Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 31, 2009

Humor Wins Women Over

Give it up for ... Guys like Seinfeld and Dudley Moore have a leg up on the rest of us, a new study suggests. Being funny makes men seem more intelligent and trustworthy, researchers conclude. But this was a small study, and not exactly rocket science. Researchers asked 45 women...

Mar 31, 2009

How Baseball Players Catch Fly Balls

Every Little League outfielder knows the feeling. With the crack of the bat, you see the ball jump into the air. You take a few quick steps forward. Then, as you watch the ball continue to rise faster, you feel your stomach sink knowing that this one is going over...

Mar 31, 2009

Let's Fantasize: Could You Be Batman?

One of the endearing qualities of Batman is that, unlike all other mainstream superheroes, he possesses no supernatural powers. He had no brush with radioactivity to endow him with amazing strength and agility instead of thyroid cancer. The source to his power does not lie within a special ring or...

Feb 28, 2009

DVD Habits Reveal Your Character

If you buy a movie on a DVD instead of renting it, you probably have a higher level of education, value your independence, have a greater interest in the cinema in general, and are a more selective consumer. In a recent article in Applied Economics, researchers at the universities of...

Feb 28, 2009

Extremely Premature Babies Suffer Cognitive Problems Later

More than half of children born extremely prematurely have way lower IQs and need extra help in mainstream primary schools, especially when it comes to math, a new British study finds. This research comes on the heels of media attention given to a California woman who gave birth in late...

Feb 28, 2009

Africans Came with Columbus to New World

Teeth from exhumed skeletons of crew members Christopher Columbus left on the island of Hispaniola more than 500 years ago reveal the presence of at least one African in the New World as a contemporary of the explorer, it was announced. A team of researchers is extracting the chemical details...

Feb 28, 2009

Obama's Energy Plan Faces Tough Road, History Suggests

How much should we spend? Vote below. A national need for clean energy may require a U.S. government response rivaling the Manhattan Project or Apollo Program, but history suggests that tackling an energy crisis remains more difficult than building an atomic bomb or going to the moon. Those historical analogies...

Feb 28, 2009

Religious People Work Harder to Stall Death

When you're near death, how hard do you want doctors to work on keeping you alive? Would you want cardiopulmonary resuscitation in what might be your final days of a cancer death sentence? Is a ventilator the right way to go? Researchers recently posed these sorts of questions to 345...

Jan 31, 2009

Small Farms Sprout in Economic Drought

When the economy gets tough, it seems that the tough get farming. Tens of thousands of small farms were created since 2002, according to new data from the Census of Agriculture. The farming forecast isn't entirely sunny. But packed with a cornucopia of surprise findings — such as large increases...

Jan 31, 2009

Teens Crank Up iPod Volume, Risk Hearing Damage

Teens asked by their peers to turn their iPods down actually turn them up, finds a new study that reveals other odd habits. Among the most disconcerting revelations: Teens who express the most concern about the risk for and severity of hearing loss from iPods actually play their music at...

Jan 31, 2009

Women More Religious Than Men

A new analysis of survey data finds women pray more often then men, are more likely to believe in God, and are more religious than men in a variety of other ways. The reasons, analysts say, could range from traditional mothering duties to the tendency of men to take risks...

Dec 31, 2008

Where Words Come From

I want to tell you something. Wait, wait, I'm searching for the right word to begin. I just can't remember it. Oh, there it is ... We all fumble around for the right word, and once you get to a certain age, that fumbling often ends with, Ah, another senior...

Dec 31, 2008

Study Reveals Why First Impressions Count

Getting off on the wrong foot can doom a relationship before it begins, as we all know. Now scientists have studied one reason why this is true. When a person makes a bad first impression, the negative feelings are harder to overcome than a betrayal that occurs after ties are...

Dec 31, 2008

Ancient Walls Covered With Powdered Animal Bones

Scientists have discovered a 14th century brick oven made to bake animal bones for a strange purpose. The burned bones were made into a powder, then mixed with other material to make a protective coating to strengthen the grand medieval walls of a Muslim structure in what is now Granada,...

Dec 31, 2008

How Ancient Greeks Chose Temple Locations

To honor their gods and goddesses, ancient Greeks often poured blood or wine on the ground as offerings. Now a new study suggests that the soil itself might have had a prominent role in Greek worship, strongly influencing which deities were venerated where. In a survey of eighty-four Greek temples...