Table of contents for April 2022 in Readers Digest Australia

I was standing in the main street of Pompeii, Italy, on a cool November day in 1992. The Via dell’Abbondanza – the street of abundance – a broad avenue running north-south through the ruined city, was completely empty save for me. There was not a single person between the brooding hulk of Mount Vesuvius off in the distance and me. It felt more abandoned than abundant, but I didn’t mind. I’d first read about the city of Pompeii as a ten year old. An ancient Roman city smothered one night in 79 CE in a thick blanket of ash when Vesuvius erupted and killed most of its inhabitants. It had seemed like a mythological place, not a place I would ever get to visit myself. Years later, here I was.…

INHALE THROUGH YOUR NOSE When it’s hot and dry or very cold, or you’re in a dusty or polluted environment, try to consciously breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. Our nasal passages filter the air we breathe and regulate its temperature and humidity. Breathing through your nose also enables you to take deeper breaths – which engages the lower lungs. When the lower lungs become active, they pump out more oxygen to the rest of your body. DO SIMPLE WORKOUTS THAT STRENGTHEN CHEST MUSCLES Try this easy exercise to help your chest expand, and increase your lung capacity: lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Put your hands behind your head and bring your elbows together so that they…

Enjoying a swim at their local beach was once a daily pleasure for Melati Wijsen and her sister, Isabel. But in 2013, when Melati was 12, and Isabel just ten, the sisters started to lose their enthusiasm for swimming in the waters near their home on the Indonesian island of Bali. More often than not, plastic bags would swirl around them as they swam. Then as they walked back to shore, red and white plastic shopping bags would stick to their legs and body. Melati didn’t think much about it until later in 2013, when her teacher gave a lesson on world heroes. The lesson discussed the efforts of people such as Indonesia’s Raden Adjeng Kartini, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, India’s Mahatma Gandhi and England’s Princess Diana. Each of these…

FOR 200 YEARS the villagers of Guwahori in Bangladesh have celebrated the Polo Bawa Utshob Fish Festival in mid-January. During the dry season the water level of the marshy land is so low that fishers can reach the best spots on foot. Hundreds of people participate armed with polos, clever fish traps fashioned from bamboo. Luckily, the ample amount of fish corralled by the shallow water means that a fisher seldom goes home empty-handed.…

No need to hold your breath to see this one. The Cancún Underwater Museum is, as the name suggests, underwater. More than 500 sculptures anchored in the ocean off Mexico are meant to illustrate the interplay of art and nature. Visitors can either admire the works through a glass-bottom boat or take a scuba diving tour. At New York’s Tenement Museum, visitors can gain an insight into what life was like for immigrants and the working class in the city from the 1860s through to the 1980s. The museum opened in 1992 and offers guided tours of two tenement buildings with recreated rooms, where costumed ‘residents’ enact the daily lives of the city’s newcomers and workers over the period – leaps and bounds from the money makers of Wall Street. No…

1 Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) doubled across the globe last year. While EVs make up only 1.6 per cent of market share in Australia, nearly 50 per cent of drivers in both Australia and New Zealand want their next car to be electric. However, Australian drivers are frustrated by government policies that mean that many of the best affordable EV models don’t make it to our shores, according to Electric Vehicle Council chief executive Behyad Jafari. In the meanwhile, Kiwis are concerned about the lack of charging stations in the country. 2 Electric cars are nothing new. Scottish inventor Robert Anderson developed the first electric carriage around 1832, then William Morrison of the US perfected the model decades later. By the turn of the century, nearly a third of…

When I wake at 3am or so, I’m prone to picking on myself. And I know I’m not the only one who does this. A friend of mine calls 3am thoughts “barbed-wire thinking”, because you can get caught in it. The thoughts are often distressing and punitive. Strikingly, these concerns vaporise in the daylight, proving that the 3am thinking was completely irrational and unproductive. So, what’s going on? I’m a psychology researcher with expertise in mood, sleep and the circadian system (the internal clock regulating sleep). Here’s what the research says about what may be behind this common experience. WHAT’S HAPPENING IN YOUR BODY AT 3AM? In a normal night’s sleep, our neurobiology reaches a turning point around three or 4am. Core body temperature starts to rise, sleep drive is…

Happy Anniversary How wonderful that your magazine is still so successful after 100 years (‘Highlights From A Century Of Reader’s Digest’, February). They were a part of my childhood and now I eagerly await their arrival in my own mailbox each month. Over the decades there have been numerous times when I’ve had to wait – for my husband, children, mechanics, doctors. The magazine’s compact size makes it ideal to pop into my handbag before heading off on such occasions, and easy to keep in the glovebox for emergencies. So while I thank you for all the years of entertainment and education you have provided, I especially thank you for all those times when rather than growing annoyed, I’ve presented the illusion of endless patience as I quietly enjoy the…

