Category: ideas

“In this edition of ‘Wonks Gone Wild,’ one researcher finds an answer to the Mardi Gras question: How do I get someone to throw me some beads?”

A mosquito “death ray”?

“Across the country, FBI data show that crime last year fell to lows unseen since the 1960s – part of a long trend that has seen crime fall steeply in the United States since the mid-1990s. At the same time, however, another change has taken place: a steady rise in the percentage of Americans who believe crime is getting worse.”

“A team of researchers found that when people were in a room recently spritzed with a citrus-scented cleanser, they behaved more fairly when playing a classic trust game. In another experiment, the smell of cleanser made subjects more likely to volunteer for a charity. The findings suggest that simply smelling something clean makes people clean up their behavior.”

“[P]eople with damage to the amygdala – an almond-shaped part of the brain involved in emotion and decision-making – are more likely to take bigger risks with smaller potential gains, [a new] study found.”

Humans and great apes can’t sprint nearly as fast as, say, cheetahs, but our heel-first method of locomotion is excellent for long-distance walking. It also gives us extra strength and torquing ability for fighting.

A pair of behavioral researchers “caution that boredom alone isn’t likely to kill you – but [chronic boredom] could be a symptom of other risky behavior like drinking, smoking, taking drugs or having a psychological problem.”

“Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy. Their study provides the strongest evidence to date that spiritual thinking arises in, or is limited by, specific brain areas.”

A look at “the existence of this informal language of road signals – either creative adaptations of the simple communicative tools available on an automobile (lights, turn/brake signals, horn) or, often, some gesture by the driver himself (a wave, ‘the finger,’ etc.). How do these things emerge, how are they transmitted, and how are they understood?”

“According to an amusing little study, by paralyzing the frown muscles that ordinarily are engaged when we feel angry, Botox short-circuits the emotion itself. It’s a version of the classic finding in psychology that facial expressions can produce the very emotion they usually reflect.”