Airline agents and other airport workers wryly describe fliers who crowd gates waiting to board as "gate lice," a none-too-appreciative term for an unappreciated behavior. Pushing and squeezing to get on a flight as quickly as possible often results in just making the whole boarding process slower.

So why do people do it, especially if they have assigned seats? Psychology experts offer two explanations: conformity and competition.

First, humans use other humans as sources of information and behavioral cues. If others are moving, you may think it's time to move too. "People will do any weird thing if they think that's the way to behave," Shira Gabriel, a psychology professor at the University of Buffalo told The Washington Post. "When you see people lining up, getting ready, it makes you feel there's a benefit to that."

That's conformity. Competition arises when you see others moving and believe that not doing the same will bring negative consequences, such as losing the last open space in the overhead bins and having to check luggage.

Body of Knowledge

As you age, your nails change, growing more slowly with nail cells (onychocytes) beginning to accumulate. That's why older people tend to have thicker toenails. Fingernails fare better over time because people tend to take better care of them, while toenails suffer a lot of neglected wear and tear.

Also, it's a myth that nails continue to grow after death. Instead, surrounding skin dehydrates and recedes, creating the appearance that nails are growing longer.

Mark Your Calendar

January is health awareness month for blood donations, glaucoma, birth defects and traumatic brain injuries caused by winter sports — which means do the first and try to avoid all of the others.

Stories for the Waiting Room

The benefits of bathing are obvious, at least to those around you. But how often should you do it? There's no true consensus. Americans tend to bathe daily, but in other countries, the average is closer to two to three times a week or less.

Bathing too often, especially in hot water, can lead to dry and itchy skin.

Bathing too infrequently can result in skin irritation and maybe infections with the buildup of bacteria and oils. Also, too little bathing and you may not shed dead skin cells, though you may shed close friends.

Doc Talk

Cachinnation — a fit of spontaneous, uproarious, unrestrained laughter. It's sometimes used by psychiatrists to describe inappropriate laughter, but it's not related to "cackle," which can refer to simply loud, annoying laughter or that chicken behind you.

Phobia of the Week

Sociophobia — fear of social evaluation. (If you're reading this, you're OK in our book.)

Food for Thought

Frogs and alligators cannot be mistaken for chickens, except perhaps by taste. Why do so many disparate animals seem to "taste like chicken"? Over the years, researchers have posited numerous hypotheses, including that chickens and modern reptiles descend from the same evolutionary roots.

Food scientists, however, say it really all comes down to biochemical composition — the ratio, for example, of fat composition to muscle with a dash of sugar. The flavor of meat derives from such changing compositions of these molecules, affected by heat.

Chicken is considered a white meat because it has relatively low myoglobin content (a protein that carries iron), but comparatively more glycogen, a sugar. Frogs and alligators are also considered white meat because their muscles have biochemical compositions similar to chickens.

For a different meat chemistry, you have to cross the road to the where the cows hang out.

Best Medicine

A guy visits his doctor for his annual physical.

"Everything looks good," declares his doctor. "You're doing OK for your age."

"For my age," exclaims the guy. "I'm only 75. I want to know if I'll make 80."

"Well," asks the doctor, "do you drink or smoke?"

"No," says the guy.

"Do you eat fatty meats or sweets?"

"No."

"What about activities? Do you engage in thrilling behaviors like racing cars or skiing?"

"Absolutely not," says the guy. "I would never engage in dangerously thrilling activities."

"In that case," the doctor says, "why would you want to live to be 80?"

Observation

"I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it look before they cross the road." — English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

Medical History

This week in 1992, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations decreed that hospitals lacking a no-smoking indoors policy risk losing accreditation and Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. It was the first U.S. industry-wide ban on smoking in the workplace.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously, and even harder to ignore.

In 2023, the Ig Nobel Prize in medicine went to team of scientists who used cadavers to answer the question of whether there are an equal number of hairs in each of a person's two nostrils.

They determined that, on average, there were 112.2 right nasal hairs (plus or minus 64) and 120 left nasal hairs (plus or minus 62) among the 20 cadavers examined — a statistically insignificant difference.

Now you nose.

Self-Exam

Q: What is the total surface area of your intestines?

A: The small intestines stretch roughly 20 feet; the large intestine is 5 feet long in adults. The total surface or working area of the intestines is approximately equal to the surface area of two tennis courts, though some Swedish scientists have downgraded it to the size of a small studio apartment — an apartment that is dark and uninviting.

Last Words

"Doctor, if I put this here guitar down now, I ain't never gonna wake up." — American folk and blues singer Huddie William Ledbetter, aka Lead Belly (1888-1949)

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Bao Menglong at Unsplash