Science is a "thinking man's game." And excessive tanning is a dumb man's game. But now science itself has proven that thinking too much will kill you—by tanning. Uhh, Jersey wins!

This man, Clay Routledge, who is a psychologist and also a blogger has proven that thinking about death makes people want to raise their self-esteem. Which they do by tanning. Even though tanning will kill you as quick as asbestos cigarettes!

So in our studies we have people in one group think about death and people in a control group think about an unpleasant topic not related to death (e.g., dental pain, uncertainty). Then we measure their motivation to sun-tan or intentions to protect themselves from the sun. As predicted, we find that thinking about death increases the desire to tan and decreases the desire to use protective sunscreen.

This means that New Jersey is suicidal, right? Click this story thousands of times to refute this vociferously, Jersey-ites! We're back on pageview pay again here. Anyhow, the most surprising aspect of this whole scientific story was this:

So does tanning, by boosting self-esteem, help solve the problem of knowing that we are destined to die? For the last several years, my colleagues and I have been exploring this question.

Get a real job hippie.