A University of California study by psychologist Laura Mickes has found that men are funnier than women, but not by much, and probably not because it helps them find partners. The stereotypical belief that men have a GSOH is based on an evolutionary sexual-selection argument that likens a man’s sense of humor to a peacock’s […]
British poo boffins say that one-in-six of the cell phones they analyzed was contaminated with fecal matter and E. coli bacteria. The findings, say the researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London, indicate that many people are failing to wash their hands properly with soap after […]
Evolutionary biologists at Stanford University have been pondering why most cultures have a class structure instead of being egalitarian. The answer they’ve arrived it is both ironic and shocking, as it appears that the very inequities of the class system were the driver for its global spread. In the new Stanford study, appearing in the […]
Four new studies from the University at Buffalo suggest that the goal of being romantically desirable is causing the persistent gender gap in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The studies, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, were undertaken to determine why women, who have made tremendous progress in education and […]
If just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority, say cognitive scientists from the Rensselaer Institute. The findings, appearing in Physical Review E, have broad implications for the study of innovation, the spread of ideas and the movement of political ideals. “When the number […]
Far from the planet becoming more peaceful, the frequency of wars between states has increased steadily from 1870 by 2 percent a year on average. A new study by researchers at the University of Warwick and Humboldt University argues that the rise in conflicts is being fed by economic growth and the proliferation of new […]
Driving a sports car makes a man more desirable to women, but only for uncommitted romantic flings and not as a marriage partner, according to researchers from Rice University, the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA) and the University of Minnesota. The research, appearing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, also notes that women […]
When humans see the color red, their reactions become both faster and more forceful. People are mostly unaware of the color’s muscle boosting effect, but a new study suggests it could give sportspeople the edge in activities in which a brief burst of strength and speed is critical. The findings, published in the journal Emotion, […]
Analyzing data from population centers around normally functioning nuclear power stations, German researchers have found an increased percentage of male births. The researchers, Hagen Scherb and Kristina Voigt, from Helmholtz Zentrum in Munich, also looked at data from countries exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl accident. The findings appear inEnvironmental Science and Pollution Research. Scherb […]
The notion that women find “bad boys” sexually attractive gets reinforcement from a new study published in Emotion showing that happiness is not a sexually attractive emotion for men to display. The University of British Columbia study found dramatic gender differences in how men and women rank the sexual attractiveness of commonly displayed emotions, including […]
