A Real Yawner

We do it every day.

This picture even made me do it.

No one is certain why but one guy thinks he has it figured out and if so, when you yawn says something about you.

From the New York Times...

Scientists (and everybody else) have known for decades that yawns are contagious, but they've never known why. But Platek says he thinks it has to do with empathy. The way he sees it, the more empathetic you are, the more likely it is that you'll identify with a yawner and experience a yawn yourself. In a recent study, Platek looked at contagious yawning in people with "high empathy," "low empathy" and everything in between. He found that higher empathy meant more yawn-susceptible and lower empathy meant more yawn-immune.

But that wasn't proof enough. So Platek put volunteers in M.R.I. machines and made them yawn again and again to pinpoint the areas of the brain involved. When their brains lighted up in the exact regions of the brain involved in empathy, Platek remembers thinking, "Wow, this is so cool!"