One bizarre remark on Mona Lisa’s smile is that she doesn’t smile at all; it’s a visual illusion. And wasn’t Leonardo da Vinci a master in optics? Turns out, half of the claim is true — literally! Neurologists Lucia Ricciardi and Matteo Bolognay have interpreted Mona Lisa’s smile as asymmetric and so non-genuine. Happiness is expressed only on the left side. A genuine smile not only utilises the muscles of the mouth but also those of the eyes. It is a Duchenne smile (named after Guillaume Duchenne, a 19th century neurologist who studied the signs). An asymmetric smile is a non-Duchenne smile. It “reflects a non-genuine emotion and is thought to occur when the subject lies.” Ricciardi and Bolognay came up with an intriguing possibility — that Leonardo knew the true meaning of asymmetric smile more than three centuries before Duchenne’s finding and that he intentionally painted a smile expressing a ‘non-felt’ emotion! If the theory holds, then Mona Lisa’s smile might hide cryptic messages — that this was in reality a self-portrait, or that the portrait referred to a man or a dead woman.

SNEAK PEEK

1. Spot astroturfing!

Many will buy a product if they see several positive online reviews of it. Often all these reviews are posted by a single paid associate — “astroturfing”. We can detect it based on choice of words, punctuations and context in the reviews. Who devised a method for the purpose?

1. UTSA researcher Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo

2. Carbon backbone

Elephants are great movers and shakers, but they prefer fast-growing trees — species with low carbon storage. As they “thin” the forest, the elephants raise the number of slow-growing trees and the forest develops a strong “carbon backbone”. Who deduced the effect?

2. Stephen Blake (Saint Louis University)

3. Too clean no good

A completely sanitised environment robs our immune systems of the opportunity to be “educated by microbes”. This is why living in the vicinity of farm animals is much healthier than living in urban spaces. Who contended that “too clean is not necessarily a good thing”?

3. Microbiologist Zhongtang Yu (Ohio State University)

4. All are connected

Physicist Erwin Schrodinger’s attraction to the Vedic concept “all is one” eventually prompted the discovery of the DNA. If you believe everything in the world is interconnected, you will have greater life satisfaction regardless of your religious beliefs. Who found it in a study?

4. Laura Marie Edinger-Schons (University of Mannheim)

5. Doping scenarios

In the UK, Denmark, and Greece, footballers show a higher likelihood of doping for injury recovery than for performance boost. Such reasons make athletes feel less guilt, but if we rub it in that doping is cheating, they are less likely to do it. Who studied it in different scenarios?

5. Dr Maria Kavussanu (University of Birmingham)

6. Injury mirroring

In developing frogs, an injury to one limb is instantly reflected in the bioelectric properties of the opposing limb. The sensation in the un-injured leg is directly correlated to both the position and the type of injury. This is “bioelectric injury mirroring”. Who noticed this mirroring?

6. Tufts University biologist Sera Busse

7. Stone Age lingers

If animals are larger and stronger than their rivals, they may assert themselves in the struggle for status and resources. Stone Age cavemen followed suit. Who proposed that, in politics, modern men with large upper-bodies share “intuitions produced by a Stone Age mind”?

7. Political scientist Michael Bang Petersen

8. Work non-intuitive

Even the best mathematical minds can be fooled by simple calculations. High mathematical reasoning is impacted in them by their knowledge of the world. Who argued that we should free ourselves from our non-mathematical intuition and work in non-intuitive contexts?

8. Emmanuel Sander (University of Bourgogne Franche)

9. Party isn’t over!

Once a bandmate gets married, the party’s over for a group, says the rock n’ roll lore. But a new study has it that a mix of married and unmarried bandmates tweaks creativity and collaborative thinking — the way a diversity of age, race and gender does. Who did the study?

9. Don Conlon and Karen Etty Jehn

QUIZ No. 914

1. The Iron Age was when terrestrial iron replaced extraterrestrial iron. Who said it?

– Albert Jambon
– Lewis Bernstein Namier
– Walter L. Fleming

1. Albert Jambon

2. Who found that the functioning of the tattoo needle could be copied in diagnosis?

– Dr Ali K. Yetisen
– Charles Brenton Huggins
– Ida Henrietta Hyde

2. Dr Ali K. Yetisen

3. There is no math gene! Mathematical skills come with practice. Who claimed so?

– Dorothy Vaughan
– Hermundur Sigmundsson
– Murray Gerstenhaber

3. Hermundur Sigmundsson

4. This scientist’s best works on marine larvae were his poems on them. Name him.

– Friedrich von Huene
– Laurence Markham Huey
– Walter Garstang

4. Walter Garstang

5. Who projected his ID card image onto monuments in 77 cities in 33 countries?

– John Hamon
– Richard Art Hambleton
– Keith Allen Haring

5. John Hamon