A Yawn Detector, Networked

The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) as depicted above, was chosen as a reference for the ‘Networked Yawn Detector’ (a car-driver safety-monitor) developed by Zhengrong Yao and Haibo Li of the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University, Sweden. “We test our system publicly, 26 students from the Applied Physics and Electronic Engineering Department […]

Budgies Also Yawn (contagiously)

The 2011 Ig Nobel Physiology Prize was awarded to Anna Wilkinson (of the UK), Natalie Sebanz (of The Netherlands, Hungary, and Austria), Isabella Mandl (of Austria) and Ludwig Huber (of Austria) for their study “No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise.” However, although Red-Footed Tortoises don’t seem to contagiously yawn, many other animals […]

The tortoise and the touchscreen

Ig Nobel Prize winners Anna Wilkinson [pictured here, with a tortoise] and Ludwig Huber have now done an experiment with four tortoises and a touchscreen. (Wilkinson and Huber, together with colleagues Natalie Sebanz and Isabella Mandl, were awarded the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize for physiology, for their study “No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise.”) The new study is: […]

Detail about the yawning conference

Investigator David F. Austin informs us that the Paris yawning conference has announced details of what will (or at least might) transpire. The world has awaited this information for months now, since the conference was announced. The basics (we remind you) are: Première conférence internationale sur le bâillement First International Conference on Yawning Paris, 24 […]

Yawning Invitation: Paris in June

Première conférence internationale sur le bâillement First International Conference on Yawning Paris, 24 – 25 juin 2010 We are proud to announce the First International Conference on Yawning. These two days meetings bring together leading international speakers to review both emerging information and its convergence with current understanding. Join leaders in the field on June […]