Your messy house may be making you fat, but it might also be making you more creative.

Photo: flickr/Madzia BryllThe three experiments presented in this paper bring up some really interesting ideas. Each involved exposing participants to tidy or messy environments (for examples, see Fig. 2 below). In the first experiment, the participants in the tidy room chose healthier snacks and gave more to charity than those stuck in a messy room. However, if you are a slob, don't despair: in the second experiment, the scientists tested whether chaotic environments promote innovation. And yes, the participants in the untidy rooms were better at coming up with "creative" uses for ping pong balls (sadly this list is not a supplemental table). And finally, when exposed to a messy room, people were much more likely to choose nutritional supplements labeled as "New!", rather than "Classic!" to add to their smoothies, suggesting that the environment might encourage interest in novelty. So, the next time your boss or roommate is bugging ...