Happy, happy, happy, happy birthday: Parents welcome quads on dad's birthday

It's every parent's ... dream?

A Texas couple welcomed not one, not two, not three, but four (!) healthy babies on Monday. That's in addition to Anna and Joshua Hall's two daughters, ages 2 and 4. The foursome's big debut came on dad's 36th birthday, a fact that he says will make future birthdays hard to top, CBS-Dallas reports.

The babies, three girls and a boy, were born prematurely and will have to stay in the neonatal intensive-care unit until they are deemed strong enough to go home with mom and dad.  Doctors think that may take about six weeks. Still, the newborns — Brooks, Elle, Sadie and Ivy — are breathing on their own and doing well.

Though the babies were born earlier than the standard nine months, they did stay in the womb for an impressive 32 weeks, which is two and a half weeks longer than the average set of quadruplets, according to NBCDFW.com.

Their parents say they think they know what they're in for when the quads come home.

"We've been hearing about 40 bottles a day and 80-plus diapers a day," Anna Hall said. "And, yeah. We'll have our hands full."

Hall said she and her husband were "going for No. 3" in an attempt to have a son when the quads were conceived. "We did get him," she said. "Just with three more sisters. So it was a blessing." 

 Follow Mike Krumboltz on Twitter (@mikekrumboltz).

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Singing ‘Happy Birthday’ makes cake taste better, study says

It's not just the cake but how you eat it, a new study claims. In this file photo, Oliver Hardy prepares to blow …Science has once again stepped up to the plate, in a manner of speaking. A new study says that singing “Happy Birthday” actually makes cake taste better.

The study, published in the upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, finds that the ritual of singing before eating a slice of cake, or any other dessert, increases one's appreciation of the treat. The result is that the food ends up tasting better, at least in our minds.

The “Happy Birthday to You” song hasn’t even been around for 100 years, though the Guinness World Records does call it the most recognizable song in the English language. So, is it the song itself or the ritual?

University of Minnesota psychologist Kathleen Vohs found that this ritual even extends beyond singing to include such practices as how one opens a candy bar wrapper.

Do you have any personal routines when it comes to eating your food? For example, do you treat yourself to a doughnut on Friday mornings at work? Vohs found that personalized eating habits like this, carried out in “repeated, episodic and fixed behaviors” result in us enjoying that doughnut all the more because of the anticipation built up in our minds.

“Whenever I order an espresso, I take a sugar packet and shake it, open the packet and pour a teeny bit of sugar in, and then taste,” Vohs told the Daily Mail. “It's never enough sugar, so I then pour about half of the packet in. The thing is, this isn't a functional ritual, I should just skip right to pouring in half the packet.”

In other words, her own personalized consumption habit is an integral part of her enjoyment of that espresso.

But there’s good news as well for those watching their waistlines: The ritualistic satisfaction can be applied to any food, including healthier options like fruits and vegetables.

In the experiments, Vohs asked control groups to eat chocolate bars in two different manners. The first group was told to methodically eat half of the bar, wait for a set period of time, then unwrap and eat the other half. Those in the second group of testers were allowed to randomly eat the chocolate bar however they preferred. Vohs found that the first control group reported a higher satisfaction level and were even willing to pay more money for the chocolate bars.

Her second significant finding was that this ritualistic enjoyment applied only to our own personal behaviors. Meaning that Vohs wouldn’t likely get any enjoyment out of watching someone else incrementally add sugar to her espresso. In fact, she might find the process frustrating, since the logical part of her brain knows that she simply wants more sugar added.

This isn't Vohs' first interesting study. In 2010, she was involved in a study that found that handling money actually helps reduce pain.

Going forward, Vohs said she would next like to try applying the rituals to other habits outside of food. “We are thinking of getting patients to perform rituals before a surgery and then measuring their pain post-operatively and how fast they heal,” she said.

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'Happy Birthday to You' belongs to us all, lawsuit says

By Bernard Vaughan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Happy Birthday to You," the ditty sung around the world in tribute to everyone from toddlers to centenarians, belongs to the public, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

The proposed class action asks a federal court to declare the song to be in the public domain and that Warner/Chappel Music Inc, the music publishing arm of Warner Music Group, return "millions of dollars of unlawful licensing fees" it has collected for reproductions and public performances of the song.

"More than 120 years after the melody to which the simple lyrics of 'Happy Birthday to You' is set was first published, defendant Warner/Chappell boldly, but wrongfully and unlawfully, insists that it owns the copyright to 'Happy Birthday to You,'" the lawsuit said.

A representative of Warner/Chappell was not immediately available to comment on the lawsuit.

The plaintiff is Good Morning To You Productions Corp, a New York company that says it is making a documentary about the song. Facing a penalty of $150,000 if it used "Happy Birthday" without permission, the company said it paid a $1,500 licensing fee in March.

Warner/Chappell has collected at least $2 million annually in licensing fees for the song, according to the lawsuit.

The song was first published in 1893 as "Good Morning to All," and was written by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill, according to the lawsuit. The public began singing the words to "Happy Birthday to You" soon after.

Warner/Chappell's copyright claim stems from its acquisition in 1998 of Birch Tree Ltd, a company that traces its roots to Clayton Summy, according to the lawsuit. Summy bought the rights to "Good Morning to All" from the Hill sisters in 1893.

Robert Brauneis, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said he searched nationwide for evidence of a copyright for a combination of the melody for "Good Morning to All" with the lyrics for "Happy Birthday to You" for an article published in 2009 but did not find any.

Investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. bought Warner Music Group from Time Warner Inc in 2004 and sold it to its current owner, privately held Access Industries Inc, in 2011.

(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan; Editing by Bill Trott)

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'Happy Birthday to You' copyright suit filed in NY

NEW YORK (AP) — A production company making a documentary about the song "Happy Birthday to You" is challenging the copyright to the famous jingle.

Good Morning To You Productions Corp., which is working on a film tentatively titled "Happy Birthday," argues in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the song should be "dedicated to public use and in the public domain." The company is seeking monetary damages and restitution of more than $5 million in licensing fees collected by Warner/Chappell Music Inc. from thousands of people and groups who've paid it licensing fees.

"More than 120 years after the melody to which the simple lyrics of Happy Birthday to You is set was first published, defendant Warner/Chappell boldly, but wrongfully and unlawfully, insists that it owns the copyright to Happy Birthday to You," the lawsuit states.

Warner/Chappell, based in Los Angeles, claims exclusive copyright to "Happy Birthday to You," which Guinness World Records has called the most famous song in the English language. The company, whose artists include Aretha Franklin, Barry Gibb, Rob Zombie, Madonna and Michael Jackson, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Good Morning To You Productions argues that evidence dating to 1893 helps show the song's copyright expired around 1921. It says four previous copyrights to the melody of the similar-sounding song "Good Morning to All," filed in 1893, 1896, 1899 and 1907, have expired or been forfeited.

The class action lawsuit says that Warner/Chappell claims the exclusive copyright to the song based on piano arrangements published in 1935 but that the copyright applies only to the piano arraignment and not to the melody or lyrics.

The film company filed the lawsuit after having to pay Warner/Chappell a $1,500 licensing fee and sign an agreement to use the song in a scene — or face a $150,000 penalty.

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