Buzz
Researchers possess an insatiable curiosity. They leave no mystery unsolved, especially when it comes to the bizarre. Recently, a series of studies caught volunteers and unsuspecting participants off guard.
Experiments to evaluate neuroticism, honesty, and a taste for bad jokes were oddly intriguing. The results were even more unusual. They even tested the impact of the common cold on cancer, pondered the potential extinction of chocolate, and took Godzilla's growth rate into serious consideration.
10. The Proper Way to Pet a Cat
Some cats can be quite perplexing. One moment, they’re enjoying a good head scratch, and the next, they’re swatting their owners away. A recent study attributes this to their ancestry.
For the past 4,000 years, felines have been meowing for their share of milk. While they’ve grown closer to humans, their genetics remain very similar to those of their wild ancestor, the African wildcat. Though domesticated, cats still carry a part of their untamed past. This creates tension with human instincts, as people typically pet their animals as a sign of affection, whereas the African wildcat prefers solitude and avoids contact with others of its kind.
So, what’s the solution?
The cat must be in control. The study showed that when cats took the initiative to bond, they allowed their owners to show affection for a longer period. They enjoy having their chins, ears, and cheeks scratched, but are less fond of having their backs, stomachs, or the base of their tails touched.
Owners must also pay attention to their cat’s body language for signs of discomfort and stop when necessary. In the end, it’s all about respecting your cat’s wild instincts.
9. Canned Laughter Enhances Poor Comedy
Television critics aren’t fans of laugh tracks. They consider it an outdated gimmick that should have faded with poor acting and uninspired plots. Nevertheless, viewers still perceive laugh tracks as cues for comedy.
In 2019, a study selected 40 jokes, all of which were terrible. The researchers aimed to determine if adding canned laughter could make them more enjoyable. First, 20 students endured the jokes with no laughter, resulting in predictably low ratings. On a scale from 1 to 7, none of the jokes scored higher than 3.75.
Later, 72 adults rated the jokes again, first without laughter, then with exaggerated canned laughter, and finally, with genuine laughter. Ratings improved by about 10 percent with forced laughter, but the most significant increase—15 to 20 percent—occurred when the volunteers heard laughter that conveyed true amusement.
The higher ratings might have been influenced by people’s instinctive reaction to laughter as a primal signal vital to social bonding. In essence, it was more about being part of the group than enjoying the bad jokes themselves.
8. Enticing People with Wallets
In 2015, a team of behavioral scientists set out to test people’s honesty, particularly among civic workers. They embarked on an ambitious project, traveling across 40 countries with over 17,000 wallets, cash, credit cards, and roughly 400 keys.
Research assistants pretended to be tourists who found a wallet. They handed these wallets to staff at banks, museums, police stations, and other public institutions in 355 cities, asking them to locate the wallet’s rightful owner.
The study aimed to answer two key questions: Do some countries return more lost wallets, and does the amount of cash inside influence whether it gets returned?
When the results were released in 2019, they astonished 300 expert economists who had predicted that people would take wallets with more cash. However, the study found that those who were entrusted with returning the wallets were more likely to do so when the wallets contained larger sums of money. The country made no difference in this surprisingly positive behavior.
7. Phone Movements Expose Personality
A reliable method for determining an individual’s personality is to measure them against the Big Five test. Originating in the 1980s, this test is based on five key traits: openness (curious vs. cautious), extraversion (outgoing vs. reserved), agreeableness (compassionate vs. detached), conscientiousness (organized vs. easygoing), and neuroticism (confidence vs. anxiety).
In March 2010, researchers began tracking 52 volunteers for over a year. The goal was to put a unique twist on the Big Five test—exploring whether people’s personalities could be determined by the way they interacted with their phones.
Each phone was equipped with an accelerometer to track physical movements and software that recorded calls and messages. Interestingly, this approach correlated with certain traits identified in a Big Five personality survey that participants had completed.
The data was particularly effective at predicting extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. These traits tend to involve more physical activity, which may explain why the phones were unable to assess openness and agreeableness.
6. Spiders on Drugs
In 1948, spiders intrigued H.M. Peters. A zoologist at Germany’s University of Tubingen, Peters studied spiderwebs. The orb-web spiders he focused on were early risers, forcing him to wake up between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM to observe their spinning.
He enlisted pharmacologist Peter Witt to administer substances that would delay the spiders’ web-making schedule. To make them spin later, Witt provided the spiders with sugar water mixed with caffeine, amphetamines, mescaline, strychnine, or LSD.
The drugged spiders eagerly altered the patterns and sizes of their webs, but they still preferred the early morning hours to carry out their work. Peters abandoned the experiment, but Witt continued studying the effects on these altered arachnids.
