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| STORIES ABOUT: human |
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| Flame Walks as We Do |  | A new highly advanced walking robot dubbed Flame was developed recently by researcher Daan Hobbelen from TU Delft as part of his PhD research focused on revealing the way people walk. For his research Hobbelen will receive his PhD next week, on May 30. Hobbelen's findings could provide a valuable insight into new techniques meant to diagnose, train and rehabilitate people with walking difficulties.
People take bipedal wal ... [read more >>] | | 23 May 2008, 10:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| New Family Tree for Humans |  | Geometry has changed our family tree. A new computer analysis published in the journal Nature re-drew evolutionary links between extinct humans, apemen and us. The team led by Dr Rolando González-José of the Centro Nacional Patagónico-CONICET, Puerto Madryn, Argentina employed 4 geometric measurements from human and ape fossil skulls, assessing variables like skull roundness and facial retraction.
The researchers analyzed 20 skulls bel ... [read more >>] | | 15 May 2008, 03:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Biology and Psychology of Cheating |  | When Hollywood stars or politicians have extramarital affairs, the whole world rumbles. However, were we to look into human biology, anthropology and sociology, we would see that the monogamous human comes off as a very weird notion. Monogamy was invented for a sense of order and as to make a profitable investment, not necessarily because it's natural – or so warn many researchers, showing that both social and sexual monogamy in human ... [read more >>] | | 15 May 2008, 02:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| What Stops You from Loving |  | Love is what makes you a better person. Nevertheless, sharing your life with another person can turn into a permanent struggle with your fears and most rigid beliefs, all of which impede you to love. When in a marriage or a relationship, we have to open up something found deep inside of us.
Without being aware of it, we often fall in love with a person that mobilizes in us our most profound conflicts, all that has remained unsolved in ... [read more >>] | | 14 May 2008, 16:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Oil Peak and the Renewable Abiotic Petroleum |  | We are living in a civilization based on oil. It is an issue that makes us extremely vulnerable. That's because of the global "Peak Oil." The oil production follows a bell curve. Its peak is the moment when oil has been 50% depleted. After the peak, oil production decreases while its price starts to go up.
Many scientists, bankers and investors consider that 2005 was the year of global Peak Oil. US domestic oil ... [read more >>] | | 10 May 2008, 06:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Secret to Being Authoritarian |  | Hard to define, but easy to recognize, this attitude has always been a subject of dispute. Job authority, family authority or couple authority, this is the kind of reality we face daily. Some are advantaged by it, while others come to see their life turned into a living hell because of it. If you have this character trait, you are a privileged. If you do not have it, you want it. The secret is to make it work for your own interest without ... [read more >>] | | 09 May 2008, 09:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Oldest Americans, Found in Chile: They Lived 14,500 Years Ago |  | It is becoming increasingly clear now that people inhabited Americas earlier than what has been previously believed. A study published in April, based on human coprolites (fossilized feces) found in a cave in Oregon, came up with a date for the remains, of about 14,300 years, which is ... [read more >>] | | 09 May 2008, 02:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Self-centeredness |  | You may meet a person who looks right (proper clothing, skillfulness, intelligent look and stateliness), but when he/she starts to talk, he/she pisses you off really bad. Sometimes, you may be just like that, saying improper things. Self-centeredness refers to the habit of turning things and situations so that you are in the center of attention.
The syndrome manifests in two ways: on the one side, by the way of reporting his/ ... [read more >>] | | 08 May 2008, 11:20GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Why Attractive Faces Are Symmetric and Gender Specific |  | The face is one of the few things you cannot, under any circumstance, neglect in a new possible mate. For humans, the face is an important source of mating and social information. By casting only one glance, you can see if a face is attractive or not. Many studies have focused on issues like symmetry and the differences between a masculine and a feminine face in an attempt to predict the level of attractiveness of a face. However, the exac ... [read more >>] | | 07 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Inferiority and Superiority Complexes |  | We are all so wise... We find it very easy to catalogue people and to find a cause behind any deed a person makes. When we see a shy, unsure person, we label him/her as suffering from a complex. However, we do not say the same about an authoritative person, even if the same holds true for that person as well, the only thing differing being the complex in itself.
