Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Nov 30, 2004

Voice of Reason: Giving up the Ghosts

In early December 2004, a woman named Mary Anderson put her father's ghost up for sale at the online auction site eBay after her six-year-old son said he was afraid that his grandfather's ghost would haunt him. The grandfather's ghost -- or, at least, his cane --was purchased by the...

Nov 30, 2004

Explorer Looks for Amelia Earhart's Plane

At 17,000 feet beneath the surface, the temperature of ocean water is just above freezing, oxygen is sparse and currents are relatively calm. In other words, ideal conditions for preserving an airplane that might have crashed into the depths nearly 70 years ago, according to marine explorer David Jourdan, who...

Nov 30, 2004

Voice of Reason: Predictions for 2004 Revisited

Time is running out. Over the next few days, Osama bin Laden will die of kidney disease. Saddam Hussein will be shot to death. Fidel Castro will die. A live dinosaur thousands of years old will be captured. The Hoover Dam will collapse. And Rosie O'Donnell will adopt Siamese twin...

Oct 31, 2004

Ancient Mayan Canals Possibly Spotted in Satellite Images

Where the rain forests of Guatemala now stand, a great civilization once flourished. The people of Mayan society built vast cities, ornate temples, and towering pyramids. At its peak around 900 A.D., the population numbered 500 people per square mile in rural areas, and more than 2,000 people per square...

Oct 31, 2004

Pope Hails 'Sign of Dialogue' With Science

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope John Paul II received an honorary degree Tuesday from Nicholas Copernicus University in his native Poland, calling it a ''sign of dialogue'' between science and faith. The pope received the rector and faculty members from the university in Torun, Poland, the astronomer's birthplace, which John...

Oct 31, 2004

How the Real 'Loch Ness Monster' Swam

A pair of scientists dove right in to figure out how a dinosaur-era lookalike of the fabled Loch Ness paddled its fins. The creature, a Plesiosaur, was a real-life, long-neck, fish-eating reptile with powerful jaws. It died out along with the dinosaurs. Some speculate the Loch Ness Monster is a...

Jul 31, 2004

'Hoax Busting' Science Center Expands

AMHERST, N.Y. -- Display cases at the Center for Inquiry hold snake oil and other murky cure-alls, fortune-telling tools and a bug-eyed alien in repose. Intriguing mysteries to some, to the center they are something else: byproducts of a public too willing to turn a blind eye to science. For...

Nov 30, 2005

Peruvian Canals Most Ancient in New World

Any archaeologist will tell you that agriculture is what really kick-started social development in the ancient world. So what about people who lived in arid climates? In Egypt and Mesopotamia they developed irrigation canals. New discoveries suggest at least one group in the New World had the right idea too....

Oct 31, 2005

School Board Member: Don't Know Much about Intelligent Design ...

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A school board member testified Wednesday she voted to include intelligent design'' in a high school biology curriculum despite not knowing much about the concept because she thought students should be aware of alternatives to evolutionary theory. I thought, this is another way to make them...

Oct 31, 2005

Elite Women Made Beer in Pre-Incan Culture

An ancient brewery from a vanished empire was staffed by elite women who were selected for their beauty or nobility, a new study concludes. The finding adds to other evidence that women played a more crucial role in ancient Andean societies than history books have stated. It may also in...

Oct 31, 2005

Beethoven's Bones?

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ A California businessman said Thursday that skull fragments that once belonged to his great-great-uncle in 19th century Europe very likely came from German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Paul Kaufmann made the announcement at the Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University, which helped coordinate...

Oct 31, 2005

Leonardo Da Vinci's 10 Best Ideas

The Vitruvian Man Leonardo da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man' is said to illustrate the golden ratio. Da Vinci modeled his perfect human form after the proportions laid out by Vitruvius, an ancient Roman architect. The angry-looking man drawn by Da Vinci has reason to smile - he's now considered one of...

Sep 30, 2005

Remote-Controlled Human: 'I Didn't Like that Sensation'

ATSUGI, Japan (AP) -- We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, make them advance, make them halt. Ground-bound pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots. But manipulating humans? Prepare to be remotely controlled. I was. Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent...

Sep 30, 2005

New Digital Brush Makes the World Your Palette

Painters used to look to nature for their colors, extracting blues and red from plants and clay. A new digital paintbrush takes the practice to an amazing new level. Artists can now sample colors, textures and even movements directly from the environment for use in a composition. The eyes in...

Aug 31, 2005

Math Made Easy: Study Reveals 5-year-olds' Innate Ability

Young children can perform certain kinds of math operations before ever receiving any kind formal math training, a new study reports. The finding suggests children have an inborn intuition about math that could be used to make learning the real thing in school less painful. Ask a 5-year old child...