Why yawning is contagious?

The yawn reflex has long been observed to be contagious: in 1508, Erasmus wrote: "One man's yawning makes another yawn," and the French proverbialized the idea to "Un bon bâilleur en fait bâillier deux." ("One good gaper makes two others gape"). Often, if one person yawns, this may cause another person to "sympathetically" yawn. Observing another person's yawning face (especially his/her eyes), even reading, or thinking about yawning, or looking at a yawning picture can cause a person to yawn. Chances are you have already yawned at least once while reading this article! The proximate cause for contagious yawning may lie with mirror neurons, i.e., neurons in the frontal cortex of certain vertebrates, which upon being exposed to a stimulus from conspecific (same species) and occasionally interspecific organisms, activates the same regions in the brain. Mirror neurons have been proposed as a driving force for imitation, which lies at the root of much human learning, e.g., language acquisition. Yawning may be an offshoot of the same imitative impulse.

A 2007 study found that young children with autism spectrum disorders do not increase their yawning frequency after seeing videos of other people yawning, in contrast to typically developing children. In fact, the autistic children actually yawned less during the videos of yawning than during the control videos. This supports the claim that contagious yawning is related to empathic capacity.

This phenomenon has been observed among various primates. Here the yawn is a threat gesture, a way of maintaining order in the primates' social structure. Specific studies were conducted on chimpanzees and stump tail macaques. A group of these animals was shown a video of other conspecifics yawning; both species yawned as well. This helps to partly confirm a yawn's "contagiousness."

The Discovery Channel's show Mythbusters also tested this concept. In their small scale, informal study they concluded that yawning is contagious.

Gordon Gallup, who hypothesizes that yawning may be a means of keeping the brain cool, also hypothesizes that "contagious" yawning may be a survival instinct inherited from our evolutionary past. "During human evolutionary history when we were subject to predation and attacks by other groups, if everybody yawns in response to seeing someone yawn, the whole group becomes much more vigilant, and much better at being able to detect danger."

A recent study by the University of London has suggested that the "contagiousness" of yawns by a human will pass to dogs. The study observed that 21 of 29 dogs yawned when a stranger yawned in front of them, but did not yawn when the stranger only opened his mouth.

 

The interference of Social Networking Sites in Census: Facebook, Twitter to be used for Census 2011

Bhopal: Social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter will also used to make people aware of the importance of Census 2011, an official said Friday.

The Madhya Pradesh government and the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) held a day-long workshop on the role of media in Census 2011.

It was announced that two pages on census related information had already been made on Facebook.

"While the centre's brand ambassadors are Sachin Tendulkar and actress Priyanka Chopra, lyricist Gulzar and television actress Divyanka Tripathi would be the brand ambassadors for census work in Madhya Pradesh," said Sachin Sinha, director of the directorate for census work.

"It is a real challenge for us to include everyone - from beggars to the elite class - in census," he said.

The second phase of Census 2011 will begin Feb 9 and continue till 28 across India.





Source: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Facebook_Twitter_to_be_used_for_Census_2011-nid-78385-cid--sid-.html

Bihar's entrepreneurs dreams to make India's vegetable hub

PATNA: He is called the "MBA sabziwalla" and wants to make Bihar India's vegetable hub. Kaushlendra, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), is now working towards pre-paid cards for buying vegetables but complains of irritating hurdles that discourage budding entrepreneurs.

Kaushlendra, who refused to join a multinational company like his peers as he wanted to work towards making Bihar a better place, says something as simple as en-cashing a cheque can take days.

"There are many small things that impede the growth of an entrepreneur in Bihar. We cannot compete with entrepreneurs of other states because other support services come at huge indirect and direct costs," Kaushlendra, a topper of the IIM-A's 2007 batch, told IANS in an interview.

His earlier project of selling vegetables through ice-cooled push-carts became a hit in Bihar and Kaushlendra, in his 20s, now is working hard on his Organised Vegetable Marketing (ORVEM) project to enable people to buy vegetables through pre-paid cards.

But he is unhappy as a cheque deposited three months back has still not been credited.

"A cheque of 20,000 was deposited in my company account three months back and it has not been credited till date. When we inquired Jan 27 and sent a person to the State Bank of India branch in Hilsa in Nalanda district, we were astonished to find they have debited it to another's account Dec 15, 2010. And till date they have not sent the amount to my bank in Patna," he rued.

"They say they'll courier the cheque now, but I'm not sure they will...these small things have ruined many entrepreneurs in Bihar in the past and we do not know whether we will survive this or not," a frustrated Kaushlendra said.

He gave another example of the Madhya Bihar Gramin Bank's (MBGB) Kankarbagh branch in Patna not disbursing a loan amount.

"It sanctioned a loan for nine AC carts to our nine vendors under the government scheme but they are not disbursing the amount...what I have been able to understand is that the bank is looking for some under-the-table dealing that we never do or promote," the bespectacled youth said.

"The bank always procrastinates on this issue. The manufacturer of the cart is sitting on my head and we are finding ourselves helpless," Kaushlendra added.

He wondered how common people in the state manage to get their work done if an educated man like him faced so many problems.

A native of a village in Nalanda, which also happens to be Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's home district, Kaushlendra said he wanted to make vegetables the new brand of Bihar.

Hailing from a farmer family himself, he started his NGO Kaushalya Foundation two years ago and his push-cart was his first venture two years ago.

After topping IIM-A, he did extensive field work -- meeting farmers and studying cultivation techniques -- before he started the project.

Kaushlendra recalled that after doing his MBA, he and his friends and teachers from IIM-A developed a push-cart to make it easy for vendors to carry a vegetable load of up to 200 kg.

In a bid to establish direct links with vegetable growers, Kaushlendra has tied up with over 250 vegetable growers in different villages in Nalanda and Patna districts.

He has also tied up with the Agriculture Training and Management Agency (ATMA) to take his dream to vegetable producers in different parts of state.

Kaushlendra said Bihar has an enormous untapped potential for vegetables. The vegetables produced in fertile land near the Ganga river can mark a turnaround for the state if marketed properly.

He recently launched his push-cart service in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh too and claims pre-paid cards to buy vegetables will help customers avoid the usual rush in busy markets and will also offer additional services.




Source: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Bihars_entrepreneur_dreams_to_make_Indias_vegetable_hub-nid-78456.html?utm_campaign=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Subscriber

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