Hand washing can clean your mind?

Not only can remove the dirt on your hands, wash your hands it can also cleanse the hearts and minds. Clean-up activity not only have a positive impact on physical health, but also psychological.

According to a study conducted by a team from the University of Michigan, USA, hand washing can also help clean up bad feelings.

With hand washing, bathing or even just by thinking about it, "may reduce or eliminate feelings of immorality, not luck or doubt," said Spike Lee was one of the researchers was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

"The experience of the body to eliminate the physical residue can eliminate the mental residue that is more abstract," he said.

A study published in the Journal of Current Directions in Psychological Science reveals that the psychological effects arising from the cleaning yourself. Many cleaning function can eliminate the annoyance.

The researchers asked a group of respondents to assess the quality of their morality. They were asked to think about immorality in the past.

Your Cheating Heart: iPhone App Finds Wife With Another Man

 

A man has posted a screen shot that he says is proof his wife cheated on him. He says he found her out by installing the new "Find My Friends" app on her iPhone 4s. 

When Apple released its new iOS 5 operating system to go with its iPhone 4S, it touted a new app called "Find My Friends" as a great way to track and meet up with friends. If they agree, you can see their locations on a map on your screen.

But the app's enterprising customers are apparently already finding other uses. If the online posts appearing on a chat forum at MacRumors.com are for real, "Find My Friends" may have already claimed its first marriage.

Saturday night on MacRumors, a man saying he lived in New York City posted this:

"Divorcing wife. Thanks iPhone 4s and Find My Friends.

"I got my wife a new 4s and loaded up find my friends without her knowing. She told me she was at her friends house in the east village. I've had suspicions about her meeting this guy who live uptown. Lo and behold, Find my Friends has her right there.

"I just texted her asking where she was and the dumb b---- said she was on 10th Street!! Thank you Apple, thank you App Store, thank you all. These beautiful treasure trove of screen shots [sic] going to play well when I meet her ... at the lawyer's office in a few weeks.

"thankfully, she's the rich one."

It could not be determined whether the comments posted on MacRumors were, in fact, authentic, and the man did not immediately reply to a request from ABC News for comment. But more than 100,000 people have viewed the posts, according to MacRumors. More than 300 of them replied with expressions of sympathy, skepticism and -- this being the Internet -- a few less-than-savory jokes.

Arnold Kim, the editorial director of MacRumors, said it was "definitely a busy thread." MacRumors did not try to verify the man's story (if, in fact, it was a man), but said everyone who registers for its forums has to validate their email when they register.

"Find My Friends" uses the iPhone or iPad's cellular network data, plus local Wi-Fi networks and the Global Positioning System to show your friends' locations on a map on the screen of your device. Apple would not offer numbers, but GPS usually can be accurate to within a few feet for civilian uses.

Apple says "The Find My Friends app is a great way to share your location with people who are important to you" -- whether you're trying to meet friends at a crowded concert or make sure your kids get safely home from school.

The man was back with a new post less than an hour later, including a couple of screen grabs showing the location of his wife was on East 65th St., though she sent him a text message saying, "Was hard to find stupid cab hate meat packing...."

The husband again: "She said she is in meat packing district which is on 12th street. I DONT THINK SO. Appreicate [sic] the support. not my finest hour here but going to get better soon."

The new iPhone 4S and operating system have been off-the-charts successes for Apple, which said this morning that it sold more than four million iPhone 4S in three days, and that 25 million people are now using iOS 5.

Technology watchers are particularly struck by Siri -- the voice-recognition "personal assistant" built into the new software that accepts spoken commands, answers questions, and is eerily intelligent in its responses.

There was a memorial service Sunday night for Steve Jobs on the campus of Stanford University, near Apple's corporate headquarters in California, amid widespread stories that he was deeply involved in the next iPhone -- the replacement for the iPhone 4S.

The presumably-jilted husband put up one last post Saturday night: "what really chaps my a-- is not the cheating but the fact that they were probably admiring and laughing over the new phone I BOUGHT. haha. well someone about to get the last laugh tonight."

And that was the last from him. The whole thing may have been a joke, or a domestic tragedy. Ben Crompton, who writes the Pocket Lint blog, said there have certainly been other apps before, such as Google Latitude, that let you track people through GPS signals, but Apple will make it trendy.

"The burning issue seems to be that it is a very powerful tool to have," he wrote, "bringing with it huge amounts of info to the user as well as delivering plenty of info about the user to others. For some this power will outdo the user's knowledge of how to use it properly."

"Still, on the up side," he concluded, "maybe Siri will be able to offer some marriage guidance advice."

Your dead iPhone is a gold mine - literally

If you're one of the more than 1 million Apple enthusiasts who pre-ordered an iPhone 4S this week, you're likely looking to ditch your old phone.

The day that Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) unveils a new iPhone is like the Black Friday of cell phone trade-in services. Gazelle, one of the best known of the so-called "recommerce" sites for electronics, said that it received a phone every six seconds during Apple CEO Tim Cook's presentation on Oct. 4.

As sales of expensive smartphones grow rapidly, trade-in sites have also risen in popularity. Their services give customers the opportunity to make some cash off their old devices, which shoppers can use toward their shiny new handsets. At one point last week, Gazelle had offered up to $284 for some iPhone 4 trade-ins.

