Yawning reverses cerebrospinal fluid flow, boosts brain blood surge, and may aid cooling and waste movement, challenging the idea that it signals boredom alone.

When HHMI Investigator Amita Sehgal started studying sleep 25 years ago, the topic elicited a yawn from most biologists. "In ...

In a new study, yawning has been shown to push the brain’s clear fluid in the opposite direction of a deep breath.

Is it true that we yawn when our brains are deprived of oxygen? Most of us can feel a yawn coming on. The muscles in our jaw begin to tighten, our nostrils might flare, and our eyes might tear up as ...

Yawning has long been dismissed as a sign of boredom or fatigue, a social cue we mostly try to suppress in meetings and on video calls. New brain imaging work suggests that instinct is misplaced. When ...

Most people seem to be quite sure they understand yawning. They think it is caused by the need for oxygen, or boredom, or sleepiness. A group of medical scientists (Walusinski 2010) have upset this ...

Researchers show sleep protects neuronal mitochondria by transferring oxidative lipid damage to glial and blood cells. The ...

Among the occupations that get the shortest amount of shuteye each night, several make life-and-death decisions regularly. And members of one profession on the list carry guns on the job. Anybody need ...

Yawning seems like such a simple act, yet it holds surprising power over us. Just watching someone yawn — even a stranger — can suddenly trigger the irresistible urge to yawn yourself. Why does this ...