WHAT'S SO FUNNY ?

Humar is so clearly central to the human adventure that it's surprising how little attention science has paid it until recently,preferring instead to tackle weighter subjects like global warming, earth-meaning astorids and the dangers of trans fats in cookies."No one take humour seriouly," jokes Ed Dunkelblau,PhD,a psychologist,humour consultant and formaer president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humour. Nonetheless, Allman and a smattering of other scientists have forged bravely ahead,to the occasional consternation of their more earnest colleagues , probing minds and brains to find our funny bones.And they're finding them,burried deep in our grey matter.Humour,it turns out,is a whole brain parts-call them "humour musceles"-passing signals quickly and efficiently to help us get a joke.We need relatively few of those musceles to comprehend simple slapstick like that in The Three Stooges,which requires us only to chortle when Moe pokes curly in the eye .but more complex humour,such as the jokes,cartoons and funny stories ,puts more of our brains to work.