Going kayaking, hiking or indeed anything in wild places might genuinely make you smarter.
According to Teresa Shipley's story for Discovery News, tiny organisms living in the soil and carried in the air can actually make us more positive and alert when ingested or breathed in, say researchers from the Sage Colleges of Troy, N.Y.
This was presented at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.
And there's more good news.
Ingest a particular bacteria and you navigate a maze twice as fast. Dip my orienteering maps in the stuff and I'll be flying.
Ahh, problem. Seems that only works if you're a mouse. I'll ask Jerry if he wants to do the OMM this year.