No Big Fan of Music The prize for medicine went to an international research team who studied mosquitoes (蚊子). Their study showed that next time mosquitoes are biting you, you may want to turn up the stereo (立体音箱). Researchers put mosquitoes and a hamster(仓鼠)together in two environments. One had no music and the other had a speaker playing electronic dance music. Mosquitoes waited longer to bite the hamster if they heard the music. They also matted less with music on. It seems that electronic dance music is a buzzkill(扫兴的事物) for these bloodsuckers. |
Contagious (传染性的) Behavior When your friends check their phones, do you do the same?The prize for psychology (心理学) went to a study on this. Italian researchers found that looking at your phones makes other people around you do the same in less than a minute. This is because humans subconsciously(下意识地) copy the actions of other people. "We have a need to follow the norms(社会规则) to match our actions with those of other people. "said the researcher Elisabetta Palagi. That's why people often pick up each other's moods(情绪) or gestures(动作)during the talk, and why yawns(打哈欠) are so contagious(传染性的). |
____ We all know chimpanzees(黑猩猩) can be quite clever, but we probably don't think they could master street art or defeat university students in math. A study by searchers from Kyoto University in Japan was the winner of this year's award of math and art. Using a chimpanzee named Abu and a control group of university students, the researchers found that Abu could remember random(随机的) numbers more quickly and more accurately(准确地) than the students. |