EXACTLY HOW MANY CATS CAN CURIOSITY KILL?

We humans are a curious species. No -- not just because we do some strangely curious things. Also because we are forever curious about the world around us. Those of us who make our curiosity a way of life are traditionally called either nosy or scientists...!

Three recent scientific studies seem at first curioisity-simply-for-the-sake-of-curiosity. However, there may be a way of connecting their peculiar dots.

First, the grammarian report in Paris's "Le Figaro" which quotes researchers who have concluded "speaking French helps you think creatively." One might dismiss this as quasi-science, because all the university researchers were French. Still, they build a provocative case by pointing to the language's enormous complexity. "It's a tissue of nutty expressions, replete with irregular verbs, rebellious participles that refuse to agree, and a byzantine subjective tense"

The research goes on to say, "Linear, logical languages are all very well for describing some scientific endeavors such as engineering, but a mind nurtured by an irrational language is better able to cope with the absurd madness of a world in which two plus two does not necessarily equal four!" My linear Anglo-Saxon brain spins...!

A second study comes from researchers at the University of Portsmouth in the UK. They have "tickled" a slew of gorillas, chimps, orangutans, bonobos and three human babies. "Acoustical analysis reveals surprising similarities, suggesting laughter dates back 10-16 million years to a common ancestor. Telling us laughter has a pre-human basis." Lead researcher Marina Davila Ross is quoted as saying, "these findings could have implications for both studying human emotions, and managing caged primates."

I don't have to speak French to find something a bit "byzantine" about her conclusion. Unless, that is, I were an unsmiling zoo owner with bi-polar tendencies. But not to make light of this, there are perhaps a good many of these in our world....!

The third study is taking place on such prestigious campuses as Cornell, Yale and Harvard. The curiosity driving this investigation makes it the most unique of them all, for the researchers are wondering why voters in swing states vote the way they do. In a eureka moment, they seem to have isolated an "ick factor." Their surveys suggest that voters with a "higher disgust sensitivity" (eg. reactions to cockroaches, public toilets, and drinking from another's glass) likely have more conservative views on a range of issues "including immigration, abortion and gay marriage."

The study's lead author, Professor David Pizarro, tells the "Washington Times" that, "Disgust, in particular, appears to be one of those emotions that seems to be recruited for moral judgments." And while I'm not sure what the professor just said, I'm assuming it would make more sense in French.

Taking these three studies together, here's a wild, unresearched thought. Perhaps future presidential candidates should consider becoming the cleanest dressed, French-speaking smilers in the race. That would surely get the zoo vote.