Inferiority or superiority complexes are nothing else but the permanent[AD ... [read more >>] | | 06 May 2008, 08:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Gentlemen Are Happier than Macho Men |  | The macho, women’s idol, is standing all alone and facing whatever problems might come his way – this is the classic image of the heroic male. But what's the reality behind the macho cult, so widespread amongst Mexican-Americans? A new research published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology attempts to come up with an answer to this question.
"Both the academic literature and the popular literature tended to talk ... [read more >>] | | 30 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| An Explanation of Happiness |  | We are all in the search of happiness, but the failure of finding it can cause us all kinds of frustrations and psychological issues. First of all, it is tricky to even define happiness: is it having what you want or wanting what you have? A new research published in the Psychological Science tested this. The results point that people can grow accustomed to their possessions, which in the end bring them less happiness. Neverthele ... [read more >>] | | 29 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| We Were on the Verge of Extinction 70,000 Years Ago |  | Over 6.6 billion people inhabit the planet today. With all that, 70,000 years ago, no more than 2,000 people existed, as revealed by a new research carried out at Stanford University and published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. 70,000 years ago, our species was represented only by a small isolated African population, fighting to survive severe drought.
"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetic ... [read more >>] | | 29 April 2008, 04:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Sacred Dogs of the Ancient Native Americans |  | The tombs of ancient Native Americans in the modern southwestern US have been found to contain hundreds of dog remains. A new study, recently presented at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archeology in Vancouver, Canada, and representing the first results of an investigation on dog burial places encountered in the area points to the mystical role these animals had for those people.
"Throughout the region, dogs have b ... [read more >>] | | 29 April 2008, 02:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The World's Oldest Person Is 115-Years-Old |  | The world's official oldest person is 115 years and 4 days old. Edna Parker lives in a retirement community in Shelbyville, Indiana, and was born on April 20, 1893. Parker was born on the same day as silent movie star Harold Lloyd. In the same retirement center also lives Sandy Allen, the tallest woman in the world.
Born in Morgan County, Indiana, Parker got a teaching certificate at Franklin College in 1911. She married ... [read more >>] | | 24 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Manner of Life: Some Tips |  | Always control your carriage. This means be more attentive not only to the garments that, besides obeying the latest fashion trends, must also put you to advantage by emphasizing your particularities and "best side", thus personalize you. Do not forget that a dress, no matter how expensive or posh it is, loses some of its value if not worn with the proper dignified appearance. Look in the mirror as often as you can: cor ... [read more >>] | | 24 April 2008, 02:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| How to Detect a Liar |  | You may think you're a naturally born lie detector, but in fact you're just checking people for stereotype behavior that can easily deceive you. A new research carried out by a team led by Dr. Stephen Porter’s Forensic Psychology Lab at the Dalhousie University and published in the Psychological Science reveals that the face will always tell a lier’s real emotion. Forget about the rolling of the eyes or the sweating.
"Th ... [read more >>] | | 23 April 2008, 03:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Bigger Brain Means Longer Life |  | It seems that a big brain does not mean only higher intelligence, but also a longer life, according to a new research published in the Journal of Human Evolution. The largest brain of a terrestrial animal is that of the elephant, weighing 10.5 pounds (4.78 kg). And the elephants are known to live up to 60 and more. Still, the brain of the elephant makes up for less than 0.1% of its body weight. Human brain has an average weight o ... [read more >>] | | 22 April 2008, 16:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Top 10 Brains |  | 1. The largest brain belongs to the sperm whale: 7 kg (17.5 kg). The blue whale, the largest animal on the planet, being twice longer and thrice heavier, has a brain weighing 5 kg (12.5 pounds).
2. Human brain has an average weight of 2.7 pounds (1.2 kg), variations between 1.1 and 1.4 kg being considered normal. Our brain represents 2% of our weight, the largest brain in the animal world compared to the body size.
3. The ... [read more >>] | | 21 April 2008, 10:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Gene Fossils and Human-Chimp Hybridization |  | Our closest living relatives are chimpanzees and bonobos. But their genomes, besides being a proof of relatedness to us, also display anomalies, as revealed by a new research published in the journal "PLos Genetics." These weird DNA areas may explain one of the most mysterious intervals in our own evolution: 5.4 million years ago when humans and chimps diverged from a common ancestor. Modern chimps and bonobos have split from the ... [read more >>] | | 18 April 2008, 03:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| A Story of Walking on Two Feet |  | Bipedalism is a term coming from "walking on two feet" in Latin. Humans are practically the only bipedal mammals. Kangaroos and many rodent species hop on two feet but they cannot walk. When walking, they do it on all four. Other species, like apes, monkeys and bears, may attempt walking on two feet, but they do it only for short distances. Their anatomy is not adapted for this.
