Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 31, 2007

September 11 Reality: Americans Surprisingly Resilient

As the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks come around, some Americans will mark the day in public ceremonies. Others will privately acknowledge the event, while many will go about their daily lives with only a passing notice. While the attacks have affected all Americans in one...

Jul 31, 2007

U.S. Healthcare Paradox: The Best and Worst in the World

Watch Michael Moore's new movie Sicko, about the state of U.S. healthcare, and you might want to swim shark-invested waters to Cuba, where healthcare is inexpensive and largely on par with care in the United States. After all, Cubans smoke, drink and hang out in the sun at far higher...

Jul 31, 2007

Top 10 Ailing Presidents

Presidential Ails The south facade and south lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., in spring colors . (Image credit: Frontpage | Shutterstock)Even the leader of the free world catches cold once in awhile, and sometimes much worse. After 45 presidents, the Oval Office has seen its fair share...

May 31, 2007

Chicken Bones Suggest Polynesians Found Americas Before Columbus

Which came first–the chicken or the European? Popular history, and a familiar rhyme about Christopher Columbus, holds that Europeans made contact with the Americas in 1492, with some arguing that the explorer and his crew were the first outsiders to reach the New World. But chicken bones recently unearthed on...

May 31, 2007

PG-13 Films Loaded with 'Happy Violence'

If you take a young child to the movies these days, you might find him staring placidly at the violence while you, the adult, look away. A new study suggests why kids today don't cringe at the violence in films: They don't associate violence with its natural consequences. PG-13 films...

May 31, 2007

Gun Show Regulations Work, Study Finds

California’s stringent weapons laws go a long way toward reducing illegal purchases at gun shows without alienating potential customers, finds a leading researcher in the prevention of firearm violence. Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, Davis, covertly observed and documented illegal gun sales at...

May 31, 2007

Baby Boomers Can't Afford to Retire

WASHINGTON (AP)—As the baby boomers begin to ease into their 60s, most expect to delay retirement longer than their parents or grandparents. That's good, because many can't afford to stop working anytime soon. Two new reports portray aging boomers as better educated, with higher incomes and longer life expectancies than...

May 31, 2007

Strange Things Do Happen at Full Moon

COMMENTARY Recently BBC News reported that some British police departments have decided to add extra officers on nights with a full moon. The concern isn't over werewolves or vampires—no need to issue silver bullets or wooden stakes—but more human threats such as petty thieves and violent criminals. For years, some...

May 31, 2007

Thieves Steal Herman Munster's Identity

WASHINGTON (AP) — Did Internet thieves steal Herman Munster's MasterCard number? Crooks in an underground chat room for selling stolen credit card numbers and personal consumer information offered pilfered data purportedly about Herman Munster, the 1960s Frankenstein-like character from “The Munsters” TV sitcom. The thieves apparently didn't realize Munster was...

May 31, 2007

EXCLUSIVE: Courthouse 'Ghost' Video Mystery Solved

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO—Over the past week, a glowing, fuzzy white blob became an unlikely international star. It was captured on videotape early Friday morning, June 15, by a security camera at a courthouse here. The “ghost video” has been seen over 75,000 times on YouTube; what started as a...

May 31, 2007

U.S. Patriotism is Flagging

Fewer Americans are showing their colors these days. A new survey finds 62 percent of Americans display the flag at home, in the office, or on their car. That's down from 75 percent in August 2002, a year after the 9/11 attacks. Further, those who say they are very patriotic...

May 31, 2007

Science Not to Blame for Non-Religious Scientists

Scientists are less religious than the general population, a new study shows, but the reason has little to do with their study of science or academic pressures. The findings challenge notions that science is responsible for a lack of faith among researchers, indicating that household upbringing carries the biggest weight...

Apr 30, 2007

The Blurry World of Claude Monet Recreated

Claude Monet's paintings diffuse into nothing more than a fuzzy riot of color when viewed too closely. Ironically, the impressionist's vision got cloudy late in life, and his whole world blurred like, well, like a Monet. Now scientists have recreated the world as Monet saw it. The new perspective reveals...

Apr 30, 2007

JFK Lone Gunman Theory Flawed

New research finds flaws in the evidence used to implicate lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The findings are based on updated bullet analysis techniques and throw a wrench in the case-clinching evidence previously cited by experts to rule out a second...

Apr 30, 2007

The Surprising Realities of Mythical Creatures

NEW YORK—While sailing the ocean near Haiti, Christopher Columbus in 1493 reported seeing three mermaids from a distance. The Genoese explorer was not impressed. Up close, the sea maidens were “not as pretty as they are depicted,” he wrote in his journal, “for somehow in the face they look like...