Who Commissioned This Study?

From the Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2012:

In their new heart-health book “Heart 411,” Cleveland Clinic doctors Marc Gillinov and Steven Nissen describe a study by Wayne State University researchers who rated the smiles of 230 baseball players who played before 1950 based on pictures in the Baseball Register. Then they looked to see how long the players lived on average: No smile, age 73; partial smile, 75. Those with a full smile made it to 80.

What if a normally cheery fellow got his picture taken before he could smile? What if a really friendly player decided to be serious for his photo? What if a curmudgeonly guy chose to smile for once in his life? How much time was spent on these findings? (Even the Journal concedes this is not exactly “the most robust science.”)

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