Niesen, kitzeln, lachen, kratzen, gähnen, erbrechen, weinen, furzen, rülpsen – Menschen tun erstaunliche Dinge. In Gegenwart anderer kann uns das mitunter ganz schön in Verlegenheit bringen. Aber warum machen wir so etwas überhaupt? Robert Provine widmet sich ganz der Erforschung dieser merkwürdigen Verhaltensweisen. Denn sie unterscheiden uns vom Tier wie der aufrechte Gang und unsere Fähigkeit zur Sprache. Und sie verraten viel über unsere Instinkte, die Funktionsweise unseres Körpers un...

Provine boldly goes where other scientists seldom tread—in search of hiccups, coughs, yawns, sneezes, and other lowly, undignified, human behaviors. Our earthiest instinctive acts bear the imprint of our evolutionary origins and can be valuable tools for understanding how the human brain works and what makes us different from other species.

Do men and women laugh at the same things?Is laughter contagious?Has anyone ever really died laughing?Is laughing good for your health?Drawing upon ten years of research into this most common-yet complex and often puzzling-human phenomenon, Dr. Robert Provine, the world's leading scientific expert on laughter, investigates such aspects of his subject as its evolution, its role in social relationships, its contagiousness, its neural mechanisms, and its health be...

This volume explores not only the close ties that link the cultures and musics of East and Northeast Asia, but also the distinctive features that separate them.