Instead, all birds are bipedal. In fact, walkin ... [read more >>] | | 17 April 2008, 08:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Now We Can Hear Neanderthal Voices |  | The last Neanderthals may have gone extinct in their last stronghold in Gibraltar 24,000 years ago, but we still can hear their voice. At least, a computer made a variant of it, in an attempt of a team led by Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, as signaled by New Scientist. Unlike modern humans, the Neanderthals could not pronounce the quantal vowels, which enable a listener differentiate the wo ... [read more >>] | | 17 April 2008, 05:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Humans Are Not Made Monogamous |  | Of course, when Hollywood stars or politicians have extramarital affairs, the whole world rumbles. But if we peek into human biology, anthropology and sociology, the monogamous human appears as a very weird notion.
We are mammals, and if we look to the mammalian world, just 3 to 5% of the about 5,000 species of mammals form lifelong, monogamous bonds – this is the case of beavers, wolves, gibbons, jackals, foxes, some bats, dwarf deer ... [read more >>] | | 12 April 2008, 06:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| A History of Writing |  | For humans, writing meant a huge technological and cultural revolution. Information was at last to be recorded in a more secure way than via human memory. Writing and reading seem natural for us, but they had to be invented and perfected.
In 1996, on the left bank of the Euphrates River, 100 km (60 mi) of Aleppo (Syria), in the archaeological site of Jerf el-Ahmar (in Arabian "Red Bank"), a Syrian-French team discovered some ... [read more >>] | | 05 April 2008, 06:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| 40% of the People Have Paranoid Thoughts |  | Paranoia is far more spread in the general population than generally admitted. Although appearance doesn’t show it, some people are paranoid, as revealed by a research published in the "British Journal of Psychiatry."
In our daily contact with other persons, we interpret facial and body cues to assess how friendly or not the others are. But who can be 100% sure of these judgments? In fact, few people approach a valu ... [read more >>] | | 04 April 2008, 03:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Oldest People in North America: 14,300 Years Old |  | All the anthropologic manuals talk about the Clovis people as the first Native Americans. But South American fossils show that the continent was already inhabited by Asian Blacks (the type of the Papuans and Australian Aborigines) by the time Clovis entered North America. And a new research pub ... [read more >>] | | 04 April 2008, 03:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Men Are More Intolerant Than Women |  | We want to have a public image, hiding what's inside our mind. A new research made by a team at the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics and to be published in "Political Research Quarterly" shows that men are less tolerant than women, and the most likely victims of prejudice are poorly educated immigrants and Arab-American airplane travelers, while the least likely victims are the genetically disadvantaged c ... [read more >>] | | 03 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Humans Laugh |  | In bursts, with the mouth wide open, like a fool, like a hunchback, like a whale. In puffs, in explosions, stifling, snorting, rattling, with tears... It is like a tide, laugh is irresistible.
The human laugh is executed by muscle designed for it. We may burst with all our bodies, but the face has 12 specialized muscles for laughing. In laughing the muscles called risorius (which dilates the nostrils – in Latin "ridere&q ... [read more >>] | | 03 April 2008, 11:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The First Human-Cow Hybrid Embryos |  | We do not know when genetics will insert cow genes in the breasts of the women, the dream of many men, but the first hybrid cow-human embryos and stem cells have already been obtained by British researchers led by Dr. Lyle Armstrong of Newcastle University. The research was presented to Israel's parliament last week.
The researchers removed the nucleus of the cattle ovules, replaced it with a human cell nucleus, and achi ... [read more >>] | | 03 April 2008, 04:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Humans Have Keener Hearing than Most Mammals |  | Many terrestrial and aquatic species can hear lower and higher frequencies than those detected by humans (infrasound, respectively ultrasounds). Frequency is crucial in defining a sound. Now, an Israeli team sustained by UCLA researchers has showed for the first time, in a research published in the journal "Nature," how just one neuron can enable us to make finer differences in frequencies than animals.
