Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

May 31, 2009

Still Valuable: WWII Ration Coupons

My grandmother recently died peacefully at 95, and while my sisters and I were going through old boxes in her modest home of some 70 years, making the painful decisions about what to keep and what to give away and what to just grudgingly dispose of, I ran across something...

May 31, 2009

World to End in 2012: A Hoax Gone Too Far?

*** Spoiler alert. This article contains information that will ruin a good hoax. *** There's no shortage of end-of-the-world prophecies and hoaxes, but the latest one has a slick twist. Or, some might say, a sick twist. In fact, just by writing about it, I'm playing into the hands of...

May 31, 2009

End of the World in 2012 (Cont.)

Yesterday I wrote about how Caltech planet-hunter Mike Brown was disturbed by a variation of the World Will End in 2012 hoax perpetrated by a big media company's movie promotion that leaves some people genuinely worried. This hoax has been floating around in various forms for years now, but it's...

Apr 30, 2009

5 Scientific Reasons Mom Deserves Mother's Day

If you haven't yet planned the brunch or picked out the flowers or at least mailed the card, then consider what follows the only motivation you should need. In short, mothers have it tough. Changes in American culture have liberated women in many ways. Mom is now free to do...

Apr 30, 2009

Happiness Is ... Being Old, Male and Republican

Americans grow happier as they age, surveys find. And a new Pew Research Center survey shows the tendency is holding up as the economy tanks. Happiness is a complex thing. Past studies have found that happiness is partly inherited, that Republicans are happier than Democrats, and that old men tend...

Apr 30, 2009

Some People Never Forget a Face

Some people claim to never forget a face. And the ability can prove to be socially awkward. A new study finds some people can remember faces of people they met years ago and only in passing. Others of us, of course, aren't blessed with that ability. In fact about 2...

Apr 30, 2009

The Whole World Is Optimistic, Survey Finds

Despite current economic woes, a new study based on global survey data finds optimism to be universal. Sunny outlooks are most prevalent in Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, and New Zealand. The United States ranks No. 10. Nearly 90 percent of people around the globe expect the next five years to be...

Apr 30, 2009

Cheney vs. Obama: Dueling Unprovable Claims

There's an old joke about a man putting his young son to bed one night. Before the boy goes to sleep, he pulls out a whistle from under his pillow and blows it loudly. The father, startled, asks his son why he blew the whistle. It's to keep tigers away...

Apr 30, 2009

Earliest Known Case of Leprosy Unearthed

A 4,000-year-old skeleton found in India bears the earliest archaeological evidence of leprosy, a new study reports. The finding, detailed in the May 27 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE, is also the first evidence for the disease in prehistoric India and sheds light on how the disease might...

Apr 30, 2009

Flawed Survey Says 99% of Women Don’t Like Their Looks

A new documentary called America the Beautiful is currently being screened at film festivals across the country. The film examines the effects of pop culture and the fashion industry on American ideas of beauty. The idea for the documentary began when filmmaker Darryl Roberts conducted an informal sidewalk survey in...

Apr 30, 2009

Scientists Reveal the Secret to Hockey’s Wrist Shot

It takes less than a second, but the wrist shot in hockey is one of the hardest skills in sports to master. Just ask the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings who will face each other starting this weekend in the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup Finals. Both teams...

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...