Nurse Charlie MARK KELLY Six months ago I shattered my pelvis and required surgery. My wife, Geraldine, tells me that for the three days I was in hospital our faithful dog lay at the front door waiting for my return. Charlie, our four-year-old black Labrador, is my constant companion. When I go out and can’t take him with me, he patiently waits at the front door for me. Geraldine says that sometimes he will not leave his post even when tempted with food – very unusual for a Labrador. After I returned home from the hospital, Charlie must have sensed that there was something different about me. He did not jump up to greet me and kept a safe distance, although his wagging tail and excited howls were a clear…

Remember way back when phones could only transmit our voices? Or when they got an upgrade to send brief written messages we now cleverly refer to as ‘texts’? Today, those essential functions are only a fraction of what the smartphone in your hand can do. It is really a mini computer, and it’s packed with more powers than a superhero movie. Some of those powers are built-in features; some are apps you download. Most are free. All are worth a try and might change your life. HEALTH & WELLNESS White noise machine Got noisy neighbours? Blocking out their ambient sounds might help you get some peace. No special machine is needed with the White Noise app, which offers the sounds of rain, a ticking clock, waves or whatever else you…

But I am really more of a ‘we’. I am the same species as cauliflower, brussels sprouts, collard greens, cabbage, kale, Chinese broccoli and kohlrabi. Think of us in dog terms: A Great Dane and a Chihuahua are the same species, just bred for different qualities. We Brassica oleraceas are the same. Our variants have been through selective breeding, having been chosen to accentuate different features of the plant – in the same way that a bulldog was bred to have extra wrinkly skin and a greyhound to be lean and lithe. Broccoli was selected specifically for its stem and flower buds. All those little green balls that make up the florets are tiny buds waiting to open into flowers. The thick stalk is the stem of the plant, and…

Before Dr Google, there was Dr Reader’s Digest – “the public’s leading source of medical information,” as the influential psychologist Dr Kelly Brownell called Reader’s Digest in a 2009 study. Indeed, millions of people might read one of our health articles and then – when a myste rious symptom raises questions – recall its advice and be alerted to act. Sometimes they’re even able to help inform their doctors. When we asked readers around the world how this magazine has influenced their lives, the responses included very specific, vivid tales of how (in their words) “Reader’s Digest saved my life”. These are some of the stories they shared: “I yelled at my husband, ‘This is what I have!’” Deborah Barber after reading a US April 2013 article about a patient being…

Can’t Be Helped “How come you’re late?” the boss asks his assistant as she walks in the door. “It was awful,” she says. “I was walking down the street and saw an accident. An injured man was lying in the middle of the street. There was blood everywhere. I’m just glad I took that first-aid course.” “What did you do?” “I sat down and put my head between my knees to keep from fainting.” JOBHUNTEXPRESS.COM Signing Off In Roman times CXX stood for 120. Nowadays it stands for “I love you but my finger slipped and I’m too lazy to tap delete three times and type it again.” OLAF FALAFEL, COMEDIAN Hasn’t Bin Easy I’m dating a bin lady at the moment. But I can never remember if I’m supposed…

NANU, a nine-year-old female polar bear, lives on the barrens of the Hudson Bay lowlands, south of Churchill in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Her den, which she dug into a creek bank, is nearly two metres in diameter and a half-metre higher than the exit tunnel. Air warmed by her body and breath rises into this upper space, bringing it to just below freezing. To save energy, she is able to lower her body temperature slightly from its normal 37°C. A mother who has not eaten for three months is able to nourish her cubs in utero and still keep her metabolism quiet enough to conserve energy for three more months of fasting. That’s because, in addition to her own considerable insulation – five centimetres of thick downy underfur…

Your favourite, delicious stinky cheese has a lot more in common with your dirty, sweaty socks than you think. If you think the smell occurs because cheese is essentially made from spoiled milk, then you’re mistaken. The American Chemical Society teamed up with St James Cheese Company to find the real reason why stinky cheese stinks. The chemicals a cheese-maker uses to wash cheese are the reason your favourite dairy snack releases that strong odour. These types of smelly cheeses are called ‘wash-rind’ cheeses because the cheese curds are gathered, put away to age, and washed in a solution called brine. This warm, moist and salty solution is the perfect environment to attract bacteria. The bacteria most responsible for the smelly smells are called Brevibacterium linens. They break down…

Off To School School starters have the right idea. • It was the first week of kindergarten, and one little boy was having trouble adjusting. As his teacher offered comfort and reassurance, the boy looked up at her and demanded, “Who signed me up for this anyway?” SCHOOLSPUN HUMOUR • Today, a girl in kindy told me that she doesn’t need to learn what I’m teaching because she wants to be a pineapple when she grows up. @TEACHERONTOPIC The Truth Is Out There As a Scottish police officer drove around Glasgow during her night shift, she noticed a bright light in the sky – likely a drone – following her. She tried evasive manoeuvres, but it kept tracking her. Unnerved, she returned to the station, where a senior officer explained…

Almost half a billion people in India depend on the 2500-kilometre-long Ganges for bathing, drinking and religious rituals. One of the largest river systems in the world, the Ganges is also a massive health and environmental concern; it has long been a repository for pollution such as raw sewage, agricultural runoff, plastics and flowers. As part of Hindu ceremonies, worshippers offer blooms at temples and dispose of them in rivers, like the Ganges, deemed sacred by believers. Every year, close to eight million tonnes of floral waste ends up in India’s waterways, where it contributes to the already significant human and industrial pollutants. “All the pesticides and insecticides that were used to grow these flowers mix with the river water, making it highly toxic,” entrepreneur Ankit Agarwal told Reuters TV.…

