weird facts
Researchers, testing students using a computer game, also found gossip played an important role when people make decisions, said Ralf Sommerfeld, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, who led the study.
"We show that gossip has a strong influence... even when participants have access to the original information as well as gossip about the same information," the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Thus, it is evident that gossip has a strong manipulative potential."
In the study, the researchers gave the students money and allowed them to give it to others in a series of rounds. The students also wrote notes about how others played the game that everyone could review.
Students tended to give less money to people described as "nasty misers" or "scrooges" and more to those depicted as "generous players" or "social players", Sommerfeld said.
"People only saw the gossip, not the past decisions," he said in a telephone interview. "People really reacted on it."
The researchers then took the game a step further and showed the students the actual decisions people had made. But they also supplied false gossip that contradicted that evidence.
In these cases, the students based their decisions to award money on the gossip, rather than the hard evidence, showing such information is a powerful tool, Sommerfeld said.
"Rationally if you know what the people did, you should care, but they still listened to what others said," he said.
"They even reacted on it if they knew better."
Researchers have long used similar games to study how people cooperate and the impact of gossip in groups. Scientists define gossip as social information spread about a person who is not present, Sommerfeld said.
In evolutionary terms, gossip can be an important tool for people to acquire information about others' reputations or navigate through social networks at work and in their everyday lives, the study said.
One example could be using gossip to learn that a potential mate had cheated on others, something which could make that person an undesirable match, Sommerfeld said.
[Via - Stuff]
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Monday, October 22, 2007
Weird Facts: Scientists Discover Why Gossip Is More Powerful Than Truth
Weird Facts: Monkeys Kill The Mayor Of The Capital Of India
Weird facts from India
The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.
SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.
The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by.
The High Court demanded the city find an answer to the problem last year.
Solution elusive
One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques.
The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests.
But the problem has persisted.
Culling is seen as unacceptable to devout Hindus, who revere the monkeys as a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman, and often feed them bananas and peanuts.
Urban development around the city has also been blamed for destroying the monkeys' natural habitat.
Mr Bajwa, a member of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is survived by his wife and a son, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
[Via - BBC]
More weird facts:
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Weird Facts: 10 Most Depressing Jobs
1. Personal Care and Service 10.8%
This is really weird facts, folks. The US Department Of Health And Human Services released a report of what the most depressing jobs are. To be honest with you, I am not all that shocked. But next time I go to McDonalds, I'm thinking of giving a big hug to their depressed employees. Here is the list, anyway:
2. Food Preparation and Serving Related 10.3%
3. Community and Social Services 9.6%
4. Healthcare Practitioners and Technical 9.6%
5. Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media 9.1%
6. Education, Training, and Library 8.7%
7. Office and Administrative Support 8.1%
8. Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance 7.3%
9. Financial 6.7%
10. Sales and Related 6.7%
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Weird Facts About Animals
- Penguins can jump 6 feet in the air.
- A bear can run at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour (48 km/h).
- Beavers can hold their breathe for 45 minutes under water.
- A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
- The smallest bird in the world is the Humming Bird. It weighs less than 1 oz (or 1g).
- Elephants are the only animal that can't jump.
- Polar bears are left handed.
- A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
- Tigers have striped skin not just striped fur.
- Reindeer eat moss because it contains a chemical that stops their body from freezing.
- Snakes can see through their eyelids.
- A Woodpecker can peck 20 times per second.
- Woodpeckers don't get headaches from all that pecking. Their skulls have air pockets to cushion the brain.
- The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head 360 degrees.
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10 Weird Facts About Einstein
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Weird Facts about a weird man
Albert Einstein in a famous 1951 photo by Arthur Sasse.
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