Section 1
Optimism and Health
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Medical studies are concluding that optimists really do have something to be cheerful about. Coincidental links between optimism and improved general health have been found by researchers. Recently, a Yale University psychologists' study of 660 volunteers aged 50 and above was published. It found that thinking positively about ageing adds an average of seven years to a person's life. The team, led by Dr Becca Levy, suggests that having an optimistic attitude can bolster the will to live, though they admit that they cannot explain it fully.
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Another American research team, however, says they have identified a physical mechanism behind the phenomenon. Their eight-year study of 670 men aged about 63 found that the optimists had significantly better lung function than men who were more pessimistic. This is the first study to show such a link. The research team at Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School believes that attitude somehow strengthens the immune system, and that adopting a more positive outlook may reverse physical decline. 'Preliminary studies on heart patients suggest that by changing a person's outlook, you can improve their mortality risk,' says Dr Rosalind Wright.
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The role of optimism in good health has long been noted but often sidelined. Sigmund Freud, the influential psychologist, linked optimism with ignorance. And from 1970 to 2000 there were 46,000 psychology papers on depression and only 40 on joy.
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Part of that negativity may be blamed on optimists themselves. They are not necessarily fun to have around, says Brice Pitt, the Emeritus Professor of the Psychiatry of Old Age at Imperial College, London. 'Optimists tend to be insufferable people. Always jolly, always up, and, frankly, they have a hopelessly rosy outlook,' he says. 'Depressive people see things as they really are, and that is a disadvantage from an evolutionary point of view. Optimism is a piece of evolutionary equipment that has carried us a long way through millennia of setbacks.'
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Studies show that optimists do better than pessimists in work, school and sports; suffer less depression, achieve more goals, respond better to stress and fight disease better. Among people aged from their mid-nineties into their hundreds, researchers generally fail to find consistencies in diet or exercise (and some still smoke). What the super-aged do tend to share, however, is a positive, optimistic outlook.
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Toshihiko Maruta, of the Mayo Institute, headed an earlier American medical study to find a link between optimism and longevity. Her study found that optimists live about 19 per cent longer than people with grim outlooks. 'It tells us that mind and body are linked and that attitude has an impact on the final outcome: death,' she says. That simple message might have far more effect than exhortations to eat fresh fruit and warnings to stay out of the sun.
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Despite the benefits of unprecedented material wealth, the World Health Organisation estimates that depression is soon to become the second leading cause of disability. Popular wisdom blames this on our frenetically busy society. According to social forecasters at the Henley Centre, while people in developed countries are 65 per cent better off financially today than they were 15 years ago, there is no evidence that they are any more content with their lives. While much of this is down to the perception among many of being rushed and pressured for time and space, it is the perception not the reality that counts, they say.
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The Henley researchers found that if people think they have enough time, space or money, they feel more relaxed about life, regardless of how much of these things they actually have. 'In terms of money, some of the people who "feel" wealthiest, and some of those who "feel" poorest, actually have almost the same amount of money at their disposal. Their attitudes and behaviour patterns, however, are different from one another,' says Chad Wallens, a researcher.
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Few studies have tried to ascertain the proportion of optimists in the world. But a 1995 nationwide survey conducted in the USA for the American magazine Adweek found that about half the population counted themselves as optimists, with women slightly more apt than men (53 per cent versus 48 per cent) to identify themselves thus. That attitude drops, however, to less than a third of people between the ages of 55 and 64, which supports research showing that men, in particular, tend to become more irritable as they get older. Lynn Myers, a psychotherapist, points out, however, that too much optimism can be a bad thing: 'You can be what is called a cock-eyed optimist, the sort of person who smokes but is convinced they will never get lung cancer.' Curiously, though, the Brigham & Women's Hospital study found that optimism was linked to improved lung function even after smoking was taken into account.
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Myers is sceptical about whether there is a simple way that people can become optimistic in order to improve their health chances. 'I certainly would not suggest that there is anything like "six easy lessons to change your outlook". But if you can lower your anxiety levels, it tends to make you more optimistic. Conversely, people who are highly anxious tend to be pessimistic,' she says.