The researche ... [read more >>] | | 02 April 2008, 03:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| A Classification of the Memory Types |  | Humans have been preoccupied to store and process information for a very long time. It allows humans to use the experience of the past generations and that of the others. The memory of each person defines him/her. Losing memory is like losing past and future, living in a continual present.
Brain researches sh ... [read more >>] | | 29 March 2008, 07:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Oldest European: 1.2 Million Years Old |  | Millions of years ago, we started our evolution in Africa. Then, at a given moment, we began to colonize the rest of the world. When did humans enter Europe for the first time?
In June 2007, archaeologists discovered the oldest European human fossils in the Sima del Elefante Cave, 60-ft (18 m) long, at the Sierra Atapuerca archaeological site in the Burgos Province (northern Spain), just 15 mi (25 km) east of the city of Burgos, not ve ... [read more >>] | | 27 March 2008, 03:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Paleolithic: The Old Stone Age |  | Paleolithic is the period that makes most of our history. It started with the oldest known stone tools, 2.6 Ma ago and lasted until 10,000 years ago. It emerged with Homo habilis and reached its peak with our species, Homo sapiens, which appeared about 200,000 years ago.
It is the period when humans were just hunters-gatherers. Even if the name of the period referred to the stone tools, first people most likely made also tools from bon ... [read more >>] | | 24 March 2008, 17:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Men Cannot Distinguish Between a Friendly Woman and a Sexually Interested Chick |  | Any friendly gesture from a woman turns a man into a horny beast. And this is not an issue of movies: a new research to be published in the journal "Psychological Science" shows that this is the rule in daily life. Men were found not to be able to make the slightest difference between a friendly greeting, like the smile of a woman, and sexual advances. They appear to be blind to non-verbal clues.
"Young men just find it ... [read more >>] | | 24 March 2008, 14:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Altruism: Empathy for Friends, Reciprocity for Relatives |  | You may see people who are in trouble, and the emotions (if you are not a psychopath) triggered by that are the same in all of us. But whether that makes you intervene or not for helping a person in need is another issue.
A new research made by psychologist Lidewij Niezink, from the University of Groningen, Netherlands, has attempted to solve the connection between empathy and altruism. It appears that our altruism towards friends is c ... [read more >>] | | 24 March 2008, 06:27GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The First Human Ancestor Walking on Two: 6 Million Years Old |  | Walking on two feet is one of the main traits of the human being. A new study published in the journal "Nature" shows that the six-million-year-old Kenyan hominin could have been the first species able to walk bipedally, based on bone anatomy.
"This provides really solid evidence that these fossils actually belong to an upright-walking early human ancestor," said lead author Brian Richmond, a biological anthropologis ... [read more >>] | | 21 March 2008, 04:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Trove of Ice Age Axes Found on the Bottom of the North Sea |  | During the Ice Age, the North Sea was just a grassy plain dwelt by mammoths, deer and ... humans. Now, the Dutch Jan Meulmeester, an amateur archaeologist, has discovered a unique collection of Stone Age hand axes made of material coming from the bottom of the North Sea. 28 axes, possibly up to 100,000 years old, were encountered in marine sand and gravel scooped up by Hanson, a British construction materials company.
The axes were acc ... [read more >>] | | 18 March 2008, 05:04GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Skulls Say It: Humans and Neanderthals Split 300,000-400,000 Years Ago |  | Our closest evolutionary relative was the Neanderthal man (Homo neanderthalensis). But when did we share a common ancestor? A new research published in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" shows that gradual changes in human skull size and shape would indicate that, 300,000 to 400,000 years ago, Neanderthals and modern humans separated their evolutionary pathways.
All previous estimates were DNA analy ... [read more >>] | | 18 March 2008, 03:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Do Animals Laugh? |  | It seems so human, still laugh is not specific to humans. Monkeys, rats and dogs have already been found to enjoy a good "laugh". But it is hard to penetrate into their mind to see what a rat or dog could think when "laughing". Perhaps they think we, humans, are ugly... Anyway, laughing seems to be connected to a high development of the brain, and only some mammals are known to laugh. Laughing hyena surely not, nor the ... [read more >>] | | 17 March 2008, 09:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Disappearance of a Human Race |  | You surely have heard about the Tasmanian devil. You understand why devil, but what do you know about the island of Tasmania?
