The building, which looks more like a fairy-tale cottage from the outside, was dreamed up years ago by István Szabó and his sweetheart Silvia, who started the special project with the idea of Máhatma Gandhi. “Gandhi believed that a house should be built with materials that could be sourced within a 20-kilometre radius. Our hobbit house was built using the so-called Earthbags technology” – said István Szabó, the head of the Sosna Ecocentre and the project leader. The walls of the building are made up of bags filled with compacted earth, which was donated as waste by the municipality.

Useful waste

On the northern earth-covered side of the building, a secondary wall of tires was built around the perimeter walls using a technique known as Earthships, which compensates for the pressure of the soil on the walls. The upper part of the building is covered by a so-called reciprocal roof, the main structure of which is a beam of unreinforced wooden beams. Also known as the mandala, this structure is interesting because it has been used in Chinese and Japanese architecture since the 12th century. The hobbit house’s plastering and flooring are made of clay, and a simple clay oven is used for heating and possibly cooking in the cosy interior. The building is heated during the transitional period by a so-called Trombe wall, which is actually a solar collector made from an old window, which acts as a passive energy collector, sucking warm air into the building’s interior.  The house is covered with clay, except for the south side and the roof structure, which mainly helps to accumulate heat inside the house.

Cheap materials

The house, which is fit for Bilbo Baggins from J R R Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’, did not cost more than a few hundred euros to build. All that was paid for is the timber they have bought for the roofing – and even that is the poorest quality timber, so it doesn’t cost much. Anything else in the house was collected from the nearby area: the soil, rocks, wooden bits, plastic bottles thrown-out bike tires, broken tiles, and other bits. They got it all for free. Without the help of Gandalf and Elvish magic, the process took a year. The foundation of the house is made out of a bulkier layer of rocks, and then a thinner layer of gravel was laid down to smoothen out the surface.

Mortgage trap

Over the past few years, plants have been planted in the soil, effectively creating a large vegetation mole hole on the roof of the house. Most of the construction solutions the Szabós have been using come from developing countries. Their main aim is to spread them here, especially among socially disadvantaged groups, but also among ecologically minded individuals who do not want to fall into the mortgage trap that is so typical of our times. The house was built using materials that are relatively easy to obtain and simple techniques to make them as widely available as possible. Inspired by the story of the Hobbits, the building has been used for almost a decade for the education and training activities of the Sosna Ecocentre, but it is also a showcase for buildings that incorporate ecological architectural elements.

Strong social ties can increase your chance of living longer

Exercise, diet – even attitude – can be as important as genetics when it comes to growing old gracefully. “Old age,” as Bette Davis once said, “is no place for sissies.” But that doesn’t mean you need to chicken out. Sure, growing older affects nearly every part of your body—including your hair, skin, heart, muscles, and more—but aging well may be as simple as adopting these (mostly) easy everyday habits.

1. Maintain a positive attitude.

You are what you think you are when it comes to aging. Seniors who think of age as a means to wisdom and overall satisfaction are more than 40 percent more likely to recover from a disability than those who see aging as synonymous with helplessness or uselessness, according to The Journal of the American Medical Association.

2. Watch what you eat…

Nutrition plays a major role in how your body ages. “The latest research shows that a low-glycemic diet high in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein is healthiest,” says Dr. Jeffrey Benabio, Physician Director of Healthcare Transformation at Kaiser Permanente Primary Care. One great example is the Mediterranean diet, rich in plant-based foods, whole grains, nuts, and red wine (in moderation!). It also involves eating fish twice each week and cutting back on salt. Research shows that this type of diet may help you age better by warding off heart attacks, strokes, and premature death, according to Harvard Medical School. An added bonus: Benabio says that foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as walnuts, salmon, and flaxseed, help your skin manufacture the essential oils it needs to protect itself and can help skin look younger. In contrast, sugary, carbohydrate-heavy, and fatty foods—think, chips, soda, and white bread—can speed up the aging process, says Benabio. “So, when shopping or dining out, opt for whole grains and natural sweeteners,” he says.

3. …And how much you eat.

Overeating may lead to a shorter life span, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes, according to the NIH. To age well and live longer, it’s best to stick to a balanced diet that consists of about 2.5 cups of vegetables, 1.5 to two cups of fruit, six ounces of grains, three cups of dairy, and five ounces of protein each day.

4. Exercise regularly.

Staying active is a vital part of aging well. The average woman can lose 23 percent of her muscle mass between ages of 30 and 70, says Fabio Comana, a faculty instructor at the National Academy of Sports Medicine. You lose muscle more rapidly as you age, but exercise – resistance workouts in particular – can increase mass and strength, even well into your 90s, says Comana. Staying fit may also reduce age-related memory loss, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. Plus, Alzheimer’s disease accounts for approximately 60 to 70 percent of all dementia cases, says Comana, adding that increasing physical activity can decrease this statistic by 25 percent. That’s because exercise strengthens the hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with learning.

