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Got a boring class? Whatever you do, suppress that irresistible urge to yawn, just in case. Here’s what happened to a British teen after she yawned in one particularly boring class:
Holly Thompson, 17, of Kingsthorpe, Northampton, was in the middle of a particularly enthralling class on politics when she reacted to the subject matter like many other students would — she yawned.
But what happened next wasn’t so typical. Her trap wouldn’t shut, making her look like an anime character in a state of shock. [...]
"I was so shocked, my expression probably said it all," she said. "I nudged my friend to show her what had happened but I was so embarrassed. When we realized we couldn’t close it, she had to tell the teacher."
Why do we yawn? Andrew Gallup, a researcher at Bingham University, explained that we yawn to prevent our brains from overheating:
If your head is overheated, there’s a good chance you’ll yawn soon, according to a new study that found the primary purpose of yawning is to control brain temperature.
The finding solves several mysteries about yawning, such as why it’s most commonly done just before and after sleeping, why certain diseases lead to excessive yawning, and why breathing through the nose and cooling off the forehead often stop yawning.
The key yawn instigator appears to be brain temperature.
"Brains are like computers," Andrew Gallup, a researcher in the Department of Biology at Binghamton University who led the study, told Discovery News. "They operate most efficiently when cool, and physical adaptations have evolved to allow maximum cooling of the
brain."
Link – Thanks Geekazoid!
(That’s a cute baby named Livia, yawning like a lion. Photo: patata1017 [Flickr])
