January Books 15) Do Elephants Ever Forget?, by Guy Campbell

[nwhyte]

A nice little book of scientific trivia for the younger reader, similar to the slightly less genteel Why Is Snot Green? / How Loud Can You Burp? books. No big surprises, though it's interesting to note that nobody has yet discovered why yawns are so contagious.

Comments

[mizkit]

I read about a study that thought it had concluded why yawns are contagious: they're a protective mechanism for the young. Baby gorillas start to yawn and all the grown-up gorillas, most importantly the potentially dangerous adolescent or adult males to whom they are not immediately related, also start to yawn, helping to trigger sleep chemicals in the brain; everybody goes to sleep at roughly the same time, thus ensuring it's more likely that the babies survive the night rather than get their little skulls bashed in by opportunistic elders.

Why *talking* about yawns makes people yawn, I have no idea, she said, yawning ferociously.