Thread: What are your favourite simple things that science just cannot explain?

Yawning is used to quickly flush the lungs of old air and replace it with new oxygen rich air to give your brain a quick boost At least that what I thought

Attraction. I know about the chemical processes and such, but why do I find certain people more attractive than other if they're both in good physical and child-baring shape?

Consciousness.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Attraction. I know about the chemical processes and such, but why do I find certain people more attractive than other if they're both in good physical and child-baring shape?

And this. Except more generally: How is it that we can feel attraction at all?

Love

As far as I know, memories are kind of a pain in the ass.

Magnets, yo

Laughter. And dreaming. And consciousness. Almost seems we know far more about the world than we know about ourselves.

Originally Posted by no-Name

Magnets, yo

Seconded, crazy buggars.

and Dyatlov's Pass, but that's probably not simple...

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Yawning is used to quickly flush the lungs of old air and replace it with new oxygen rich air to give your brain a quick boost At least that what I thought

That's definitely the popularly-held belief, but when I searched for "stuff science can't explain" yawning was always on the list. Here, read this howstuffworks article. It goes over the common theories, and also gives examples of research that indicates that it's not because of need for more oxygen.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question572.htm

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Attraction. I know about the chemical processes and such, but why do I find certain people more attractive than other if they're both in good physical and child-baring shape?

I remember reading/hearing this study did on how certain sounds affect us. They did a whole assortment of people coughing, sneezing, snoring, throat-clearing, babies crying, etc. If you were taking the test, you were to rate the sound on an annoyance scale.

The hypothesis was that as humans, we tend to rate sounds attributed to sickness as more annoying/intolerable. They say it's because we're predispositioned to finding (in a partner) the best genetic make-up possible so that when we have kids, the kids have better chances of surviving.

So, people who are fit/healthy/ generally look well, are more attractive because we know that combining our genes with theirs, our kids will have a better chance of survival.

Any one have links to journals where I could look this up? I tried doing some research before posting, and well... I'm probably just not searching properly.