Pregnant women may take heed. Poor diet during the pregnancy may program their babies to become couch potatoes even before they are born. And once triggered in the womb, the ‘slack snacker’ syndrome is likely to follow the offspring all the way to form a lifestyle — at least in animals. That is, if an animal is deprived of food in the womb, it gets adapted to a life of thrift. It is as though laziness is telling the animals not to waste energy.

But there is good news. Your brain is able to visualize activities and later use the images to activate the body to perform them in real-life situations. This is nothing new to scientists, but now we know better. You unconsciously learn complex motor skills (not only ‘what’ but also ‘how’) simply by watching others learn the skill. For instance, you can learn how to plan movements in a game and control your muscles to work towards the best results.

In a study lead by Canadian researcher Andrew Mattar, a team of experimenters asked people to move a handle on a robotic device. One group watched a video featuring a person learning the skill correctly. A second group watched a clip featuring a second person learning the same skill incorrectly. And there was a third group that watched no video. The results give hope to coach potatoes.

Following the video session, when all the volunteers started practicing the skill in real life, the ‘correct’ video group tended to perform best. More surprisingly, the ‘no video’ group performed better than the ‘incorrect’ video group — possibly an indication that watching no cricket is better than watching bad cricket if you aspire to be a player. Anyway, the benefit is not for everybody. Things are specially set for you only if you are leaning from scratch.

If you are split-new, you can speed up your rate of learning in terms of motor skills. And remember that it is not jut about learning which arm or leg to move, but also grasping what sort of force and speed is suitable for your movement. But if you are not learning afresh, getting out and having a few hits of the ball yourself is the only thing you can do about it. A skilled bowler or batsman is unlikely to make it any better just by re-observing people learning how to play cricket.

SNEAK PREVIEW

# Children laugh when tickled, but they also start giggling even before our tickling finger touch them. And rats follow suit. Lab rats not only let out squeaks of joy when tickled by human fingers but also chirp when their handlers just wiggle fingers at them. The fact that both rats and humans emit sounds of joy suggests that the brain circuits involved in laughter are very ancient. The last common ancestor of rats and primates lived about 75 million years ago. Human laughter certainly appears similar to the giggles of romping chimps who make pant-pant sounds that imitate the heavy breathing of exercise.

# Butterflies are not as aimless as they appear to be, as they flutter by on a seemingly lighthearted and happy-go-lucky schedule in gardens and meadows around the world. Some British scientists have tracked butterflies for more than a half-mile at a time. As many a child with a butterfly net has learned, it is not easy to follow a butterfly very far. It looks like the insects always take detours that don’t make much flight sense but actually they zoom along in straight lines at about 6 mph with a few loops thrown in, possibly to look for flowers or perches.

QUIZ NO.177

1. How’s Mahesh Das better known as?

– Birbal
– Prem Chand
– Bappi Lahari
– Vatsyayana

1. Birbal

2. In a certain race, women get the Eschborn Cup and men get the …

– Lugano Trophy
– Eisenhower Trophy
– Presidents Trophy
– Worrel Trophy

2. Lugano Trophy (IAAF World race Walking).

3. “Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians”. Who said it?

– Oscar Wilde
– Charles de Gaulle
– Louis the Bavarian
– Bernard Shaw

3. Charles de Gaulle

4. Whose home is in the forest of Denkali?

– Phantom’s
– Robin Hood’s
– The Seven Dwarfs’
– Rumpelstikin’s

4. Phantom’s

5. Who won in the first ever arm wrestling contest between robots and humans?

– Panna Felsen
– Peter Sheridian
– Patricia Holmes
– Padrick Shulte

5. Panna Felsen (Zebra Crossing #176)

_____________________________________