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Hey everyone, Jad here. Times have been tough lately, for everyone, and public radio is no exception. I wonder if you could shake out the couch cushions and then make a pledge of support of… $10? $20? $75? Anything would help. If you like the show, help support us so that we can make more. Make a gift right now by clicking HERE.

It is official!! Radiolab has joined the ranks of Twitter. You can hear us tweet here: http://twitter.com/wnycradiolab. We will keep you updated on what we are up to and reach out for story ideas.

Here’s a little soundtrack to our tweets:

On the etymology of “sardonic laughter”, from Laughter: A Scientific Investigation by Robert Provine:

The term “sardonic laughter,” referring to the bitter, mocking laughter of derision, has a rich if dark etymology. The ancients who coined the term were referring to the humorless laughter and smiling produced by a deadly plant native to Sardinia, probably the herb known variously as march (cursed) crowfoot, buttercup, or wild parsley (Ranunculus sceleratus). The toxic effect of the plant was well known in ancient times, because the derivative expression had wide early use, as in The Odyssey, when Odysseus “smiled in his anger a very sardonic smile.” Writing in the second century AD, Pausanias noted of Sardinia, “The whole island if free of lethal drugs except one weed; the deadly herb looks like celery, but they say if you eat it you die of laughing. That is why Homer and the people of his time speak of something very unhealthy as a Sardonic laugh.” Although the details of this mysterious herb and its effects are lost in the fog of history, the term risus sardonicus, literally “laughter of Sardinia,” but now usually referring only to smiling, survives in modern medicine as a key symptom of tetanus (“lockjaw”) and strychnine poisoning. (In antiquity, I suspect that the herb produced only grimaced smiling, as in The Odyssey, with “laughter,” if any was ever present, the result of rhythmic gasping during seizures.)

scotthernandez/Flickr

Some hard-working psychologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara found that although tickling generally elicits laughter, it’s not always funny or pleasant. Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times article about that study:

The basis for the newly published study is what is known as the warm-up effect, the scientific underpinnings for the phenomenon of the warm-up comedian. If a person finds something funny, researchers have previously shown, the next thing encountered will seem that much funnier because of an already giddy state.
So one group of students was tickled for 10 seconds, or until the tickling became intolerable, and then shown videotapes of stand-up comedy routines and clips from ”Saturday Night Live.” A second group watched the comedy video first and then was tickled. A control group watched a patently unfunny nature video, then was tickled.
Researchers postulated that if humor and tickling are related, and the warm-up effect applies to both, then subjects should laugh more when tickling follows humor or humor follows tickling. But that was not the case. Tickling, the study suggests, does not create a pleasurable feeling — just the outward appearance of one.

Around the world, millions are celebrating Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.

Photo credit: flickr/Kaptain Kobold

New Haven: Yale’s Peabody Museum is having birthday cake (and a letter from Darwin to once-Yale professor O.C. Marsh).
If you can’t make it this afternoon, the Yale Center for British Art’s new exhibition, Endless Forms: Charles Darwin Natural Science and the Visual Arts, is in New Haven through May 3.

Cambridge: Harvard University’s dining halls will be serving cake tonight, a non-stop read-a-thon of Origin of Species continues until 7pm (and History of Science Professor Janet Brown will deliver a public lecture on Darwin at 200).

The Twin Cities: The Bell Museum has a Darwin Day opening event tonight with top university biologists.

On the West Coast: the San Francisco Botanical Garden will be holding a watercolor exhibition and birthday party tonight, the Exploratorium will be hosting a conversation with Dr. Thomas Lewis: Explore Amour: Tracing the Origins of Love and the University of Washington’s Burke museum celebrates this evening with a Birthday Bash.

But that’s not all! Find a Darwin Day event near you, from Calgary to Melbourne.

Do you a story of a coincidence too crazy to be believed? We’re looking for that chance story that leaves your mouth agape. The story of the time you took the wrong (identical) luggage from baggage claim only to find a business card inside with your same name on it! Or, how your daughter’s girl scout troop of 20 has 10 kids with the same first name and 10 kids with the same birthday.

We want to hear ‘em! Tell us your story! Make us contemplate fate or the miraculous and we may just come find you to record your amazing tale for our show.

