Science News

Columbia University Professor, Peter Woit, is interviewed in Discover Magazine’s Feb 2006 edition about his criticisms of string theory and his blog, Not Even Wrong, which gets 5000 hits a day. Calling string theory ’science fiction in mathematical form’, Woit explains why string theory became such a big phenomenon Read the rest

A quick blurb in the Februay 2006 edition of Discover Magazine explains why many women don’t find Adam Sandler funny.

To understand how the brain reacts to humor, Reiss and his team had test subjects rate the hilarity of cartoons while undergoing fMRI brain scans. Although men and women described the cartoons as equally funny, the areas of their brains that lit up as a result differed. Women activated the left prefrontal cortex more than men, indicating that their processing of humor is rooted more heavily in language. This explains why women are more likely to appreciate wordplay over, say, the slapstick antics of a dim-witted water boy. Reiss also found that women showed a stronger response in the nucleus accumbens, the brain’s reward center, suggesting that they ultimately derived bigger pleasure hits from punch lines.

I wonder where I fit in. I happen to -like- most Adam Sandler films.

One of the more fascinating books I’m currently reading is Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. It’s actually light reading for a theoretical physics book, meaning that he doesn’t lose you at any point, nor does he bore/frustrate his readers with lots of obscure math, so thus far, I’m happy with it. Read the rest

If you’ve ever wondered why men are hard coded for a ‘recovery period’ after orgasm, rest assured that scientists are working finding the answer.

A current study compared men’s prolactin levels after sex with a partner with levels after masturbation. It turns out that orgasm from intercourse increases blood prolactin levels 400% in both sexes. (Whether that translates to sex with a partner being 400% better, as the New Scientist Headline claims, seems a bit subjective.) Read the rest

Here’s a nifty trick to keep you calm during your next public speaking engagement. Have penetrative sex beforehand.

A recent study compared the effects of various types of sexual activity on blood pressure when a person must later engage in something strenuous. The results found that people that engaged in penetrative sex were less stressed and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who had only masturbated or had non-penetrative sex. Read the rest

According to a small study of 61 women in rural Guatemala, high levels of the stress hormone cortisol may cause miscarriage. Mothers with increased levels of this hormone were three times more likely to have a miscarriage than mothers that didn’t show increases in stress hormones.

The researchers found that women whose cortisol levels significantly increased over their baseline during the first three weeks of pregnancy were 2.7 times more likely to suffer a pregnancy loss than women with no cortisol increase. Nine of 10 pregnancies to women with high cortisol levels ended in miscarriage, compared with only four of 12 to women with stable cortisol.

(Source: New Scientist)

A group of amateur astronomists were the first to see our tenth planet Xena through conventional means - through a telescope. Read the rest

A new flurry of stat crunching from the Georgia Institute of Technology claims to support what researchers Peter Webster and Judy Curry claimed days after Hurricane Katrina - that rising sea temperatures are causing a significant increase in the number of hurricanes. Read the rest

Welcome to the ScienceReport blog, a site for all things related to brain and behavior, evolution, physics and other science-related topics.

I’m mainly starting this blog so I can keep up with and have a forum to flesh out ideas that interest me.

About me - my undergrad was in ‘Biological Basis of Behavior’ and I worked in cognitive research for my thesis and my first day job out of college (before I switched careers.) I regularly subscribe to New Scientist and Scientific American and am a member of the Scientific American book club but I rarely use this stuff in my day job.

Since, I find, there aren’t a lot of people willing to discuss quantum physics or neuroscience in casual conversation, I figured I start a blog. Hope you enjoy.