Laughter

I didn't realize that someone had already done this one but I had already listened to the whole thing!

This was about laughter and how humans laugh and why they do it.  One person described laughter as a clumsy way of expressing yourself.  Aristotle had a theory that every person laughed on their 40th day.  One woman tested this idea to see if it was true and her baby  did not laugh until her 97th day.

A neuroscientist tested the emotions of rats and tried to make them laugh.  He used a special machine that allowed him to hear their sounds, because without the machine they could not be heard by a human.  He tickled one, which made a laughing noise that was rythmic.  He did not believe that it was a real laugh and tried it on a second rat and the same thing happened. 

Humans laugh because it is a social behavior and not so much about humor.  In a study, 85% of the people said nothing funny before they laughed.  During the 1990's sit- com The Nanny, people were casted to be in the audience based on how good they could laugh and were paid to do it.

In Tanzania, during 1965 there was a strange laughing epidemic.  It started with one girl and spread around the entire village.  People could not stop laughing and crying.  People did not know what to do so they went to the witch doctor.  There are theories, but no exact reason as to why this occured.