Dr. Cy Borg is a microbiologist with superior sensory and intellectual capabilities. After a mishap in the laboratory in the year 2000, her sensory perception and original appendages were destroyed. But not for long. Science came to the rescue, replacing the scientist's traditional eyes with UV sensitive ones. Next, her two arms became four; her brain was enhanced with six nano-computers; and her body was shielded from further damage by smart armor. So, you can be sure this uber-intelligent scientist is ready for your borg-boggling question!

------------------------------

Dear McKensie,

I’ve yawned three, four, five times since starting to answer your question. A lot of people reading this will probably yawn too. That doesn’t mean your question is boring. In fact, why we yawn is a question that puzzles many scientists. But there is something about yawning -- seeing someone yawning, reading about someone yawning, or thinking about someone yawning -- that makes us yawn too. Researchers have even found that blind people yawn after hearing yawns on an audiotape.

Your breathing is partly under your own control. You can take deep breaths on purpose when the doctor asks you to. You can hold your breath under water, or blow out birthday candles. However, your breathing is also partly under automatic control. When you are fast asleep dreaming about pickle-eating poodles wearing pink pajamas, you still do a pretty darn good job of breathing. The brainstem is the part of your brain that controls automatic breathing, as well as other automatic functions, such as blinking and swallowing. Yawning seems to be a reflex under the control of the brainstem. (Damage to the brainstem can actually result in excessive yawning.)

Nobody really knows, though, why we yawn. Some believe our bodies yawn to get more oxygen, or to get rid of carbon dioxide. Some believe yawns are triggered by boredom or fatigue. And others believe yawning originated with our ancestors as some form of communication. We do know that animals and babies yawn. We also know that Olympic athletes often yawn before a competition. (Can it really be boring waiting around to win a gold medal?) But we may never know exactly where all those yawns come from. Or whether Olympic medalists Michael Phelps and Apolo Ohno would be as successful if they stopped yawning so much.

Dr. Cy Borg is the alter ego of Dr. Laura Gehl, who holds degrees in psychology and neuroscience from Yale and Georgetown universities. A former biology teacher, Dr. Gehl writes about science for numerous children’s magazines and is the associate editor of Science Weekly. She lives with her family near Washington, D.C.

Home  | Back  | Print

Virtual Classroom | All About Science | Fun Stuff | Just For Teachers
Current Issue | Subscribe | Contact Us