Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 31, 2006

Mere Thought of Money Makes People Selfish

Just the mere thought of money can turn a person selfish, so that he helps others less often and prefers to play alone, a new study shows. In a series of nine experiments, researchers found that money enhanced people's motivation to achieve their own goals and degraded their behavior toward...

Oct 31, 2006

Legendary Violins Were Chemically Treated

The stirring sounds of two legendary types of violin have haunted musicians and baffled craftsmen for centuries.? Now, a researcher claims he is one note closer to recreating the secret recipe that produced the famous Stradivarius and Guarneri instruments. Some have suggested that the celebrated Italian violin makers, Stradivari and...

Sep 30, 2006

Vatican Visitors Can View World of the Dead

VATICAN CITY (AP) ─ Visitors to the Vatican soon will be able to descend into an ancient world of the dead, a newly unveiled necropolis that was a burial place for the rich and not-so-affluent during Roman imperial rule. The necropolis, which was unearthed three years ago during construction of...

Sep 30, 2006

World Living on Ecological Debt

Each year, humans are living increasingly beyond their ecological means by stripping the planet's capacity to support the demands placed by the global population, scientists say. To raise awareness of how fast we're depleting Earth's resources, one science- and research-based non-profit organization calculates the exact date that the global community...

Aug 31, 2006

Men Smarter than Women, Scientist Claims

Men are smarter than women, according to a controversial new study that adds another cinder to the fiery debate over whether gender impacts general intelligence. For 100 years there's been a consensus among psychologists that there is no sex difference in intelligence, said J. Philippe Rushton, a psychologist at the...

Aug 31, 2006

Legendary 'Unicorns' Have Individual Voices

Arctic whales whose long, spiraled tusks [image] created the myth of the unicorn seem to call out with individual voices, according to a new study. Researchers think the vocalizations help narwhals to recognize each other or reunite with distant pods, just as our relatives can identify us over the phone,...

Jul 31, 2006

Hawaiian Temples Much Older Than Thought

Ancient Hawaiians started building their monumental temples at least three centuries earlier than previously thought, a new study suggests. They also spent more time building them, renovating and constructing new temples in waves depending on the island's political situation. This research provides conclusive evidence that the Maui temple network grew...

Jul 31, 2006

Clues to 'Black Paul Bunyan' Found

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Archaeologists excavating the 200-year-old graves of a slave family said Tuesday that they recovered several artifacts that could shed light on the life of a man dubbed the black Paul Bunyan.'' However, the scientists uncovered no genetic material from Venture Smith, who is depicted in...

Jul 31, 2006

X-rays Reveal Archimedes' Hidden Writings

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers. Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have...

Jul 31, 2006

Extinction of Languages Puts Plants and Animals at Risk

The ears of linguists, anthropologists, and conservationists perked up with the recent announcement that the federal government will continue to support the digital documentation of languages on the brink of extinction. More than half of the world's 7,000 languages are endangered; many face extinction in the next century. Interestingly, the...

Jul 31, 2006

Urban Legends: How They Start and Why They Persist

My mother has this friend whose daughter got sick from rat pee on her soda can. Sound familiar? You've might have heard the same story. Except that it was someone's boyfriend's brother—or friend's cousin, or doctor's travel agent—who became ill. Either our food inspection system has gone downhill fast, or...

Jun 30, 2006

CSI: Turning from Science to Psychics

Psychics claim to guide us in matters of romance and money, predicting handsome strangers or future fortunes. (If anyone finds a psychic who correctly predicts lottery numbers, please let me know.) But what happens when psychic powers are used for much more important and practical purposes, such as solving crimes?...

Jun 30, 2006

U.S. Military Plans Shape-Shifting Supersonic Bomber

For years, the U.S. military has wanted a plane that could loiter just outside enemy territory for more than a dozen hours and, on command, hurtle toward a target faster than the speed of sound. And then level it. But aircraft that excel at subsonic flight are inefficient at Mach...

Jun 30, 2006

The Artifact Wars: Nations Battle Over Bits of History

Just who holds the deeds to ancient artifacts—the institutes that house them or the countries they came from? Museums might want to bolt their collections to the floor, if a slew of 2006 court decisions are any indication [Quiz]. In one example, the Republic of Iran just entered the fray...

Jun 30, 2006

Ancient Human Footprints Uncovered in Australia

About 20,000 years ago, humans trekked along the margins of a shallow lake in Australia, leaving behind records of their passage in the soft, wet sand. In 2003, an aboriginal woman who is likely a descendant of those early Australians stumbled across dozens of timeworn footprints in the same area....