American Behavioral Scientist

Yawning » American Scientist

Imagine a yawn. You stretch your jaws open in a wide gape, take a deep inward breath, followed by a shorter exhalation, and end by closing your jaws. Ahhh. You have just joined vertebrates everywhere in one of the animal kingdom's most ancient rites. Mammals and most other animals with backbones yawn; fish, turtles, crocodiles and birds do it. People start yawning very early, offering further e...

Scientists and Motherhood » American Scientist

As the husband of another professor and a parent of twins, I agree that the demands of parenthood are a compelling reason that more women than men leave high-demand career tracks. In our culture, women still do more parenting than men, so the burden falls asymmetrically on them. I would also argue that, compared to men, women define their self-worth less through their careers and more through t...

A reprint from American Scientist

Self-healing Polymers and Composites » American Scientist

Nothing lasts forever. Any humanmade material, used in anything from toys to bridges, will eventually fail, if not maintained and repaired. Traditionally, this problem has been addressed through extensive inspection and expensive replacement of damaged parts. Biological systems, however, have evolved to include alternative ways to repair internal and external damage via healing mechanisms. Mate...

Personal reflections on an unintentional behavioral scientist

It is unlikely that prior to reaching age 40 János Aczél anticipated any challenging questions about functional equations arising from the behavioral and social sciences. Yet, increasingly, behavioral and social scientists have come up with difficult equations. To be sure, the earliest equations we encountered were largely familiar and were covered in his treatise (Aczél (1961, 1966)). But some...