Researchers report that 4-year-olds who had just watched the fast-paced fantasy cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants” — which follows the undersea adventures of a yellow sponge — did worse on tests of attention and problem-solving than young children who watched a slower-paced educational program or spent time drawing.

Officials from Nickelodeon, the network that produces “SpongeBob,” dismissed the significance of the study, saying in a statement that preschool-age children are not the show’s intended audience. “SpongeBob” is designed for 6- to 11-year-olds, according to the network, which questioned the study’s small sample size of white middle- and upper-middle-class children.

The study, which appeared in the Sept. 12 issue of the journal Pediatrics, involved 60 children whose parents reported similar levels of television-watching and attention skills. The children were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one watched nine minutes of the cartoon, another viewed nine minutes of the educational program “Caillou,” and the remaining group spent the time with drawing paper, markers and crayons.

The tests were administered immediately after the children watched the program and were designed to assess what is known as children’s executive function, which underlies attention, working memory, problem-solving and the delay of gratification. The children were given tasks that involved following instructions, reversing the order of numbers and resisting treats.

“The children who watched the cartoon were operating at half the capacity compared to other children,” said Angeline S. Lillard, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and one of the paper’s authors.

She said the effect was not specific to “SpongeBob SquarePants” and has also been demonstrated with other fast-paced cartoons in which “there are lot of things happening that can’t happen in real life — magical things going on in totally new places, the bed catapults you out and you land in a lake wearing an astronaut costume — and happen in fast succession.”

“There is so much stuff that’s hard to assimilate, it might be disrupting the child’s thinking process, so they may not be able to grasp the messages that are educational,” Dr. Lillard said. “This suggests the brain is working very hard to register it all and gets exhausted afterward.”

Asked whether the fatigue might indicate that some kind of learning had occurred while watching “SpongeBob SquarePants,” she said the random and unpredictable nature of the cartoon was more likely to “disrupt the ability to focus rather than strengthen it.”

The study is one of the first to use a control group and randomization to try to gauge the impact of different types of television on children, and to look at the type of show rather than the amount of television watched, said Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, director of behavior and development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, who wrote an accompanying editorial.

“It’s important for parents to know that not all viewing is the same. It’s not just about turning the TV off, but about changing the channel,” Dr. Christakis said.

He noted that the study had “notable weaknesses,” including its small sample size and the lack of adequate blinding. In addition, the children were not assessed before the viewing and drawing, relying instead on parental reports.

But the findings, Dr. Christakis says, could have “profound implications for children’s cognitive and social development.” In his editorial, though, he notes that “there is a competing school of thought that the digital-native generation is becoming acculturated in ways that will make it well suited to the fast-paced world they will grow to inherit.”

Television viewing data show that Sponge Bob is watched by very young children. During the past 8 months, 1.74 million children aged 14 and younger have watched the show. Among those viewers, 39 percent were between the ages of 2 and 5, according to Nielsen.

The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages television for children under 2, recommending other activities like reading, playing, singing and talking with a child, and it suggests limiting older children to no more than two hours of total entertainment media time, preferably of high-quality programming.

“As parents, we often assume that if it’s a cartoon, it’s fine,” Dr. Rahil Briggs, a psychologist and director of the Healthy Steps Program at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx said in commenting on the study.

But she said the fast-paced fantastical sequences of some programs might actually prime the early childhood brain to “not be able to pay attention to something that is not so fantastic. You may be priming the brain to be almost A.D.H.D.-like impulsive.”

From the expert's view about alcohol habits for girls. Alcohol by itself won’t make girls look old before their time. However, somebody says, “Partiers tend to eat miscellaneous things at the bar (like greasy nachos, cheesy potato skins, and chicken wings) that aren’t great for them,” which can lead to that chunky, middle-age look. People who drink this way are also more likely than nondrinkers to smoke and to breathe in secondhand smoke in bars, which contributes to wrinkles and higher risks of heart disease and cancer. (Alcohol may also dehydrate you, and that’s never good for the skin.)

