Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 31, 2004

District Loosens 'Intelligent Design' Rule

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A school district that required science teachers to read a statement about alternatives to the theory of evolution decided Friday that teachers can choose not to read it, but their classes will still hear it. Under the Dover Area School District's temporary exemption, administrators will read...

Dec 31, 2004

Spain's Catholic Church Backs Condoms

MADRID, Spain (AP) _ In a substantial shift from traditional policy, the spokesman for the Catholic Church in Spain has said it supports the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS. Condoms have a place in the global prevention of AIDS,'' Juan Antonio Martinez Camino, spokesman for the...

Dec 31, 2004

New Language Has Surprising Structure

A language in use for just 70 years has evolved quickly and with unexpected structure, researchers said Monday. The Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) is as an alternative language for a community of about 3,500 people, several of whose members are deaf. It has been in use for three generations,...

Nov 30, 2006

Llamas Enlisted to Thwart Biological Weapons

If terrorists ever unleashed a biological weapon, unusual molecules normally found in the blood of llamas could quickly help warn of the attack, scientists now report. Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington and their colleagues experimented with antibodies, which act as the red flags and magic bullets...

Nov 30, 2006

Buried Babies Suggest Prehistoric Compassion

Infants may have been considered equal members of prehistoric society, according to an analysis of burial pits found in Austria. Two separate pits, one containing the remains of two infants [image] and the other of a single baby [image], were discovered at the same Stone Age camp of Krems-Wachtberg in...

Nov 30, 2006

The Art of Deception Revealed

The great fake psychics are great improvisationists. This means that a really good pseudo-psychic is able to produce phenomena under almost any circumstance. A quick mind and a good knowledge of the techniques and psychology of deception are all that is needed. Sometimes, only a quick mind is enough. In...

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...