Scientific deliriums/Flickr

Aristotle puzzled over the great mystery of why it’s impossible to tickle oneself. Turns out it’s quite simple, really. Here’s a brief explanation by British neuroscientist Sarah Blakemore that appeared in Scientific American:

“The answer lies at the back of the brain in an area called the cerebellum, which is involved in monitoring movements. Our studies at University College London have shown that the cerebellum 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. The somatosensory cortex processes touch and the anterior cingulate cortex processes pleasant information. We found that both 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. Further studies using robots showed that the presence of a small delay between your own movement and the resulting tickle can make the sensation feel tickly. Indeed, the longer the delay, the more tickly it feels.”

It was an action packed year in the Lab. With the release of Seasons 4 and 5, plus podcasts, our small staff of elves was busy in the workshop…but not too busy to take notice of all of the amazing things happening in the world. We thought we’d bring you a few of our favorites.

1. THE BEST EVIDENCE THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST

Jad would like to point to The Existence of Parasitic Wasps, as it really raises the question, “How could a god let this kind of evil exist in the world?”

2. THE BEST EVIDENCE THAT GOD DOES EXIST

Robert counters with THIS.

Getting to watch Patrick Stewart play Macbeth.

I sat down. I looked up…and….“omfg!!!!”, it was…scary and sexy and ferocious and bloody and normally I don’t like mean people or horror or violence but this time, for reasons known only to the aforementioned deity, I was so transported, so out of my mind, I maybe breathed twice and it was over. Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Depp and that guy with the three names, Phillip Seymour Hoffman – I’m used to them making me all crazy happy, but this year it was Patrick Stewart.

Patrick Stewart discusses how he performed the famous Macbeth ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…’ monologue.

3. THE BEST HISTORICAL REENACTMENT

From time to time, Radiolab has dabbled in reenactments (Mesmer in Placebo…or the resurrectionists and angry mobs in Diagnosis…). We love this series for it’s earnest send ups of historical reenactment, and in the case of the clip below, Tymberlee Chanel as Oney Judge, manages to hiccup in the most dignified manner imaginable.

4. BEST THESIS TITLE WHICH SOUNDS LIKE A PROG ROCK ALBUM

Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud

(…which just happens to be written by Queen’s guitarist Brian May, who dropped his astrophysics studies to join a rock band in the 70s and, at the age of 61, decided to go back to school and finish his work on addressing a long standing cosmological mystery.)

5. Best New Book by a Radio Lab Contributor

Jonah Lehrer got us to make an episode, Choice, about this topic of his fascination. Go get the book.

6. Best Book Often Cited by Robert Krulwich

7. BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Juana Molina’s Un Dia
Layers of ethereal vocals and surprisingly groovy sounds.

8. BEST TV DOCUMENTARY
This American Life, Season 2.
Jad says “TV can’t really get any better than that.”

9.

10.

Oh, no! We forgot to come up with #9 and #10…

Ok, your turn: what do you nominate as THE BEST of 2008.
Comment below or send us your picks to radiolab@wnyc.org.

scurzuzu/Flickr

A neuroscientist at Stanford recently used an fMRI machine to peer into people’s brains while they watch cartoons, and found that men and women were responding differently:

“The first-of-its-kind imaging study showed that women activate the parts of the brain involved in language processing and working memory more than men when viewing funny cartoons. Women were also more likely to activate with greater intensity the part of the brain that generates gratifying feelings in response to new experiences.”

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Mrs. Murphy’s Manners for Women, a British how-to from 1897, has very particular ideas about the role of women’s laughter.

“Laughing should be carefully taught. The thing to be guarded against is that the inculcated laugh is apt to grow stereotyped, and few things are more irritating than to hear it over and over again, begin on the same note, run down the same scale, and consequently express no more mirth than the keys of the piano.
There is no greater ornament to conversation than the ripple of silvery notes that form the perfect laugh. It makes the person who evokes it feel pleased with himself, and invests what he has said with a charm of wit and humor which might not be otherwise observed.”

I wonder what Mrs. Murphy might have made of this peculiar ornament?

It has recently become clear that Mrs. Murphy’s strategy may be useful even when the witticism in question isn’t actually uttered by a man, but merely in the presence of one. According to Vanderbilt professor Jo-Anne Bachorowski, who has recorded more than 30,000 laughs, women laugh more frequently and at a higher pitch in the company of men than in the company of other women, even when they’re reacting to the exact same material (in this case, funny movies).

Perhaps this has inspired this (unintentionally) hilarious site plugging another how-to: “Closely Guarded Secrets To Attract Beautiful Women Using The Power Of Humor… Guaranteed!” Regular price: $97. Act now for deep discounts.