5. Stay social.

Friends and relatives can help you live longer. Those of us with strong social ties were shown to have a 50 percent higher chance of living longer than those with poor or insufficient relationships, according to a study published in the journal PLoS Medicine.

6. Protect your skin from the sun.

Too much time in the sun can cause wrinkles, not to mention cancer. But wearing sunscreen can help prevent your skin’s aging. And while the sun’s UV rays do trigger vitamin D production, which is essential for bone health, that’s hardly a good reason to expose yourself. “Here are the facts,” Benabio says. “After a few minutes of sun, your skin stops making vitamin D…and starts making skin cancer.” Most people get plenty of Vitamin D, but if you think you’re not, try eating more salmon or even eggs (don’t skip the yolk).

7. Get plenty of sleep.

You probably know that you should snooze for seven to nine hours each night, according to the National Sleep Foundation. But did you know that not sleeping enough may mean a higher risk of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Plus, naps can improve memory and even help make up formissing nightly Zzs. And it turns out that “beauty sleep” isn’t a myth. During sleep, your body releases a growth hormone that helps restore collagen and elastin, the essential building blocks of young, healthy skin, says Benabio. Recent studies have also shown a connection between insomnia and accelerated aging of the brain, Benabio says. In other words, chronic lack of sleep adversely affects your brain’s function and speeds up the aging process. “Too many of us treat sleep as a luxury instead of a need,” says Benabio. “If I could encourage people do make one healthy change this year, it would be to sleep more.”

Finland is widely known for its modern sensibilities and fabulous views of the Northern Lights, but the nation has many other attributes as well.

Here are 10 things the people of Finland do better than Americans.

Number 10. Education. While US schools are often criticized for underperforming, those in Finland are lauded for their continued excellence. The nation boasts some of the world’s highest test scores and is consistently ranked amongst the best educational systems on the planet.

Number 9. Handle awkward silences. Finns don’t always have the perfect thing to say when conversations lapse, but that’s okay. Long pauses during talks are deemed as being perfectly acceptable. Saying something just for the sake of speaking, however, is not. 

Number 8. Women’s equality in the workplace. According to The Economist’s glass ceiling index, Finland is at the top worldwide.  Matters such as maternity rights, pay, and representation in high-ranking positions were considered while compiling the list.

Number 7. Dispose of nuclear waste. Not only has Finland actually devised a plan for nuclear discard, the country is building a refuse bunker that will keep the radioactive matter safely contained for at least 100 thousand years.

Number 6. Ensure that newborns thrive. The Nordic nation has the world’s lowest infant mortality rate. Conversely, among the 28 wealthy nations ranked by the Centers For Disease Control, the US has the highest.

Number 5. Stay out of prison. In the United States, nearly 700 of every 100 thousand citizens are locked up. Incarcerated residents of Finland account for only 55 per 100 thousand. Some of them even get to live in ‘open’ systems where they can attend college classes, go on fishing trips, and head into town to buy groceries.

Number 4. Embrace Heavy Metal. Finland has more metal bands per capita than anywhere in the world. The country’s count is about double that of runners up Sweden and Norway, and roughly 10 times greater than the ratio in the US.

Number 3. Saunas. There are approximately 5.3 million people in Finland, and an estimated 3.3 million saunas. They’re so engrained in the culture, they can be found in government offices, factories, and even sporting arenas.

Number 2. Keep corruption out of government. In Transparency International’s recent rankings of corrupt governments, Finland’s was ranked amongst the three least so. The US came in at 19th.

Number 1. Live longer. On average, the men of Finland can expect to live until the age of 78, and women until 84. Americans’ lives aren’t significantly shorter, but US males and females generally live for 2 to 3 years less than their Finnish counterparts. 

What’s your favorite thing about the country of Finland?

Mexicans, you’re beautiful and you know it

Of all the peoples of the world, Mexicans are the happiest with their appearance.

Some 74% of Mexicans say they are “completely satisfied” or “fairly satisfied” with their appearance, according to a massive studyby market research group GfK, which asked more than 27,000 people, aged 15 or over, in 22 countries around the world what they thought of themselves.

Turkey (71%) came in second, with Ukraine and Brazil in joint third place (both 65%). Also scoring highly are Spain (64%) and Germany and Argentina (both 62%), and the U.S. (60%).