It is a land located between 40o 38' and 43o 39' S, off southeastern Australia, being slightly larger than the island of Ireland (with a similar clime, too). The wet cool temperate climate is very contrasting, with powerful west winds. July and August are the coldest months of the year (that is the Aust ... [read more >>] | | 14 March 2008, 17:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| How We Address ET |  | Third degree contact. Three words which can probably make a lot of people laugh. But this is no laughing matter; just look around you, we're not living in an isolated area, we're living in a universe, billions of light years across, with billions of galaxies and stars and most likely intelligent life as well. Wake up, ET is as real as you and me! There is a good chance that at the time of contact, if such event will ever take pla ... [read more >>] | | 14 March 2008, 05:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Shorter Men Are More Jealous |  | Naughty little devil... Napoleon may have been skilled in the battle field and able to accomplish many tasks at the same time, but scientists have found his weakness: jealousy. The new research published in the journal "Evolution and Human Behavior" explains why Prince persists with this high heels.
The team at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and University of Valencia in Spain put 549 Dutch and Spanish subject ... [read more >>] | | 13 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Black Humor Is Learnt, Positive Humor Is Innate |  | A healthy nation laughs. This benefits psychological health and decreases pain. For example, for a Brit, there's nothing more funny than a gross insult or what many in other parts of the world consider wholly inappropriate: war, sex, race, death. On the other hand, for others, watching "Friends" requires a deep concentration for understanding the jokes, so that they would laugh. Or a psychologist to explain the sce ... [read more >>] | | 13 March 2008, 06:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Intelligent Aliens, Highly Unlikely Possibility |  | Recognize the guy in the picture? He is supposed to be an alien living somewhere in our galaxy, which will most likely pay us a visit in the near future with a warp capable ship, just to slaughter us like pigs while dressed in an invisibility cloak. Possible? Highly unlikely, according to planetary astronomer Dr Charley Lineweaver from Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University. There is ... [read more >>] | | 13 March 2008, 06:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Enigma of the Natives of Tierra del Fuego |  | One of the most primitive human groups on Earth were the native inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego ("Land of Fire") island, at the southern tip of South America, a stormy, cold and inhospitable area, discovered by Magellan in 1520. The weather is cloudy almost all year long and violent storms are accompanied by tremendous showers, preceded by powerful hurricanes. The harsh clime is due to the freezing humid current, coming from ... [read more >>] | | 11 March 2008, 16:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Want More Sex? Do the Chores! |  | Spending too much time with your buddies in the pub or with a beer in front of the TV? This is bad news for your sex life.
Fortunately, the American men have doubled the amount of housework they do and spend three times more time with their kids, as compared to the situation 50 years ago. The result: happier American wives and solider American couples.
A new report published on the website of the Council of Contemporary F ... [read more >>] | | 11 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Fossil Pygmy Bones Found in Palau |  | Nowadays, relict populations of the pygmy race are found not only in central Africa, but also in many parts of southern Asia: Aeta in Philippines, Semang in Malaya, Mani in Thailand, the Andamanese tribes from the Andaman archipelago, Rampasasa from Flores island, and many pygmy tribes also inhabited the mountains of New Guinea or in Vanuatu archipelago. A new research published in the science journal "PLoS ONE" describes pygmy f ... [read more >>] | | 11 March 2008, 04:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| 15 Rules of Using Your Hands! |  | 1. When you greet somebody, shaking his hand, accompany the greeting with a smile, which must not compete Mona Lisa's. It must be just natural, spontaneous, outspoken, devoid of artificiality.
2. Do not stretch the hand first to a woman, an elder person, a superior or a boss. The man should not be the first to stretch the hand, nor the younger or the subaltern. In these situations, it is enough to bend slightly the head ... [read more >>] | | 10 March 2008, 11:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Bullying Has a Much More Negative Impact at the Workplace Compared to Sexual Harassment! |  | This may be overlooked, but workplace bullying, like offensive comments, persistent work criticism and withholding resources, is an extremely powerful negative factor on work productivity. Much more than sexual harassment, as found by a new research presented at the Seventh International Conference on Work, Stress and Health.
"As sexual harassment becomes less acceptable in society, organizations may be more attuned to h ... [read more >>] | | 10 March 2008, 05:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
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