(Newsys) You can quit blaming scary movies for your fear of snakes.
Instead, blame your earliest primate ancestors. (Via New Line Cinema / “Snakes on a Plane”)
A group of scientists at the University of California-Davis wanted to test why people find the legless lizards so creepy, even if they’ve never seen one in person. Detecting snakes, they thought, was a trait hard wired by evolution. (Via BBC)
To test their theory, they implanted microelectrodes in the brains of two monkeys raised on a farm. The monkeys were shown images of snakes, others monkeys and various shapes.