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[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/12/Shopping-and-Gender.mp3[/podcast]
They shuffle along with blank faces and dead eyes, unseeing, unthinking, lost in some private hell that you as passerby can only pray never similarly engulfs you. You scuttle by, eyes averted, as though they have some horrible contagion against which neither face masks, Tamiflu nor vaccination can defend...and yet the odds are that for all your precautions, before Christmas arrives you will join their tormented ranks.
What’s that? Yes, zombies are big in pop culture right now, but what’s that go to do with...? Oh, I get it.
No, sorry, this column isn’t about zombies. It’s about husbands going shopping with their wives. It turns out there’s a solid scientific explanation for why women shop the way they do...and why men ...
Posted by Edward Willett at 14:02, December 3rd, 2009 under Blog, Columns, Science Columns |
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/09/Arachnophobia.mp3[/podcast]
“The itsy-bitsy spider went up the waterspout. Down came the rain, and washed the spider out...”
At which point a large percentage of us screamed and ran the other way, because surveys show that one fifth of men and a third of women are frightened of arachnids.
It makes sense, right? Spiders can be poisonous.
But so are stinging insects such as bees and wasps, and yet we seem to hate spiders more. At the University of Wurzburg, Germany,
psychologist Georg Alpers asked 76 students to rate photos of spiders, wasps, bees, beetles, butterflies and moths on how much fear and disgust they inspired and how dangerous they were. Spiders topped the list in all three categories—even though all bees can ...
Posted by Edward Willett at 14:17, September 3rd, 2009 under Blog, Columns, Science Columns |