But GfK’s wide-reaching survey also found out that many nationalities aren’t happy with their looks at all. The Japanese are the most unhappy, with 38% of Japanese people saying they are “not at all satisfied” or “not too satisfied,” followed by around 20% of British, Russians and South Koreans.

Perhaps breaking a few stereotypes, GfK found that teenagers are only marginally more self-critical than adults, with 16% of 15-19 year-olds being “not too satisfied” with their looks, compared to 13% for 20-59 year olds. Similarly, women were found to be only marginally more critical about themselves than men.

Centenarians across the planet give their tips for living past 100. Cigars, alcohol and chocolate included.

We are living on the brink of a new age: the age of the centenarian. Improvements in science, medicine, and public health have led the UK’s Office of National Statistics to estimate that a third of British children born today will live until age 100. There are currently an estimated 14,000 centenarians in the UK, and barring any cataclysmic intervention this will skyrocket to over 250,000 by the 22nd century. It’s a trend you’ll see repeated around the globe: people are living longer than might have ever been thought possible.

But if you had the misfortune to be born in the latter half of the 20th century, you’ve got only half as good a chance of making it to your hundredth birthday, which doesn’t seem fair. If you want to become one of the world’s oldest people you’ll have to find a way to beat the odds. So what is the secret to long life?

Respect Your Elders

If anyone can teach us the key to living long, maybe the world’s oldest people can. The oldest humans alive are tracked and verified by organisations like the Gerontology Research Group and Guinness World Records, and whenever a new ‘oldest person’ is crowned, news agencies like to ask them one question: how did you do it?

Naturally the answers are as varied as the people giving them, but some things come up a lot. Diet, especially.

Misao Okawa (115) felt she owed her longevity to large amounts of sushi, while the oldest recorded human, Jeanne Calment (122), claimed to eat lots of olive oil and a kilogram of chocolate a week. Besse Cooper (116) put her success down to avoiding junk food, while Puerto Rican Emiliano Mercado del Toro (115) credited a daily helping of funche – cornmeal, butter and milk served with salted codfish.

And if that sounds unappealing, consider that Emma Morano (115) liked homemade brandy, chocolate and three eggs a day. No word on whether that’s all in one sitting.

Emma Morano

Specifically moderating eating also comes up a lot. Jiroemon Kimura (116) strictly practised the Confucian teaching of hara hachi bunme (eating until 80% full) and Walter Breuning (114) lived on just two large meals a day: breakfast and lunch, then fruit in the evenings. Mariam Amash (120, unverified) and Maria Gomes Valentim (114) both believed a healthy diet was the source of their longevity.

In terms of vices, no-one can quite agree whether it’s good to have some or none. Jeanne Calment’s recommended diet included lots of port-wine, while Fred Hale (113) thought that an “occasional nip” of whisky was beneficial. Christian Mortensen (115) was abstinent from alcohol but enjoyed “a good cigar”. Susannah Mushatt Jones (115) provides a fairly extreme case: she never smoked, drunk alcohol, partied, wore makeup, dyed her hair or got married, and (luckily for anyone thinking of following this advice) she still didn’t live significantly longer than the ones who did do all that stuff.

Disposition could matter. Jeanne Calment said she lived so long because she was calm, while Kathryn Knauss, the daughter of Sarah Knauss (119), said her mother’s advanced age was down to her “tranquillity“. Besse Cooper rather ominously credited “minding her own business” and Christian Mortensen credited “friends, staying positive and lots of singing.” Along with the eggs , brandy and chocolate, Emma Morano said her number one reason for staying alive was thinking positively about the future – something which is presumably not hard to do when you’ve lived through two world wars.

The Real Secrets

If anything is clear from the conflicting reasons supercentenarians have given for their longevity, it’s that none of them really knows the secret. But by examining them collectively, we can get some way to the truth. So if you want to become one of the world’s oldest people, here’s what you have to do:

1. Be a Woman

Men, you’re basically out of luck. Jiroemon Kimura, the oldest man ever to live, reached a verified age of 116 years and 54 days, which doesn’t even put him in the top 10 oldest people ever. If you want to get anywhere near the top spot, you have to be a woman. To get into the current top 10 a man would have to live a full 47 days longer than Kimura was fortunate enough to, and both of the oldest living men are some four years off that target. By the time they get there, the low bar will probably have been raised even further. It’s hardly worth trying: only 7 of the top 100 oldest people ever recorded are men, so the odds are definitely stacked against them.

2. Be American or Japanese

Maybe it’s the diet, maybe it’s the pace of life or maybe it’s because they both love baseball, which trains you to survive long periods of inactivity. Whatever the reason, two countries dominate lists of supercentenarians living and dead: the USA and Japan.