Norman Rockwell created some of the most iconic images of 20th-century America. His paintings, such as the Four Freedoms series from World War II and The Problem We All Live With from the civil rights movement, were intended to evoke the best in people who saw them: hope, solidarity, courage, justice. Much of his work also inspired happiness, capturing scenes of light-hearted joy. And yet Rockwell himself struggled with happiness. In 1953, he moved to a small, rural town – not for its natural beauty and peace but because it was home to a psychiatric hospital where he and his wife could receive treatment for chronic depression. There, he was a patient of a famous psychoanalyst, with whom Rockwell racked up large bills. That a man with such significant happiness…

After his father was rushed to the hospital with gastrointestinal bleeding, 43-year-old Yanatha Desouvre began to panic. So he did the one thing he knew would calm himself: he wrote. “I’m so scared,” he started. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose my dad.” Over the next few weeks, Desouvre filled several notebooks, writing about his worry as well as his happy memories with his dad – the jokes they’d shared, the sport they’d watched, and the time they put up house shutters together, then cooled down with ice cream. Sometimes Desouvre cried as he wrote. Often he laughed. “Writing allowed me to face my fear,” says Desouvre. “My pen was a portal to process the pain.” He is in good company. An extensive body of research shows…

Every year, there are 500 billion single-use plastic bags in circulation around the globe. On average, each bag is used for 12 minutes total but takes 1000 years to decompose. If we don’t change our habits, by 2050 it is projected that there will be 12 billion metric tonnes of plastic litter on Earth and more plastic found in our oceans than fish. There is hope, though: in 2018, 127 countries implemented policies regulating the use of plastic bags; in 2019, 170 countries pledged to “significantly reduce” plastics by 2030. Whether it’s a ban on single-use bags, the creation of sustainable alternatives, or a return to traditional habits, countries and people around the world have been making meaningful efforts to eliminate plastic from our lives. Costa Rica Plans for a…

My daughter is wired to be a caretaker of all creatures on the planet. Clara was barely three when she first encountered a 30-centimetre, sharp-clawed plastic Tyrannosaurus rex figure in our local park – and immediately put pants on it. Earth Day might as well be her birthday. I can’t even count all the animals needing rescue that have traipsed through my life since becoming her mother. Clara wasn’t simply a gentle child who wouldn’t hurt a fly. No, it was far more dramatic than that. We once came across a dead opossum on the side of the road whose minuscule offspring, blind and naked, must have crawled out of its mother’s incubating pouch to where it was now laying, limp by her side. Could we gaze sadly, feel badly,…

On my first morning in Big Bend, I jumped in a little too quickly. Driving 125 kilometres south from Marathon, Texas, I aimed for the heart of the national park: the Chisos Basin, a geological depression encircled by a mountain range of the same name. A friend had recommended the 9.5-kilometre Window Trail hike; I reached the trailhead at noon. Disregarding the posted warnings not to hike after 10am because of the extreme heat, I ventured past volcanic outcrops into a dry canyon bed. Fifteen minutes in, I encountered what seemed to be a remarkable painted stick bisecting my path. It turned out to be a deadly Mojave rattlesnake that, thankfully, ignored me. By the time I reached the Window – a natural stone aperture at the lip of a…

Movies The Northman Viking Saga With the runaway success of the TV streaming series Vikings, it appears there is a real appetite for action dramas of Norse historical fiction; savage clashes between ferocious Viking clans inspired by Nordic sagas. And with an all-star cast including Nicole Kidman as Queen Gudrun, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, plus Scandinavian actors Alexander Skarsgård, Claes Bang and Björk (you may remember from the Icelandic band The Sugarcubes), The Northman is certain to be a hit. Co-written by American director and screen writer Robert Eggers and the Icelandic poet and novelist known as Sjón, it centres around an Icelandic prince named Amleth who seeks to avenge the death of his father. While just a boy, Amleth witnesses him being brutally killed by a rival…

Crossword Test your general knowledge. ACROSS 1 Sheets and blankets (10) 7 Unfortunately (4) 9 Partly unrelated female sibling (10) 10 Grain husks (4) 11 Investigate closely (5) 12 Of no value (9) 14 Dog-houses (7) 16 Altar cloth (7) 18 Suitcases (7) 20 Implore urgently (7) 23 Inflammation of the stomach (9) 25 Wading bird (5) 28 Form of wrestling (4) 29 Beyond the power of Man (10) 30 Hay store (4) 31 The lot (10) DOWN 2 Qualify (7) 3 Managed (5) 4 Leave out (4) 5 Frankfurter (3,3) 6 Small fish (5) 7 Vehicle for injured people (9) 8 Once large lake in Central Asia (4,3) 13 Stop up a hole (4) 15 Wee Willie Winkie’s attire (9) 17 Grass (4) 19 Sea north of Australia (7)…