Daily News: Odd News - Comedians have psychotic personality traits, study finds

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Wednesday, Jan 15, 2014 04:23 PM PST
Today's Odd News - Reuters News Headlines - Yahoo News: Comedians have psychotic personality traits, study finds British man jailed for attempted Buckingham Palace break-in Australian scientists microchip bees to map movements, halt diseases

Comedians have psychotic personality traits, study finds  Wednesday, Jan 15, 2014 04:23 PM PST By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Having an unusual personality structure could be the secret to making other people laugh, scientists said on Thursday after research showed that comedians have high levels of psychotic personality traits. "The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis - both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder," said Gordon Claridge of the University of Oxford's department of experimental psychology, who led the study. "Equally, manic thinking - which is common in people with bipolar disorder - may help people combine ideas to form new, original and humorous connections." The researchers recruited 523 comedians - 404 men and 119 women - and asked them to complete an online questionnaire designed to measure psychotic traits in healthy people. The same questionnaire was also completed by 364 actors - who are also used to performing in front of an audience - as a control group, and the comedians' and actors' results were compared to each other as well as a general group of 831 people who had non-creative jobs. Full Story	Top
British man jailed for attempted Buckingham Palace break-in  Wednesday, Jan 15, 2014 10:18 AM PST A man caught armed with a knife trying to break into Buckingham Palace, the London home of Queen Elizabeth, was sentenced on Wednesday to 16 months in jail. David Belmar, 44, appeared in Southwark Crown Court in London having pleaded guilty to trespassing on a protected site last October and in possession of a bladed article. Belmar, of Haringey, north London, was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment for possession of a knife and 6 months to run concurrently for trespass. One of the biggest security breaches at Buckingham Palace happened in 1982 when an intruder, Michael Fagan, climbed a wall and wandered into a room where the queen was in bed. Full Story	Top
Australian scientists microchip bees to map movements, halt diseases  Wednesday, Jan 15, 2014 01:42 AM PST By Thuy Ong SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian scientists are gluing tiny sensors onto thousands of honey bees to track their movements in a trial aimed at halting the spread of diseases that have wiped out populations in the northern hemisphere. Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, said the microchips could help tackle so-called colony collapse disorder, a situation where bees mysteriously disappear from hives, and the encroachment of the parasitic varroa mite. Scientists will examine the effectiveness of pesticides in protecting the bees from colony collapse disorder and varroa mite. The study will also enable farmers and fruit growers to understand and manage their crops, given the honey bee's crucial role in the pollination of crops globally, the CSIRO said in a statement issued on Wednesday. Full Story	Top

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