In 1995, NASA successfully replicated Witt's experiment. This time, the spiders created specific patterns after ingesting caffeine, marijuana, speed, or chloral hydrate.
The extent of the web deformities was determined by how toxic the chemicals were. This reaction could potentially influence how labs test for poisons, offering a more cost-effective and humane alternative to using more complex mammals like mice.
5. Chocolate Extinction
Chocolate addicts were horrified when reports surfaced that their beloved treat might be gone by 2050. The culprit? Cacao trees, the source of chocolate, were struggling to survive against the usual environmental threats.
Multiple studies have followed fungal diseases wreaking havoc on Central America's cacao trees, suggesting that these diseases may spread to other cacao-producing regions. Climate change, acting as a signal for extreme weather events, could also significantly harm cacao plantations.
Alarmingly, half of the world's chocolate comes from two African nations. If Ghana and the Ivory Coast face climate changes, the entire chocolate industry could be at risk.
Cacao trees are highly sensitive to temperature fluctuations and thrive in rainforest conditions. With projections for 2050 indicating rising temperatures and dryness, chocolate lovers could face trouble. While scientists are exploring genetically enhanced cacao trees, this would mean that chocolate would no longer retain its natural origins for some.
4. Climate Apartheid
A chilling study from 2019 proposed that climate change could lead to a division of humanity, an idea known as 'climate apartheid.' The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) issued a report describing how the darker side of human nature could emerge as the planet faces catastrophic environmental collapse.
The consensus is clear: climate change will ultimately impact every living being on Earth. This grim reality suggests a future filled with famine, mass death, and natural disasters. As these conditions deteriorate, society will split between those who can afford protection and those left vulnerable.
The HRC's report is the result of over 100 studies examining the threats climate change poses to essential human needs, such as housing, food, water, and health.
The report's conclusion is stark: without drastic changes in environmental policy and immediate action to protect the most at-risk populations, millions will perish. Ironically, the worst-affected are the poorest nations, which have contributed least to the pollution fueling climate change.
3. The Common Cold Beat Cancer
The concept of using a virus to target cancer cells dates back nearly a century. Yet, it wasn’t until 2019 that the theory was proven correct. A study involved 15 patients with early-stage bladder cancer, each infected with coxsackievirus A21, the same virus responsible for the common cold, via a catheter.
The catheter remained in place for an hour, after which the procedure was repeated. This allowed for a higher concentration of the virus to be introduced into the bladder than a typical infection would cause. The patients then proceeded to surgery for tumor removal.
Using the common cold to combat cancer may seem improbable, yet the results were remarkable. In many patients, the virus not only damaged the tumors significantly but also attracted immune cells to attack them. In one case, the tumor was entirely eradicated.
In the end, cancer treatment might be as simple as employing a virus naturally occurring in the environment. Interestingly, none of the patients who were treated with the virus developed a cold during the study.
2. An Unknown Shape
Epithelial cells play a crucial role in our skin, in lining organs, and in aiding the development of embryos. Despite their importance, scientists were never able to definitively determine their shape. Initially, they were thought to resemble either tubelike prisms or a frustum, a shape akin to a bottle-shaped pyramid.
In 2018, a team of scientists embarked on a study to uncover the true shape of these cells. They relied on computer simulations to help solve the mystery, and the outcome was unexpected. The shape was neither what had been assumed, nor did it align with anything previously known in mathematics or science.
Surprisingly, the shape resembled a Y-shaped prism. One branch had five surfaces at the top, while the other had six. This novel geometric form was dubbed the 'scutoid.' The data suggested that this unusual structure allowed epithelial cells to conform more easily to curved tissues.
The discovery holds far-reaching implications beyond just adding a new shape to science. By understanding how scutoids form tissues, scientists may be able to enhance the creation of artificial organs, which could be a game-changer for transplant patients.
1. Anxiety Makes Godzilla Grow
In 2019, scientists turned their attention to Godzilla’s remarkable growth rate. The monster has undergone dramatic size changes since its first appearance in the 1950s, where it stood 50 meters (164 ft) tall. By the latest 2019 release, it had grown to an imposing 120 meters (393 ft), a size that expanded 30 times faster than any living organism on Earth. If Godzilla were real, its growth would have shattered all records in terms of both evolution and size.
The study explored a variety of potential reasons for Godzilla's continual growth. The researchers concluded that Godzilla symbolizes humanity's existential anxiety. Factors like politics, environmental crises, and personal struggles fuel this persistent stress, mirrored by the monster’s increasing size in each film.
It seems that Godzilla embodies the significant challenges humanity must come together to face—such as climate change and terrorists. Yet, Godzilla might also simply be in competition with itself. With audiences continuously craving bigger and better experiences, the iconic creature must evolve to meet their expectations.
