In parallel to studies of various cases of synesthesia, many cross-modal correspondences have also been documented in nonsynesthetes. Among these correspondences, implicit associations between taste a...

npj Mental Health Research - Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect

Abstract Android and iPhone devices account for over 90 percent of all smartphones sold worldwide. Despite being very similar in functionality, current discourse and marketing campaigns suggest that k...

Studies of ancient human skeletal remains frequently proceed from the assumption that individuals with robust limb bones and/or rugose, hypertrophic e…

Do teenage boys pick their nose? How often? Why do they do it? How do they feel about it? Is it pathological? A couple of psychiatrists investigated how often high school boys engage in nose pickin…

Eating a plant-based diet is one of the most effective ways people can reduce their carbon footprint. However, global consumption of meat and other an…

The use of high-voltage electric shock therapy for the treatment of snake venom poisoning has recently gained popularity in the United States. We present a case that documents the dangerous, ineffecti...

People enjoy eating meat but disapprove of harming animals. One resolution to this conflict is to withdraw moral concern from animals and deny their c…

Estimates suggest that perhaps a quarter of a billion birds are killed by traffic annually across the world. This is surprising because birds have been shown to learn speed limits. Birds have also been shown to adapt to the direction of traffic and lane ...

Oral sex is widely used in human foreplay, but rarely documented in other animals. Fellatio has been recorded in bonobos Pan paniscus, but even then functions largely as play behaviour among juvenile ...

Yawning is a widely recognized behavior in mammalian species. One would expect that elephants yawn, although to our knowledge, no one has reported observatio...

Across two field studies of romantic attraction, we demonstrate that postural expansiveness makes humans more romantically appealing. In a field st...

An investigation was conducted to evaluate the hypothesis that a bearded man subjects his family and friends to risk of infection if his beard is contaminated by infectious microorganisms while he is working in a microbiological laboratory. Bearded and unbearded men were tested with Serratia marcescens and Bacillus subtilis var. niger. Contact aerosol transmission from a contaminated beard on a mannequin to a suitable host was evaluated with both Newcastle disease virus and Clostridium botulinum toxin, type A. The experiments showed that beards retained microorganisms and toxin despite washing with soap and water. Although washing reduced the amount of virus or toxin, a sufficient amount remained to produce disease upon contact with a suitable host.

ObjectiveThe goal of this study was to test whether central mechanisms of scratching-induced itch attenuation can be activated by scratching the limb contralateral to the itching limb when the partici...

Recreational Science · Episode

Introduction Several mammalian species spontaneously align their body axis with respect to the Earth’s magnetic field (MF) lines in diverse behavioral contexts. Magnetic alignment is a suitable paradi...

Recreational Science · Episode

Background Anecdotal reports and a few scientific publications suggest that flyovers of helicopters at low altitude may elicit fear- or anxiety-related behavioral reactions in grazing feral and farm a...

ABSTRACT The effect of “double-dipping” crackers/chips on the transfer of bacteria from the mouth to the dipping solution was determined in three separate experiments. In experiment 1, eight subjec.....

Recreational Science · Episode

Some occupational health and safety hazards associated with sheep shearing are related to shearing shed design. One aspect is the floor of the catchin…

Recreational Science · Episode