1. Scientific Method
A logical, sequential approach to solving a problem or answering a question.

2. Scientific Method: A logical, sequential approach to solving a problem or answering a question:
Ask Question
Perseverance!
Gather info
Devise Hypothesis
Revise Hypothesis
Experiment/Test
Analyze results
Hypothesis is TRUE & you ARE satisfied
Hypothesis is TRUE, but you’re NOT satisfied
Hypothesis is FALSE or partially true
Report Results

3. Is yawning contagious?…Try it! :-)
• Seeing the word yawn
• Hearing the WORD “Yawn”
• Hearing someone yawn
• Seeing someone yawn
Did you…YAWN??
Precuneus_animation.gif
Temporal_gyrus_animation.gif
Yawning seems to be rooted in the brains of humans, chimpanzees, & even some dogs.
Believed to be deeply embedded in our subconscious roots of social bonding and
empathy (one’s ability to understand and connect with another’s emotional states).
Humans yawn in the womb as early as 11 weeks after conception,
but don’t show contagious yawning until almost 4 years of age - when the part of the
the brain dealing with empathy kicks in: the precuneus and posterior temporal gyrus
which are located in the back of the brain.
Empathy Test:
Reading the mind in the eyes test (36 eyes to assess)
Various studies show severe autism, sociopathic conditions, and those unable to
empathize with another’s situation do not engage in contagious yawning.

4. Why can’t I tickle myself?…Try it!!
The back, lower part of the brain called the cerebellum (known for balance and coordination)
can predict sensations when your own movement causes them, but not when someone else does.
When you try to tickle yourself, the cerebellum predicts the sensation and this prediction is used
to cancel the response of other brain areas to the tickle.
Two brain regions are involved in processing how tickling feels.
1. The somatosensory cortex processes touch and
2. The anterior cingulate cortex processes pleasant information.
Both of these regions are less active during self-tickling than they are during tickling performed by
someone else, which helps to explains why it doesn’t feel tickly and pleasant when you tickle
yourself.
The key here seems to be the inability to predict “what” movement someone is going to do
to try to tickle you. Only novel sensations tickle, and they aren’t novel if you make them.
somatosensory cortex_animation.gif
anterior cingulate cortex_animation.gif

5. Why do some people sneeze when they look at the sun?
Sneezing when exposed to bright light is referred to as the photic sneeze reflex.
This genetic oddity has intrigued some of history's greatest minds.
In Aristotle’s The Book of Problems, he surmised that the heat of the
sun on the nose was probably responsible.
Francis Bacon, an English Philosopher, hypothesized that the sun’s light
made eyes water, and then that moisture seeped into the nose, irritating it.
Current scientific knowledge of physiological responses shows that our slow acting
lacrimal ducts (tear ducts) could not activate a rapid fire response as a light induced sneeze.
A sneeze is usually triggered by an irritation in the nose, sensed by a cranial nerve, called the
trigeminal nerve, which is responsible for facial sensation and motor control.
The trigeminal nerve is in close proximity to the optic nerve, which senses, for example, a
sudden flood of light entering the retina.
As the optic nerve fires to signal the brain to constrict the pupils, perhaps, some of the electrical
signal is sensed by the trigeminal nerve and mistaken by the brain as an irritant in the nose.
Hence, a sneeze.
A study in the 1960’s showed that the trait is autosomal-dominant, meaning the gene is on
chromosome (not chromosome the sex chromosome 23 X or Y) and only one copy of
the gene has to be present for the trait to be expressed.