Humour bias

A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of the brains, done by neuroscientists at the Stanford University Medical School, has concluded that men and women mostly find the same cartoons funny or dull with same respo-nse time, but women get more of a buzz out of cartoons with their brains feeling more rewarded by its funniness. This indicates females’ expectation of being amused is lower, reports the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

Wall walker

Until now scientists were uncertain about what causes the extreme adhesive ability of the gecko lizard ? heaviest animal that can ‘stand’ on a ceiling. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart have discovered that geckos have about a billion nanohairs per foot sole that uses water, present as a thin film on the surface, to stick to a wall. The adhesiveness increases with the amount of humidity.

‘Tester’ worms

Even worms, like humans, quickly learns to avoid rotten foods that earlier made them ill. Researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, placed C. elegans, a microscopic worm, in front of food chambers containing different strains of ‘risky’ or ‘safe’ bacteria, but found that the worms, learning from the ‘bad’ experience, avoided the toxic food.

Stupid birds

Global population of seabird is declining becau-se they are getting dumb, ecologists at the Institute of Arctic Biology in Irving, US, write in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Their research says that lack of a specific nutrient in red-legged kittiwakes makes them too daft to find food.