Section 2
A new look for Talbot Park
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The new Talbot Park is immediately eye-catching because the buildings look quite different to other state housing* projects in Auckland. 'There is no reason why state housing should look cheap in my view,' says architect Neil Cotton, one of the design team. 'In fact, I was anticipating a backlash by those who objected to the quality of what is provided with government money.' The tidy brick and wood apartments and townhouses would not look out of place in some of the city's most affluent suburbs and this is a central theme of the Talbot Park philosophy.
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Talbot Park is a triangle of government-owned land, which in the early 1960s was developed for state housing built around a linear garden that ran through the middle. Initially, there was a strong sense of neighbourhoodness. Former residents recall how the garden played a big part in their childhoods – a place where kids came together to play softball, cricket and bullrush. 'We had respect for our neighbours and addressed them by title – Mr and Mrs so-and-so,' recalls Georgie Thompson, who grew up there in the 1960s.
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Exactly what went wrong with Talbot Park is unclear. The community began to change in the late 1970s as more immigrants moved in. The new arrivals didn't always integrate with the community and a 'them and us' mentality developed. In the process, standards dropped and the neighbourhood began to look shabbier. The buildings themselves were also deteriorating and becoming run down, petty crime was on the rise and the garden was considered unsafe. In 2002, Housing New Zealand decided the properties needed upgrading. The question was, how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past?
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One controversial aspect of the upgrade is that the new development has actually made the density of housing in Talbot Park greater, putting 52 more homes on the same site. Doing this required a fresh approach that can be summed up as 'mix and match'. The first priority was to mix up the housing by employing a variety of plans by different architects: some of the accommodation is free-standing houses, some semi-detached, some low level, multi-apartment blocks. By doing this, the development avoids the uniform appearance of so many state housing projects, which residents complain denies them any sense of individual identity. The next goal was to prevent overspending by using efficient designs to maximise the sense of space from minimum room sizes. There was also a no-frills, industrial approach to kitchens, bathrooms and flooring, to optimise durability and ensure the project did not go over budget. Architecturally, the buildings are relatively conservative: fairly plain houses standing in a small garden. There's a slight reflection of the traditional Pacific beach house (a tale) but it's not overplayed. 'It seems to us that low-cost housing is about getting as much amenity as you can for the money,' says architect Michael Thompson. Another key aspect of the 'mix and match' approach is openness: one that not only lets residents see what is going on but also lets them know they are seen. The plan ensures there are no cul-de-sacs or properties hidden from view, that the gardens are not enclosed by trees and that most boundary fences are see-through – a community contained but without walls.
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The population today is cosmopolitan: 50% Pacific Islanders, 20% Maori, 15% Asian, 10% New Zealand European and the rest composed of immigrants from Russia, Ukraine and Iran. 'It was important that the buildings were sufficiently flexible to cater for the needs of people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds,' explains designer James Lundy.
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Despite the quality of the buildings, however, there should be no doubt that Talbot Park and its surrounding suburb of Tamaki are low socio-economic areas. Of the 5,000 houses there, 55% are state houses, 28% privately owned (compared to about 65% nationally) and 17% private rental. The area has a high density of households with incomes in the $5,000 to $15,000 range and very few with an income over $70,000. That's in sharp contrast to the more affluent suburbs in Auckland.
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Another important part of the new development is what Housing New Zealand calls 'intensive tenancy management'. Opponents of the project call it social control. 'The focus is on frequent inspections and setting clear guidelines and boundaries regarding the sort of behaviour we expect from tenants,' says Graham Bodman, Housing New Zealand's regional manager. The result is a code of sometimes strict rules: no loud parties after 10pm; no washing hung over balcony rails and a requirement to mow lawns and keep the property tidy. The Tenancy Manager walks the site every day, knows everyone by name and deals with problems quickly. 'It's all based on the intensification,' says project manager Stuart Bracey. 'We acknowledge that if you are going to ask people to live in these quite tightly-packed communities, you have to actually help them to get to know each other by organising morning teas and street barbecues.' So far it seems to be working and many involved in the project believe Talbot Park represents the way forward for state housing.
*state housing: government subsidised accommodation for people who cannot pay market rents
Section 3
LIFE ON MARS?
