Word: perlis
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...recorded ads for Ambien and Lunesta, both popular sleep aids. (Here's a link to a version of the Ambien ad - similar to, but not the actual ad Day studied.) Each drug ad mentioned five side effects. The Lunesta commercial's narrator spoke at the same syllable-per-second clip for the entire ad; the Ambien ad's voiceover speed was about five syllables per second during the explanation of benefits, but accelerated to eight syllables per second when explaining the potential side effects. In a test of viewer comprehension, Day found, predictably, that people remembered far fewer side effects...
...specific commercial Day studied - drug-makers continuously tweak ads after they're launched.) When Day studied the 2005 ad, she found several visual distractions that influenced viewer comprehension. During a voiceover about side effects, the bee flew from side to side, its wings flashing and flapping nearly four times per second. At the end of the commercial, when a voiceover talked about the benefits of Nasonex, the bee hovered in place and its wings flapped about once per second, with no flashing. After Day presented her research publicly at the end of 2005, Nasonex pulled that particular ad and created...
...works. Reminiscent of Pee-wee's Playhouse, the Emmy-nominated show draws an audience of more than 700,000 viewers per week. And its absurd sense of humor and witty guest appearances by rockers like the Shins and artists like Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh make it fun for parents too. "So many shows are based on research. Well, I'm not an expert--I'm just a parent," Jacobs says. Of course, if there's a better kind of expert than that, it's hard to think...
...increasingly popular way to do so is by measuring and measurably reducing our carbon footprints--the greenhouse gases we're responsible for emitting. The more dependent we are on fossil fuels, the bigger our carbon footprints; unsurprisingly, Americans, who are responsible for more than 20 tons of CO2 per capita annually, have some of the biggest feet in the world. How big? A recent study by a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that even a homeless American would have a carbon footprint of 8.5 tons--twice the global average. "We have contributed more than our fair share...
...military investigation concluded Qahtani had been subject to abuse - which included sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, intimidation by dogs, prolonged isolation and extremes of cold that, at one point, caused his pulse to drop to 35 beats per minute, requiring immediate hospitalization. No one was ever punished for having ordered the abuse or carrying it out. "The dismissal of charges clearly indicates the government's awareness that any and all statements obtained from Mohammad Qahtani were extracted by torture or the threat of torture," Gitanjali Guitierrez, his lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, told TIME...