One of the Mysteries : Contagious Yawning
Posted on July 30, 2003 at 6:59 am | No Comments
Ok, there are three things I’d like to know…
1. Why is yawning contagious?
2. How come late-night pizza leads to vivid, flat-out insane dreams? and…
3. Why does entering large retail stores sometimes trigger trips to the bathroom?
I’m not quite curious enough to google those up, but apparantly some researchers at the State University of New York in Albany are on the contagious yawning case. A RedNova article published yesterday doesn’t quite solve the mystery, but it certainly proves the existance of the phenomenon (as if we didn’t know that), and also asserts that people who are more self-aware and empathetic are more likely to catch yawns from others. Hmmm.
Time will tell if they can prove why it actually occurs, though. As for my other two questions, what’s the deal there?
The B.W.E.F : Above & Below Charlestown
Posted on July 28, 2003 at 1:29 pm | No Comments
Yesterday afternoon the mutating group known as the Boston World Explorers Foundation got together to check out an abandoned stretch of highway over Sullivan Square in Charlestown. Possibly legal, sure, but quite safe given the complete lack of traffic and apparant structural integrity (well, for pedestrians at least). Even though auto access was impossible, we couldn’t help but paranoidly glance behind us whenever we heard traffic on the streets below.
photo by dave belson
The overpass was a bit shorter than we expected, so we extended the tour with an even more-probably-illegal walk through a closed chunk of route 99 that headed underground. Traffic was still flowing in the other direction, so we tried to act casual while sidestepping the pigeon carcasses. The tunnel ended up near the Mystic River drawbridge, so we headed to the riverside for a look at the ball fields, industrial sites, and docked gas tankers.
Here are my photos from the walk, and fellow explorer Dave Belson has a few here on Ofoto.
If you’re interested in possibly joining the B.W.E.F. on the next irregular outing, sign up for the new Yahoo Group and you’ll be in the message loop. There have already been trips to Castle Island and Beacon Hill, and you’re more than welcome to have a say in where the group heads next.