Is There A Purpose to Yawning?
Yawning is contagious. No doubt about it. We've all experienced it. I even yawned back and forth with my dog until I decided to leave the room to make it stop. I am actually yawning just writing about yawning. It is insane! Well, great apes are not immune to this debilitating habit that seems to spring out of nowhere for no apparent reason. We yawn when we are tired, bored, anxious and ... when others yawn. Now, thanks to a study coming out of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University we have proof that chimpanzees do too. When shown animated cartoon chimpanzee characters yawning, the real chimps yawned in response. Some suggest that yawning may have served a purpose, like signaling all individuals within a group that it was time to sleep. This is certainly one way of looking at it. Others, like Professor Robert Provine at the University of Maryland who spent years studying phenomena like yawni...