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Fun fact: People who regularly play non-digital games (such as cards and board games) are more likely to score better on memory and thinking tests when they’re in their 70s.
If you’re interested in maintaining your mental acuity over time, board games for the brain may just help you out!

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If you want to stay sharp in your 70s, games are a great way to exercise your brain. But digital games (such as video games and games on your phone) just won’t cut it. The link between mental acuity in later life and games seems to apply only to physical games like board games and playing cards.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh “tested more than 1000 people aged 70 for memory, problem solving, thinking speed and general thinking ability,” according to Science Daily (cited below). “Those who regularly played non-digital games scored better on memory and thinking tests in their 70s, the research found.”

The power of board games for the brain

Interestingly, the study also found that “People who increased game playing during their 70s were more likely to maintain certain thinking skills as they grew older.”

Scientists discovered the connection after testing their subjects every three years, until they reached age 79. They compared test results to how often people reported playing games like cards, chess, bingo, or crossword puzzles.

The team also factored in the scores from the subject’s intelligence tests when they were 11 years old and considered factors like lifestyle, economic status, and activity levels so that they could be reasonably sure that the games were the underlying factor for better memory test scores. (The participants were part of a group called the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. They were all born in 1936 and have been tracked in a variety of ways throughout their lives.)

They found that: “People who increased game playing in later years were found to have experienced less decline in thinking skills in their seventies — particularly in memory function and thinking speed.”

Protecting cognitive health

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK, said of the study: “Even though some people’s thinking skills can decline as we get older, this research is further evidence that it doesn’t have to be inevitable. The connection between playing board games and other non-digital games later in life and sharper thinking and memory skills adds to what we know about steps we can take to protect our cognitive health, including not drinking excess alcohol, being active and eating a healthy diet.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Playing board games may help protect thinking skills in old age” — Science Daily

Astronaut Leland Melvin was told he could bring his family to his NASA photoshoot. So he did – they just happened to be his two rescue dogs (which he had to sneak into the facility). The result is an epic astronaut photo.

Who is Leland Melvin?

Leland Melvin was a NASA astronaut and current dog lover. He was a member of the 24th shuttle mission to the International Space Station which helped deliver and install the European Space Agency’s Columbus Laboratory.

But Leland Melvin’s got quite a history aside from that. He’s also the only person drafted into the National Football League to have flown in space!

Melvin has a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and a Master’s degree in materials science engineering and played for the Detroit Lions. After his football career, he worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center “in the area of nondestructive testing creating optical fiber sensors for measuring damage in aerospace vehicles, resulting in publications in numerous scientific journals.”

He has also served as head of NASA Education and co-chair of the White House’s Federal Coordination in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S.T.E.M.) Education Task Force, the United States representative and chair of the International Space Education Board (ISEB), and won the NFL Players Association “Award of Excellence.”

Oh, and he’s even been a celebrity judge on Top Chef and appeared on an episode of Cesar Milian’s The Dog Whisperer with his dog Jake.

Sneaking dogs into NASA

According to the American Kennel Club: “The world got to know [Leland Melvin] as the ‘coolest astronaut in the galaxy’ through an iconic 2009 photo that, thanks to the web, became nearly as famous as Betty Grable’s World War II pinup poster. No one could forget Melvin’s official NASA portrait, known as the ‘Astro Dog’ shot.”

Blaring his stereo to drown out their barking and prepared with 100 milkbones to distract the pups so no one notices they were on site, Melvin drove onto the Johnson Space Center in Houston site for his official photo with his two dogs, Jake and Scout.

Dogs weren’t allowed on site, so he had to hide them all day, only letting them out when the photographer came in to start snapping photos. — WTF fun facts

Source: “About Leland Melvin” — Leland Melvin Official Website

According to a new study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, your ability to balance on one foot may indicate better health and a longer life expectancy.

People in the study who were aged 51 to 75 and couldn’t balance on one foot for over 10 seconds were more likely to die within the next ten years.

