ScienceDaily: Living Well News

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• Today's domestic turkeys are genetically distinct from wild ancestors
• Smoking in pregnancy tied to lower reading scores
• Comments, traffic statistics help empower bloggers
• Happy youngsters more likely to grow into wealthy adults, study finds
• More female board directors add up to improved sustainability performance
• A more peaceful world awaits, statistical analysis suggests
• Pain medication addiction reaching epidemic level

Today's domestic turkeys are genetically distinct from wild ancestors Posted: 19 Nov 2012 02:12 PM PST No Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a succulent roasted turkey. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that consumers cook and eat more than 45 million turkeys every Thanksgiving. Very few Americans, however, know much about the difference between their gravy-smothered poultry and the poultry that earlier generations of Americans ate to celebrate the holiday. "Ancient turkeys weren't your Butterball," said Rob Fleischer, head of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics. "We set out to compare the genetic diversity of the domestic turkeys we eat today with that of the ancestral wild turkey from South Mexico. Some of what we found surprised us."

Smoking in pregnancy tied to lower reading scores Posted: 19 Nov 2012 01:37 PM PST Researchers have found that children born to mothers who smoked more than one pack per day during pregnancy struggled on tests designed to measure how accurately a child reads aloud and comprehends what they read.

Comments, traffic statistics help empower bloggers Posted: 19 Nov 2012 01:36 PM PST Whether bloggers are writing to change the world, or just discussing a bad break-up, they may get an extra boost of motivation from traffic-measuring and interactive tools that help them feel more connected to and more influential in their communities, according to researchers.

Happy youngsters more likely to grow into wealthy adults, study finds Posted: 19 Nov 2012 12:13 PM PST The first in-depth investigation of whether youthful happiness leads to greater wealth in later life reveals that, even allowing for other influences, happy adolescents are likely to earn more money as adults.

More female board directors add up to improved sustainability performance Posted: 19 Nov 2012 06:46 AM PST As a corporate responsibility consultant, one expert publicly criticized Apple's recent appointment of another man to an already all-male executive team. New research goes one step further, indicating that the number of women on a corporate board correlates with a firm's sustainability performance.

A more peaceful world awaits, statistical analysis suggests Posted: 19 Nov 2012 06:38 AM PST Statistical analyses show that the world will be more peaceful in the future. In about 40 years only half as many countries will be in conflict. The decrease will be greatest in the Middle East, a statistical model suggests.

Pain medication addiction reaching epidemic level Posted: 19 Nov 2012 06:36 AM PST Addiction to pain medication is creating new challenges for physicians. Would you believe -- hydrocodone was the most prescribed drug in America in 2011?

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