But what happens to your trade-in once you ship it to Gazelle, ReCellular, NextWorth, Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) Trade-In, or any of the other recommerce sites out there?

First, cell phones are inspected for wear and tear and to see whether they still work. Damaged phones are assessed for salvageability.

All phones then go through a memory wipe. Each trade-in company said it wipes memory in two steps to ensure your data is completely erased from the phone. If the phone doesn't work, the companies will physically destroy its memory.

"We make sure there are no late-night texts still on your phone," said Joe McKeown, vice president of marketing at ReCellular.
Where old iPhones go to die

Phones that are in excellent shape are typically either sold directly to consumers on the trade-in companies' sites, or they're hawked on eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500) or Amazon. Gazelle receives so many iPhones that it tends to sell Apple's smartphones to wholesalers, since the recommerce company lacks the manpower to sell all of them on eBay or Amazon.

But it's in the traded-in junk where it starts to get interesting.

Old phones that are in workable condition and still have some demand for them (think Motorola RAZR, LG enV) are sent to wholesale partners. Those wholesalers have access to retail chains in and out of the United States that specialize in selling used feature phones to customers.

"You'd be surprised, but these wholesalers find demand for those items around the world -- usually in developing countries where there's not a lot of supply for those products," said Israel Ganot, CEO of Gazelle.

New but broken phones are typically sold to wholesalers that recondition the devices and sell them back to carriers or retailers for warranty replacement handsets.

Gazelle said about 90% of its devices are resold. ReCellular said roughly 80% of smartphones and 60% of feature phones are ultimately sold back to consumers.

"Typically there is some value in a device, but if it's so old or broken, it needs to be recycled," said Jeff Trachsel, spokesman for NextWorth.

How old?

"We'll get those old bag phones or brick phones that are about a foot long," said ReCellular's McKeown. "Every day you get something like that."

Gazelle said it has a small museum in its headquarters of surprising things people sent in, including a Motorola (MMI) DynaTAC 1980s-era "brick" phone, a Motorola StarTAC phone, a pager, a first-generation iPod, and an original Nintendo.

But "ancient" and broken technology actually has a lot of value -- to trade-in sites, if not to you. Most won't pay more than a few cents for these old phones, but they'll happily recycle them if you send them in.

There are 0.034 grams of gold in each cell phone, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That's the equivalent of 0.001 troy ounces, worth about $1.82 at today's prices.

 

Melting millions from gold scraps

 

There are also 16 grams of copper, worth about 12 cents, 0.35 grams of silver, worth 36 cents, and 0.00034 grams of platinum, valued at 2 cents.

In bulk, that's a ton of precious metal. In fact, ReCellular said it recycled enough gold last year to make 1,500 wedding bands and enough copper to make two Statues of Liberty. The trade-in companies all send parts to one of just two smelters in the United States, so that tiny amount of value becomes a treasure trove of bling.

"They're doing this in very, very high volume," said Ken Byer, CEO of Cloud Blue, Gazelle's recycling partner of choice. "There's more gold in a pound of electronics than a pound of gold ore, so it's certainly worth it."

So when you send in your old phone to get some cash, it could eventually become someone's wedding ring.

Keep your brain young with help from Anti-Aging Games and Tecca

 Have fun, relax, and improve memory with these games (and these tips!)

All of us wish we could stay young and healthy forever, and none of us is looking forward to facing the negative changes that aging will eventually bring to our minds and bodies. Fortunately, research shows that there are actually a number of relatively simple things you can do to ward off some of the less desirable effects on our brains as we age. More fortunately still, there's a company providing research-backed relief against some of the more dire consequences of aging, particularly in the realm of memory loss.

Anti-Aging Games features a suite of browser-based games designed to improve memory, sharpen focus, and increase relaxation in cognitively healthy adults over the age of 35. Founded by cognitive scientist and CEO Elizabeth Amini, the company's games are designed by Atari legend Nolan Bushnell and backed by the research of a team of world-class neurobehavioral scientists. It's a socially responsible business to boot, donating 20% of its pre-tax profits to charities dedicated to improving the quality and length of life around the world.

Developed to be fun and easy to play, Anti-Aging Games are accessible from any Mac or PC with internet access. The goal is to stimulate your brain, mentally engage you, and give you simple tips for changing your lifestyle in ways that could have a surprisingly big impact on your cognitive health later in life. There's also a personalized tracking system to analyze your progress and deliver greater challenges to you once you've mastered the basics.

Tecca readers can get in on the action with a free month of gameplay and a reduced subscription rate over the life of your membership ($9.99/mo instead of $12.99) should you decide to continue based on your impressions in the first month. Simply head over to www.anti-aginggames.com and enter the following VIP code: TeccaVIP. Much like with Netflix or Audible trials, you'll need to provide credit card information to kick off the free trial.

If you have a chance to check it out, please let us know what you think. We're going to be trying out the games here at Tecca in a last-ditch effort to save our sad, addled noodles that are being constantly besieged by shiny distractions on the internet. You'll be the first to know about it if we are able to note any improvements in ability to remember things, or focus on any one topic long enough to actually finish an artic... ooh look, a helpful video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tcEgqTWbxQ&feature=player_embedded