According to CNN:

“While aging leads to a decline in physical fitness, muscle strength, and flexibility, balance tends to be reasonably well-preserved until a person’s 50s, when it starts to wane relatively rapidly, the researchers noted. Previous research has linked the inability to stand on one leg to a greater risk of falls and to cognitive decline.”

If you want to try it out, lift your foot and out the front of the foot behind your standing leg. Keep your arms at your side and look straight ahead (focusing on something in the distance often help maintain balance).

If at first you don’t succeed, that’s ok. You get three chances to get your body used to the task. You just can’t use anything to hang onto for support.

CNN explained the correlation between lifespan and balance in the study, citing one of the study’s authors:

“Being able to balance on one leg is important for older people for several reasons, and it is also reflective of wider fitness and health levels, said study author Dr. Claudio Gil Araújo at Exercise Medicine Clinic – CLINIMEX – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ‘We regularly need … a one-legged posture, to move out of a car, to climb or to descend a step or stair and so on. To not have this ability or being afraid in doing so, it is likely related to loss of autonomy and, in consequence, less exercise and the snowball starts,’ he explained.”

So, how did researchers get to their conclusion? One in five study subjects failed the test (balance is tricky!). Then the subjects were followed for seven years. During that time, 7% of study subjects died. But what was significant is that the proportion of people who failed the balance test was much higher than those who passed.

That doesn’t mean you’re doomed if you have bad balance. It just means that it may be indicative of other issues that may affect your health and long life. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Wobbly on one leg? Ability to balance is linked to a longer life, study finds” — CNN

We know about garden gnomes, but what about ornamental hermits? They weren’t made of concrete or resin – they were real people.

In the 18th century, wealthy people with gardens didn’t want to be tacky, so no garden gnomes would do. The fancy way to decorate your garden was with an actual person paid to dress like a Druid, skip the showers, dress in tatty clothing, and wander around the estates.

Very rustic!

A British custom

This was mostly a practice in England, but there were ornamental hermits in Ireland and Scotland as well.

Atlas Obscura took a look at a book written about these interesting professionals by Gordon Campbell, a Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Leicester. In a video explaining his monograph, titled The Hermit in the Garden: From Imperial Rome to Ornamental Gnome, he noted:

“Recruiting a hermit wasn’t always easy. Sometimes they were agricultural workers, and they were dressed in a costume, often in a druid’s costume. There was no agreement on how druids dressed, but in some cases they wore what we would call a dunce’s cap. It’s a most peculiar phenomenon, and understanding it is one of the reasons why I have written this book.”

History of hermits

In his book, Campbell mentions an ad from Sir William Gell’s A Tour in the Lakes Made in 1797, in which he states that ”the hermit is never to leave the place, or hold conversation with anyone for seven years during which he is neither to wash himself or cleanse himself in any way whatever, but is to let his hair and nails both on hands and feet, grow as long as nature will permit them.” 

Apparently, the ornamental hermit can be traced all the way back to the Roman emperor Hadrian. His villa at Tivoli had a small lake with a one-person structure for hermiting oneself away from the world (which, we imagine, would be a nice thing for an emperor to do every now and them). Pope Pius IV may have also built one for himself.

But the structures built for ornamental hermits were mostly for show and not necessarily for spiritual reflection.

How to be a hermit

The hermits were also instructed to be rather dour in order to be authentic. No shoes, no guests, and no smiling.

Atlas Obscura found a 1784 guide to the Hawkstone estate in Shropshire describing how to care for your ornamental hermit:

“You pull a bell, and gain admittance. The hermit is generally in a sitting posture, with a table before him, on which is a skull, the emblem of mortality, an hour-glass, a book and a pair of spectacles. The venerable bare-footed Father, whose name is Francis (if awake) always rises up at the approach of strangers. He seems about 90 years of age, yet has all his sense to admiration. He is tolerably conversant, and far from being unpolite.”

We can’t decide if it sounds like a dream job or a really depressing life.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Before the Garden Gnome, the Ornamental Hermit: A Real Person Paid to Dress like a Druid” — Atlas Obscura