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When scientists began observing Mars with their first primitive telescopes, they assumed from the start that the planet was peopled. The 18th-century astronomer William Herschel, noting the seasons and atmosphere of Mars, declared that 'its inhabitants enjoy a situation similar to our own'. A century later, astronomers asserted that they could detect canals running across the Martian landscape. These canals, argued US scientist Percival Lowell, had been built by technologically advanced Martians to transport water from the poles to the equator of their drying world. 'Martian folk are possessed of inventions of which we have not dreamed,' he argued.
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The vision of an advanced culture trapped on a drying world was taken up by the British writer H.G. Wells in 1898 in his masterpiece The War of the Worlds, in which Earth is subjected to a pitiless invasion from a race of hideous Martians armed with poison gas and heat rays. Martians became synonymous with grotesque, threatening aliens, at least as far as the public was concerned. Scientists were more restrained, but still supported the idea that the planet might support relatively complex life forms.
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Then, in the late 1960s, rocket science changed our image of Mars forever. The US Mariner probes swept past Mars and sent back pictures, not of a world covered in vegetation, as many scientists still expected, but of vistas of cratered, arid deserts. Finally, in 1975, two huge US probes settled on the Martian surface and began a series of experiments aimed at pinpointing, once and for all, the existence of air-breathing organisms. None were found, for the Viking probes landed in areas as dead as the Sahara Desert. All that was sent back were images of a bleak, boulder-strewn terrain. Mars was declared officially dead – for a while.
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Since that time, two critical pieces of evidence have been found on Earth which support the idea that Mars has life. The first is known as ALH84001, a meteorite that was blasted into space when a large body struck Mars 15 million years ago and which spiralled across the solar system to crash into the Antarctic. Analysis carried out by NASA scientist Imre Friedmann showed that the meteorite contained elements identical to those found on Mars by the Viking probes, and revealed chains of crystals similar to those created by earthbound bacteria. Friedmann believes that these could only have been created by living organisms. Others, however, argue that the crystals could have been laid down by simple chemical processes. A second area of support for the idea that living organisms could survive Mars's harshness has been provided by the study of extremophiles, bacteria that have been found in increasingly hostile landscapes on Earth – acid lakes, for example, and volcanoes.
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In the past few years, astronomers have become convinced that the Martian surface, although hostile and arid today, was once lush and welcoming. Images sent back by recent probes such as the Mars Global Surveyor have revealed dried-up riverbeds and old estuaries. Rivers poured into ancient seas, it appears, and rain swept the sodden terrain. Then catastrophe struck. Mars lost its magnetic field several billion years ago, explains British astronomer Paul Murdin. 'Earth retained one, and it protects our atmosphere. Without that protection, Mars's gases and water boiled off.' That is why they are so different today.
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The discovery of signs of water on Mars has changed everything. Some researchers believe that water from underground reservoirs still gushes through Martian valleys as occasional flash floods bubble to the surface. In the 1990s, the Mars Odyssey probe began to map the chemical make-up of the Mars soil, and discovered that much of the ground in the southern hemisphere of Mars is mixed with large quantities of ice. And where there is ice, there is likely to be liquid water, probably underneath. 'There are huge underground reservoirs on Mars, says Marcello Coradini, head of planetary exploration for the European Space Agency. I am now convinced of that.'
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Current projects are hoping to clarify the question of the presence of water once and for all. These are aimed at conducting experiments to detect the presence of a substance called carbon 13 in soil and rock samples on Mars; this would be, according to some researchers, an unequivocal indicator of the presence of living organisms, past or present.
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But would the presence of a few Martian organisms alter our world view in any significant way? Professor Juan Pérez Mercader of Madrid's Centre for Astrobiology in Spain believes that it would. 'For a start, we will be able to find out if Martian organisms have DNA, the golden molecule that controls the replication of earthly creatures.' If there is no DNA, that would show that Martian biology is quite unlike Earth's, and that on two planets, side by side in the same solar system, life evolved independently. If DNA is located, it would mean that life on Mars and on Earth may spring from the same source. 'If organisms can pop up that easily, our chances of finding intelligent versions elsewhere in the universe will look extremely good,' Pérez Mercader states. The discovery of any evidence of living organisms on Mars would also mean renewed purpose for manned space flight projects.