But the real problem with binge drinking—or even just two drinks a day for women—is the toll it takes on the inside of your body, not the outside. “If you have more than seven drinks per week, it actually reduces bone mass,” says Janet Greenhut, MD, MPH, senior medical consultant at HealthMedia, which provides online behaviorial help, like alcohol counseling, for health plans and employers. “Also, if someone is in the habit of binge drinking—having four or more drinks in a two-hour period—she’s more prone to falls, and she’s at higher risk for fracture because her bone mass is lower.”

Studies clearly show, too, that more than one drink a day makes you more prone to breast cancer. Researchers at the European Cancer Conference recently reported that the risk rises 10% for women who have between one and two drinks a day, compared with women who have less than one, and the risk increases by 30% at more than three drinks per day. And don’t think you lower the risk by drinking wine instead of beer or something harder. The same research says any kind of alcohol ups the risk. Uterine cancer risks go up at two or more drinks a day, as well. What does alcohol have against breasts and uteruses? Experts say it seems to boost estrogen levels, which in some cases cranks up cancer risks.

Lets face with some of definitions. Groups of scientists have stated the following:

1.from "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" (1994), an editorial statement by fifty-two researchers:

A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.

2.from "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" (1995), a report published by the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association:

Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person's intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions, and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions.

Definitions are taking the suggesting the solution sometimes. That's why we have them. So, as we see here some things are repeating such as reasoning, problem solving abilities which can be taught from the reading skills, learning, practising and just understanding.

The Books are better than other things. From many many years people are used to read and only books teach them to become literate person and despite of the developing modern technology devices the selling of the books are never giving up. Vise versa bestsellers have never stop marketing and publishing because they have their readers. People nowadays should tend to be well-read in order to sit facing to the television during whole day from the affect of being obsessed with tv and receive unneceessary informations like advertisement "how to be a rich person? how to lose weights? how to learn languages from a few seconds? and so on., different channels propogand their ideas how to get money by attracting people from their unsuitable, informal programms. I'm not critisizing all channels somehow we have good channels and receive useful information but not from all of them. the books have a bit the same functions but books give oppurtunity to right to choose for people what to feel, how to manupulate the feelings during reading period. Nevertheless books are the first sources from where all information brings.

The major con to cohabitation is that you many people see it as a road test for marriage and run at the first sign of trouble. Thus, many studies have found that living together before marriage is not necessarily a good idea because it does not automatically mean that the two of you will end up together or lower the potential for divorce. In fact, some studies have even suggested that living together before marriage might increase a couple's risk for divorce. Another major con to cohabitation before marriage is that it can lead to isolation, as one might be less inclined to seek the contact of friends and loved ones outside of the living space. Thus, it is important to talk about all of these pros and cons before you move in together.http://www.life123.com/relationships/issues/cohabitation/cohabitation-before-marriage-a-good-idea.shtml

fisrtly government should increase people's intests to work....I mean to organise more attractive competition with reliable presents, prizes, bonuses, premiums... where people can be able to find any stimulus to work properly.

I think that cohabitation before marriage is not appropriate for future family men and women. Because first of all it depends the culture where we live...in many cultures is not suitable to live together before the marriage. That's why it might be disorder in cultural morality. Secondly if people properly decided to live together it means that they are ready to get marry(Sinclair A.,2009). So, if in the case of changing the thought of being in married relationships people can divorce. But if they live before marriage together they might bother from each other as well and don't know the exactly benefits of getting marry(Adams K., 2003)

So, why don't you ask that killing horses or cows or pigs or even Chinese dainty - insects for food is exactly wrong!? I think you are going to say that people should not eat any meat and to be a vegetarian. nevertheless mentioned all points are also the foods for people and also they have many vitamins, irons, fats, proteins etc.

I think it is important to think and to feel others attitude and their reactions for each situation. As our specialist in history sphere, professor Abylhozhin emphasized that those people who think, feel, trying to understand others and trying to change something and someone are called 'intelligent" people. Because they feel more, they know how to influence people to each others. Intelligent people are always investigating others attitude and their way of thinking.

Because somehow it is protection system for each person. I think we should initially know when people lie...1) when they want to save them self, 2) when they feel that they can be able to hurt someone, 2) when they want to reach the benefits from something, etc there are millions of reasons why people are using falsehood. So i want to emphasize that all mentioned points are similar for each individuals. We lie not because we want and decided before, we lie because frequently need to lie that's why people use falsehood.