Of the 100 verified oldest people ever, 51 were born or primarily resident in the United States and a further 20 were from Japan – as many as the whole of Europe combined. Of course, the oldest woman ever was French, so it’s not completely foolproof – but if you’re only aiming to make the list rather than top it, being American or Japanese gives you the best chance.

And in case you weren’t born in America or Japan, the only other countries that get a look in are Australia (1), Brazil (1), Canada (3), Ecuador (1), France (6), Italy (2), Jamaica (1), Netherlands (1), Portugal (2), Puerto Rico (2), Spain (3) and the UK (6). So be from one of those instead.

3. Have good genes.

Psychologists will probably debate the significance of nature and nurture for the rest of time, but it’s clear you don’t hit triple digits without a little of both in your favour. If you don’t believe us, just look at Joan Riudavets, the 114-year-old whose brothers, Pere and Joseph, both hit 105 and 102 respectively, or sisters Nelle Eby and Katherine Davenport, who both reached 111 and 110 respectively. Similarly, we mentioned Sarah Knauss’ daughter Kathryn earlier – she lived to 102. It’s not necessarily all genetic, but old age can definitely run in a family.

So there you have it. If you want to live past your 100th birthday, or even become the oldest person alive, all you have to do is be a Japanese or American Woman who’s already related to a centenarian. Or be born now instead of last century. We’ll leave it up to you to decide which of those is easier to achieve.

Source: mentalfloss

Let’s revise what we can learn from these people. Answer the following questions.

1. What prospects do babies born now in Britain have?

2. What food and drink is consumed by the world’s oldest people?

3. What do some of them say ‘no’ to?

4. What habits and attitudes did they mention as their secret?

5. Who has a greater chance to live longer than others?

Key:

1. Athird of them can live to be one hundred.

2. Sushi, olive oil, chocolate, funche, eggs, brandy, wine, whisky.

3. Junk food, smoking, drinking, partying, makeup, hair-dying, marriage.

4. Moderate eating, calmness/tranquillity, minding your own business, having friends, thinking positively, singing a lot.

5. Women have more chance than men.

American and Japanese people have a higher chance.

People who have family numbers who have lived very long also have a higher chance and those who were born in the 21st century and not in the 20th century.

These little things can add years to your life.

The current average lifespan in the United States is 78.7 years, but there are more people living beyond 100 years than ever before.

What’s the secret of joining the 100+ club?

That question was asked by a group of scientists from a Scandinavian University. To find the answer, they spent 50 years monitoring over 850 men born in 1913, and then studied the seven men that lived to be over 100 years old.

A new paper published in Scandinavian Cardiovascular Journal teased out the commonalities of those men who surpassed 100 years old, and the differences that set them apart from their peers. 

The results are basically a how-to guide for extending life.

1. Don’t smoke

This one is incredibly obvious. Doctors have known for over 60 years that smoking causes lung cancer. Heart disease, hypertension, stroke and oral disease are just a few other maladies that can be brought on by smoking.

If you want to live to a ripe old age, quitting smoking is a fantastic first step.

2. Have a good socioeconomic standing

No, the money isn’t used to bribe St. Peter to give you more time here on Earth.

The study found those who lived past 100 had higher rent or mortgage payments, and this affluence was connected to their ability to seek top-notch healthcare.

3. Have an old mom

This one isn’t really something you can control, but the study found having a mom who lives to an old age is a good sign you will too. However, longevity was not connected to the father’s age as much as the mother’s.

4. Maintain high cognitive function

Keeping a sharp mind can stave off the effects of dementia, contributing to both quantity and quality of life. Read books, do puzzles, and keep your mind active throughout a lifetime, and it will really pay off in your golden years.

5. Maintain a healthy weight and have good posture

All of the participants in the study who lived past 100 were on the thin side and had good posture. Being overweight is connected with diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer, which can all cut life short.

Wanting to exercise and eat healthy doesn’t have to be a body image issue, it can be done to increase the amount of years your fabulous self is around.

6. Use a walker when you need one

As individuals age, falling becomes a more ever-present risk. In fact, falling, that causes subsequent injuries, is the number one cause of death among seniors. It can also cause a number of other injuries, which are more damaging than if they occurred in the person’s younger years.

Those prideful seniors who opt not to use aides, should remember walkers are a great way to keep them safe and get them closer to that 100 year mark.

7. Wear glasses

A person who wears glasses is likely to go in for eye exams frequently, giving them more chances to spot ocular disease early. Additionally, better vision reduces the number of accidents individual cause, particularly in motor vehicles.

If you’re thinking that you’re years away from having to deal with any of these issues, just remember that making simple changes now will pay off later when you’re the hottest 100-year-old on the block.