Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 4, 2018

Stephen Hawking's 1st Wife Blasts Biopic 'The Theory of Everything'

Jane Hawking, the ex-wife of the late and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, asserted that The Theory of Everything, a film about the couple's life and family, got a lot wrong. Don't ever believe what you see in films, Jane Hawking said this week at the Henley Literary Festival in Oxfordshire,...

Oct 16, 2018

Photos: Peer at Glittering Insect Eyes and Glowing Spider Babies in Prizewinning Photos

Weevil eye (Image credit: Courtesy of Nikon Small World)From Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, photographer Yousef Al Habshi secured first place in the 2018 Nikon Small World photography contest using reflected light at a magnification of 20x to record this image of the eye of a Metapocyrtus subquadrulifer beetle. [Read...

Oct 17, 2018

Why Is it Fun to Be Frightened?

John Carpenter's iconic horror film Halloween celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Few horror movies have achieved similar notoriety, and it's credited with kicking off the steady stream of slasher flicks that followed. Audiences flocked to theaters to witness the seemingly random murder and mayhem a masked man brought to...

Nov 5, 2018

After a Zombie Apocalypse, Here Are 9 Keys to Rebuilding a Civilization

In AMC's The Walking Dead (which airs Sundays at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. CST), now in its ninth season, characters have survived years after the zombie apocalypse began and are now working to expand their simple communities into a stronger, more capable and civilized society. You're gonna be evidence that...

Nov 7, 2018

Watching People Beatbox in an MRI Machine Will Blow Your Mind

Patil is a beatboxer, a musician who can create convincing drum beats and other percussive sounds using only her vocal tract. She's also a researcher at the Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory (SAIL) at the University of Southern California (USC), where she and her colleagues are working to understand how...

Dec 10, 2018

How to Survive the 'Game of Thrones,' According to Science

If you want to survive the Game of Thrones, it pays to be noble, female and flexible about the concept of loyalty. In a new published study (yes, really), epidemiologists at Macquarie University in Australia analyzed the deaths of the key characters in the Game of Thrones HBO series and...

Feb 26, 2019

Charles Dickens Plotted to Send His Sane Wife to an Asylum

Being married to the Victorian author Charles Dickens was definitely not the best of times. Long-hidden letters reveal that Dickens sought to have his wife, Catherine, forcibly consigned to an institution — a scheme that fell apart when doctors found no evidence of mental illness in the woman. At first,...

Feb 27, 2019

What Are Radio Waves?

Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation best-known for their use in communication technologies, such as television, mobile phones and radios. These devices receive radio waves and convert them to mechanical vibrations in the speaker to create sound waves. The radio-frequency spectrum is a relatively small part of the...

Mar 15, 2019

French Painting Stolen by Nazis in 1940 Raid to Be Returned to Owner's Descendants

An artwork by Paul Signac — a painter who helped invent the pointillist style — was stolen from a French home during a Nazi raid in 1940. Signac's painting recently resurfaced in a private collection, and German cultural authorities said it will be returned to the descendants of its original...

Mar 29, 2019

Here's What the Speed of Light Looks Like in Slow Motion

Light travels at 186,000 miles per second (300 million meters per second) and is believed to set the unsurpassable speed limit of the universe. But what does the speed of light actually look like? It might sound like a ridiculous question, but optical researchers at the California Institute of Technology...

Apr 9, 2019

The Old English Verse 'Beowulf' Was Likely Written by a Single Author

Over a thousand years ago, a writer (or writers) penned an epic poem about a warrior named Beowulf who must defeat an evil monster (the story is replete with power struggles, lots of killing and, yes, a fire-breathing dragon). That famous work, Beowulf, is now one of the anchors of...

Apr 9, 2019

Why Giant Tortoise Sex Became the Basis of a Key 'Game of Thrones' Sound Effect

When you hear the signature roars of Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion — the three key dragon cast members in Game of Thrones — tortoise sex is probably the furthest thing from your mind. And yet, according to series sound designer Paula Fairfield, the mating cries of giant tortoises are among...

Apr 11, 2019

The First Cave Art from the Balkans May Date Back 30,000 Years

Inside of a cave overlooking the blue-green waters of Croatia's northern coast, archaeologists have found wall paintings that date back to the Upper Paleolithic period. While prehistoric cave art is plentiful in western Europe, the discovery marks the first time cave art of this age has been documented in the...

Apr 15, 2019

Leonardo Da Vinci Was Ambidextrous, Handwriting Analysis Shows

Leonardo da Vinci was left-handed, but he was equally adept at writing and painting with his right hand, new evidence from one his earliest known works has revealed. Experts with the Opificio delle Pietre Dure (OPD), an art conservation and research institution in Florence, Italy, conducted diagnostic surveys of a...

May 22, 2019

Hereditary Rule Wreaked Havoc in 'Game of Thrones' — and in Medieval Europe

(Spoiler Alert! This article contains information about the last episode of Game of Thrones.) After eight seasons, the epic Game of Thrones TV series finally resolved the question of who will reign — with an unexpected twist. Bran the Broken Stark rolled into position as the new monarch of the...