Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 31, 2008

Unhappy People Watch Lots More TV

Unhappy people glue themselves to the television 30 percent more than happy people. The finding, announced on Thursday, comes from a survey of nearly 30,000 American adults conducted between 1975 and 2006 as part of the General Social Survey. While happy people reported watching an average of 19 hours of...

Oct 31, 2008

God and Evolution Can Co-exist, Scientist Says

NEW YORK — A scientist is going public with his Christian belief in God and acceptance of evolution, in the wake of the Dover trial and recent, high-profile scholarly writings that have highlighted the contradictions between religiosity and science. Karl W. Giberson, a physics professor at Eastern Nazarene College in...

Oct 31, 2008

Scientists Team Up with Hollywood

When the worlds of science and Hollywood collide, the results often highlight the differences between the two realms instead of celebrating their similarities. The National Academy of Sciences is trying to change that with a new initiative called, The Science and Entertainment Exchange. This is the Academy's first formal effort...

Oct 31, 2008

Bank Run: How Ginko Financial Went Down

A string of bank collapses prompted Alan Greenspan, U.S. economic guru and former head of the Federal Reserve, to admit last month that lending institutions could not always be trusted to regulate themselves. He could have taken a cue sooner by looking at the 2007 collapse of Ginko Financial, a...

Oct 31, 2008

Apocalyptic 'New Jerusalem' Sect Falling Apart

In Mexico's strange town called New Jerusalem, there's no freedom of religion. You can't play soccer, either. But John F. Kennedy is a saint, explains reporter Chris Hawley. With its spiritual leaders dying after 35 years of all this, things in New Jerusalem are getting weirder, Hawley wrote this week...

Sep 30, 2008

Palin vs. Biden: How Sex May Change the Debate

If history repeats itself, the vice presidential candidates will pull no punches at Thursday night's debate. But this time there's a woman in the mix, and that could really turn things upside-down. Sarah Palin might take on a more manly, aggressive style while Joe Biden steps into a less combative,...

Sep 30, 2008

Leakey: Economic Woes Could be 'Devastating' to Science

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Famed scientist Richard Leakey warned that the worldwide credit crisis will be just devastating to scientific research in coming years, as endowment interest income drops and companies cut donations. Leakey, who once served on a government economic team in his native Kenya, said much of...

Sep 30, 2008

Xenophobia Founded on Faulty Assumptions

America has always been a cultural melting pot, but that pot has always been kept at a rolling bubble by the heat of xenophobia. And sometimes it boils over causing great damage. Every generation of citizens, many of them immigrants themselves or of recent immigrant ancestry, is afraid of the...

Sep 30, 2008

Chicken Soup and Wine

Recent research confirms one of the few truths about health research: You never know. GOOD: Grandma said chicken soup is good for a cold, and she was right. Now we learn that a variation may fight high blood pressure. Scientists in Japan find that chicken legs and feet pack high...

Sep 30, 2008

Americans Flunk Simple 3-Question Political Survey

Some news audiences are more politically savvy than others, according to a new poll, with readers of The New Yorker and similar high-brow magazines being the most knowledgeable. The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the...

Sep 30, 2008

'Stayin' Alive' Sets Perfect Beat for CPR

CHICAGO (AP) — Stayin' Alive might be more true to its name than the Bee Gees ever could have guessed: At 103 beats per minute, the old disco song has almost the perfect rhythm to help jump-start a stopped heart. And in a small but intriguing study from the University...

Sep 30, 2008

Top 10 Scariest Movies Ever

That's Scary! Researchers have found that closing your eyes can make creepy music feel creepier. (Image credit: Stockexpert)Some films have it all, that is, all the goods to make for a frightening, must-leave-the-lights-on, lots of gore and splatter, flick. Here are 10 of the scariest movies ever made. They are...

Sep 30, 2008

Devil's Night: The History of Pre-Halloween Pranks

We all know what happens on Halloween, the night that little boys and girls dress up and (unwittingly) celebrate the ancient Celtic tradition of Samhain and All Hallows Eve. Anyone who has woken up on Halloween morning to find their house egged, their pumpkin smashed or yard toilet-papered, however, is...

Sep 30, 2008

Studies Find a Candidate's Looks Matter

Voters look for someone who appears both competent and attractive when choosing a president, at least when the candidate is female, finds a new study. If true, the reportedly astronomical fees spent on vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's appearance could have been right on the money. Campaign managers seem to...

Aug 31, 2008

Darwin Gallery: Darwin on Display

Darwin Portrait (Image credit: © From the Richard Milner Archive)One of the last photographs taken of Charles Darwin, circa 1878. Darwin, the most in-depth exhibition ever mounted on this highly original thinker, starts November 19, 2005 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Tree of Life (Image...