People can generally tell if other people are friends when they overhear them laughing together. That’s what a scientist found several years ago. Recently, he performed a new experiment, this time to find out if people can understand other people’s relationships by overhearing their conversations. His goal was to study the signals that laughter and speech send to other people. Listen to learn more about the study and what it reveals about the role of laughter in human evolution.
Story Length: 2:22
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April 28, 2020
2:30
The relationship between humans and dogs is a special one, and there are multiple theories about how it originated and how it has changed over time. All dogs evolved from wolves, and scientists are learning more about that evolutionary process through research about similarities and differences in the behavior of wolves and dogs. Listen to this story about a game of fetch and how it might inform scientists’ understanding of the history of the special relationship between species.
Read MoreJune 19, 2019
3:03
According to a new study, talking about other people who are not present, commonly known as gossip, may not be all bad. Researchers studied gossip by recording and listening in on participants’ conversations. Listen to hear what these eavesdropping scientists discovered and learn about some potential benefits of gossip.
Read MoreNovember 29, 2017
2:27
When people don't get enough sleep, it can affect attention, reflexes, and communication. Even the reactions of people are different when they are well rested from when they are deprived of sleep. A group of scientists studying epilepsy also studied the effects of sleep deprivation. They learned that when people don’t sleep enough, certain brain cells literally slow down. Listen to hear more about how important sleep is to the way we process information.
Read MoreDecember 23, 2015
7:18
Elephants roar and stomp and make loud sounds. They also make other sounds too low for humans to hear. Researchers are studying the secret signals of elephants by living among them in Africa. The audible calls are just a fraction of the elephants’ conversation. They have a longer ear canal, bigger eardrums and can hear much lower frequencies than people can. Researchers have matched the rumbling sounds with specific behaviors, such as looking for a baby elephant or greeting each other. Listen to hear more about the hidden language of elephants.
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