Researchers from the University of Guelph (Canada) have been the first to show empirically that animals in captivity can get bored like oysters, much like a human being, and that they eagerly seek stimuli in their environment. Their findings are published in the journal PLOS One.
A study by Mcmaster University reveals that our table companions at lunch or dinner condition us when choosing what we eat. According to Meredith Young, a co-author of the research, women tend to ask for low-calorie foods when they eat in a group with one or more men present.
Why do we like to watch over and over again the rerun of certain movies and television series, repeatedly reread a book, listen to a certain song a hundred times or repeat the same holiday destination year after year? Cristel Russel, Professor of Marketing at the American University of Washington (USA), has analyzed the science behind this very common phenomenon.
That we love to cry in the movies is corroborated by box office hits such as "Titanic", "Gone with the Wind", "Someone Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or the most recent "The Impossible". According to a study directed by Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, from the University of Ohio, and published in the journal Communication Research, tragic films that cause us sadness in turn enhance a reflection on our own lives and make us evoke the closest relationships and our loved ones, immediately increasing the levels of happiness.
According to an investigation by the University of Granada, based on police surveys, in crimes of gender violence in which the woman kills her abuser, if the accused considers herself attractive, she is attributed greater responsibility for the crime. To carry out the study, two types of fictitious stories were written about a judicial process in which the protagonist was a woman accused of killing her husband and who had declared in her defense that she had suffered a long history of abuse.
In Western culture, thinness is often portrayed as an ideal of beauty, and this idealization, taken to the extreme, can cause major disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Now, a study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders reveals that genetics determine that some women are more susceptible than others to social pressure for being thin.
A new scientific study carried out by researchers at the University of Hiroshima (Japan) and published in the journal 'PLoS ONE' reveals that watching videos and photographs of puppies and babies animals improves our dexterity in non-motor tasks and makes us faster, more productive and effective in completing tasks.
Last night the Ig Nobel prizes were awarded to the most absurd investigations of the year. Thus, the Ig Nobel in psychology went to the Dutch Anita Eerland and Rolf Zwaan and the researcher Tulio Guadalupe (Peru), for demonstrating that leaning to the left makes the Eiffel Tower in Paris appear smaller.
Danni Büchner is invited to Sam Dylan's Halloween party. But the "Goodbye Germany" emigrant has no desire for many other party guests. And find clear words.
