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The Genetics of Happiness
Hugh Pickens writes "Studies comparing identical twins with non-identical twins have helped to establish the heritability of many aspects of behavior. Recent work suggests that about one third of the variation in people's happiness is heritable. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve has taken the study a step further, picking a popular suspect — the gene that encodes the serotonin-transporter protein, a molecule that shuffles a brain messenger called serotonin through cell membranes — and examined how variants of the 5-HTT gene affect levels of happiness. The serotonin-transporter gene comes in two functional variants—long and short and people have two versions (known as alleles) of each gene, one from each parent. After examining genetic data from more than 2,500 participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, De Neve found that people with one long allele were 8% more likely than those with none to describe themselves as very satisfied with life and those with two long alleles were 17% more likely of describing themselves as very satisfied. Interestingly enough, there is a notable variation across races with Asian Americans in the sample having on average 0.69 long genes, white Americans with 1.12, and black Americans with 1.47. 'It has long been suspected that this gene plays a role in mental health but this is the first study to show that it is instrumental in shaping our individual happiness levels (PDF),' writes De Neve. 'This finding helps to explain why we each have a unique baseline level of happiness and why some people tend to be naturally happier than others, and that's in no small part due to our individual genetic make-up.'"
Don't read this... it is a curse...
In 2005, a little boy named Tim was playing in his front yard. After a few minutes of playing, Tim noticed that a large toy clown had appeared and was floating in the middle of the front yard. It had white skin, a striped shirt with many colors present on it, large, goofy looking hands with white gloves on them, huge feet with large brown shoes, a big, red round nose, and poofy red hair.
The clown was grinning evilly at Tim, who was very noticeably frightened at this strange occurrence. Tim somehow managed to shake off his fear, slowly get up, and then run down the sidewalk to get away from the toy clown. However, Tim's efforts proved to be futile when the clown spread out the palms of both of his hands, placed them in front of his body with one hand behind the other, and then began shooting giant legos out of his hands. The legos homed in on Tim's bootyass, went right through his pants and underwear, and finally reached his bootyasscheekcrackhole! Afterwards, they began spinning around on Tim's bootyasscheekcrackhole, inflicting tremendous amounts of tickle upon his bootyass!
The legos then vanished, giving Tim a few moments of relief (still, after experiencing such a terrifying thing, he is only a shell of what he once was). However, the clown was not finished yet! After a few moments, the clown said, in an evil voice, "I wanna go... you know where!" and seemingly vanished. Tim, however, knew exactly where the clown was: between his bootyasscheek johnson ultimatum supremacies! The clown, facing Tim's bootyasscheekcrackhole, put both of his hands together (with his fingers between one another), and whammed Tim's bootyasscheekcrackhole three whole times! The previous tickle paled in comparison to this tickle!
Now that you have read this (even a single word of it), the toy clown will shoot large amounts of his legos out of his hands and they will spin around on your bootyasscheekcrackhole, and major amounts of tickle will be inflicted upon it! To prevent this from happening, copy and paste this entire comment and then repost it as a comment three times.
Don't read this... it is a curse...
In 2002, a little boy named Jerry was walking down the sidewalk. Then, he spotted a large, spooky-looking house with a foggy graveyard in the backyard. He decided to climb over the fence and go into the graveyard.
However, this soon proved to be a mistake. Soon after he entered the graveyard, all of his clothes vanished and he could no longer move a single cheek! Suddenly, he was somehow looking at the back of himself as if he was looking through a security camera. He could see his bootyass from this position.
That's when Jerry noticed that his cheeks were covered in graveyard fog. They were completely white! Then, Jerry noticed that a lick mark appeared on his left cheek, accompanied by the following sound: "alim tsk tsk!" It sounded almost like a whisper. Then more of the lick marks started appearing! The invisible entity slurping his cheeks shifted between his left and right cheek and got closer to his bootyasscheekcrack with each slurp! Finally, the lick marks reached his bootyasscheekcrack, and he felt something fly into his bootyasscheekcrackhole.
That's when it happened. Jerry's bootyass became something else entirely. It became nothing more than a rumblehouse bootyass! Something began bouncing around inside of his bootyass and using his bootyass as a bouncehouse! It inflicted extreme amounts of tickle upon his bootyass!
Now that you have read this (even a single word of it), the same invisible entity will aloomper your cheeks and then use your bootyass as a bouncehouse (thereby inflicting extreme amounts of tickle upon it)! To prevent this from happening, copy and paste this entire comment and then repost it as a comment three times.