore.