WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, I ENVIED SALLY CULVER. Though she was five years younger, she had somehow managed to get herself a fan club. It began one summer evening, when Mrs. Culver brought her 1 year-old ...

Hand clapping is ubiquitous behavior for humans across time and cultures, serving many different purposes: to signify approval with applause, for instance, or to keep time to music. Acousticians often ...

In Japanese Zen Buddhism, a verbal puzzle known as a “koan” is often used to frustrate the process of logical thought to encourage the student to look beyond the boundaries, or limitations, of their ...

One readily noticeable pathognomonic trait of autism is hand-flapping—a stereotyped motor movement that can look a bit like an attempt to accelerating the drying of nail polish. Not all with autism do ...

Nearly every human culture uses clapping to cheer, protest, pray or perform – but a new study reveals that the familiar gesture is as much a scientific event as it is a social one. “This is the first ...

Primitive though they may be, given just a simple audio recording of a single handclap, is it possible to determine the hand-configuration of the clapper via a computer-assisted digital analysis of ...

Paradoxes and other mischievous pranks our minds play on us. Write on a piece of paper ‘The statement on the reverse is true’. Turn the paper over and write ‘The statement on the other side is false’.