Why When You Walk Into a Room You Often Forget What You Went in For ?
We’ve all experienced it: The frustration of entering a room and forgetting what we were going to do. Or get. Or find. But why should that happen ?
Aroma Chemistry : What Causes the Smell of Old & New Books?
Are you a Bibliophile, someone who loves books? If you are you’ll know the joy of buying, collecting, owning, (smelling?), touching and of course reading these textual marvels. As a bibliophime, is one of your favourite pecadillos the scent of a new book or the musky thrill of an old books smell? In this article we look at the chemistry behind that guilty little pleasure otherwise known as Bibliosmia.
Does any other Animal ‘Speak’ or Communicate like Humans?
Chimpanzees share about 99% of our DNA, making them our closest living relatives, so the questions might be better re-phrased as “Can chimps speak?”
How Do Ants Tell Friend from Foe?
Ants can form colonies that range in size from a few dozen predatory individuals living in small natural cavities to highly organised colonies that may occupy large territories and consist of millions of individuals. They clearly work together in a highly organised way – but how do they communicate – how would they tell freind from foe?
Why do we Lie – The Science behind Lying
White lies, exaggerations, boldface lies, half-truths, lies by omission, bluffs – there are a multitude of ways to intentionally deceive someone and the human race seem sto be inventing new ones daily. But can we scientifically detect when a person is lying ?
Extra Senses – Beyond the ‘traditional five’
There’s one popular misteaching that seems to pervade : it’s our understanding of ‘the senses’ – and that is that there are only 5 of them. However if you really think about this subject a bit, its pretty obvious and quickly apparent that we have many more ways to sense the world
Swearing – The Science Behind Why We Do it
Why the #*&! do we swear? We all let one slip occasionally-or maybe you express your expletives loud and proud. But does swearing serve any biological purpose, or is it simply a cultural taboo?
Take Control of Your Dreams for Real : Lucid Dreaming
No this isn’t one of those infomercials or self-help articles saying “you too can achieve your dreams & life goals if you follow our 10 step programme … blah blah blah”. This is about lucid dreaming – the ability to conciously control your dreams whilst you sleep.
Why Does Time Seem to Go Faster as We Get Older ?
As you get older does it sometimes feel that time is passing much more quickly than when you were younger? Why does our perception of time change so drastically with age? And is there anything we can do about it?
What is Love ? (Scientifically Speaking)
What is Love ? : A very deep and involved question. However in this article we will restrict ourself to the scientific point of view. What is going on in our bodies, and brains when we fall in love or see the object of our inner most desires.
Procrastination – The Science of ‘putting it off’
Let’s face it, we all procrastinate. We can put in a huge amount of effort in trying to avoid some other task. Sometimes more effort is put into avoiding something than just actually doing it.
Predicting the social future – How do our Brains use Behavioural Social Clues ?
How do you know you’ll get a kiss? The cells that let brains predict the social future.
Play it Again Sam – What is Déjà Vu ?
Déjà vu is French for ‘already seen’ and describes the sensation many of us experience from time to time when we are sure a certain situation has happened before. But is there any explanation as to why we should experience this ?
Is there any scientific basis to the idea of “brainwashing” ?
If true, then the idea of “brainwashing” – that is convincing someone to do or behave in some way that they wouldn’t normally – has terrible consequences. It means people can claim they were under this infuence when they committed a crime and would mean that we are all vulnerabe to manipulation.
Why do we blush?
Blushing is rather an odd physiological and psychological response to embarrassment or awkward social situations. Could there be any rational or logical explanation for this? What possible evolutionary reason could there be for such a strange phenomenon.
