Human hands evolved for punching, not just dexterity, says prof
A University of Utah study suggests human hands evolved not only for the manual dexterity needed to use tools or…
Husbands stay close with oxytocin
The first direct evidence that oxytocin promotes relationship fidelity in humans has been provided by a study that measured the…
Men enjoy dirt-eating as much as pregnant women, Harvard study finds
Harvard scientists say that pica (the eating of non-food items) is far more prevalent in Madagascar than previously thought and…
Knife-on-bottle is “nastiest sound,” say scientists
Frenetic activity between the emotional and auditory parts of the brain explains why the sound of a knife on a…
The prettier the guiltier
Past research has linked physical attractiveness to success in a variety of fields, but a new study from the University…
Joke boffins analyze tragedy humor
“Too soon!” complained the audience when comedian Jeffrey Ross did a skit about the recent shootings in Colorado, but psychologists…
Women better with colors
A study examining visual processing in the brain found that men have greater sensitivity to detail and rapidly moving stimuli,…
Booze intake influenced by glass shape
Research subjects drank beer from a curved glass almost twice as fast as from a straight sided glass, but the…
Waitresses in red win tips race
Male restaurant customers give consistently higher tips – around 20 percent more – to waitresses wearing red, say hospitality researchers.…
Sewage analysis reveals European party hotspots
For the first time, scientists have made direct comparisons of illicit drug use in 19 European cities by a cooperative…
Brain hardwired for objectification of women
A new series of experiments have shown that when presented with images of men, both male and female subjects perceive…
Reading: up close and personal
There are no significant gender-related differences in the eye’s ability to focus at near distances, so scientists have been looking…
Coolness no longer cool, say boffins
An intriguing new study – “Coolness: An Empirical Investigation” – suggests that the characteristics associated with coolness today are markedly…
U.S. heads getting bigger
In the space of less than 200 years, the average U.S. Caucasian skull size has increased nearly 7 percent, becoming…
Ovulation goggles make Mr Wrong look like Mr Right
Nice guys finish last when women are wearing ovulation goggles, say University of Texas researchers who have been investigating exactlywhy…
“Seeing” auras is really synesthesia, say Euro scientists
Spanish researchers say that healers who claim to be able to see the auras surrounding people are actually suffering synesthesia,…
Humans drawn to high emotion
Pictures of the left side of the face are perceived and rated as more pleasant than pictures of the right…
Chin augmentations skyrocket
The always fascinating annual statistics report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) shows that chin augmentation is the…
Empirical evidence for homophobia’s link to repressed same-sex attraction
In the first study of its kind, researchers from the University of Rochester, the University of Essex and the University…
Beer-goggles effect explained
Alcohol reduces our ability to assess facial symmetry in others, according to University of Roehampton researchers who say the effect…
Wine subtleties mostly irrelevant to consumer palates
Biology appears to play a major role in wine experts’ acute sense of taste, suggests a study from Penn State…
Is texting stunting our reading skills?
The general assumption that text messaging encourages unconstrained language is a myth, says Canadian linguist Joan Lee, who contends that…
IQ plummets for women in social settings
A new Virginia Tech study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences subtle social signals in group settings can have on…
Say what? Ambiguity makes language more efficient
To avoid conversational confusion and optimize language, linguists have traditionally argued that every word should have just one meaning, but…
Why gossip is good for you
Gossip has traditionally had a bad reputation, but a convoluted series of experiments carried out in the US have demonstrated…
Researchers mull bacterium’s link to autism
The bacterium Sutterella was found to be present at remarkably high levels in the gastrointestinal tracts of children with autism…
Creative types more likely to cheat
While creativity helps people solve difficult problems, it also makes them more likely to cheat than less creative people, claims…
Boffins take aim at finance bubbles
US and European scientists have proposed two different methods for detecting finance bubbles, one analyzes verb and noun usage in…