Experts say you can ‘talk’ to someone using your eyebrows regardless of language or culture

Here are some eyebrow-raising facts.

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erik

Mar 2, 2026

By erik

March 2, 2026

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You say more with your eyebrows than you probably realize. – Photo credit: Canva

In order to communicate and read others effectively, people need to pay attention to others’ body language and their words. Of course, it’s not always easy to decipher. People can interpret body language very differently from one another, but some physical signs are universal (like a smile). However, more than just smiles are universal. New research suggests that, regardless of culture or language, understanding can be found in our eyebrows.

Communication expert Vanessa Van Edwards shared how important eyebrows are for conveying and interpreting curiosity, engagement, and interest. Van Edwards explains that raising our eyebrows comes from humans wanting to widen their eyes to visually get a closer look at something. This behavior has since translated into nonverbally communicating the same thing in conversations. Seeing a person raise both eyebrows indicates that the conversation is in your favor. If their eyebrows are neutral or furrowed, you may want to make pivots or switch topics.

@vvanedwards
The Eyebrow Cue You’ve Been Ignoring ♬ original sound – Vanessa Van Edwards

According to psychologist Dane Archer, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times, eyebrows are especially revealing. The eyes, brows, and forehead tend to show more authentic expression and are less performative than the lower half of the face. “If we are trying to mask our feelings, we do it with our lower face,” Archer said. “The upper face is under a little less control.”

These aren’t the only experts vouching for the importance of eyebrows in human communication. A 2025 study at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics found that eyebrows were essential for signaling problems of understanding. An audience member raising or furrowing their eyebrows can indicate to a speaker whether listeners understand or need more information.

A speaker can tell how they’re being received by reading their listeners’ eyebrows. Either the audience is tracking with them, or the speaker needs to elaborate on a point. If a listener furrows their eyebrows and the speaker notices, they can pivot mid-speech to provide a clearer example. Once eyebrows return to a neutral position—or signal understanding—the speaker can move on.

According to research from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, eyebrows are “initiating repair during conversation” to fix any misunderstandings on the fly.

Researchers say this eyebrow movement isn’t just helpful for verbal communication, it also plays an important role in sign language. In American Sign Language, furrowed eyebrows while signing indicate that someone is requesting information. When asking a question, ASL users rely on brow movement to signal whether the question is genuine or rhetorical.

@smartguy85
Answer to @jday46 #asl #signlanguage #learn #education #questions ♬ original sound – Smart Guy 85

While eyebrows primarily help keep sweat out of our eyes, psychologists argue there are other reasons we have them. Eyebrows are key factors in how humans evolved for communication, helping us express emotion to one another without words.

This helps explain why expressions conveyed through eyebrows are nearly universal, regardless of differences in culture or language—and, in some cases, even species. Domesticated dogs, for example, have evolved prominent inner eyebrows that help them communicate more effectively with humans.

The next time you’re conversing with someone, it’d be worth looking at their eyebrows to see what they’re truly saying back to you.

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A birdwatching hobby could help keep the brain healthy into old age. – Photo credit: Canva

Health, Research, Well-being

How birdwatching makes your brain stronger and healthier

Know your birds, build your mind.

erik

2/27/2026

Birdwatching, or “birding,” is a calm hobby that many people, especially older adults, tend to gravitate toward. It allows people to increase their knowledge and appreciation of our feathered friends flying above us. It can also, according to a published study, help maintain brain health as we age.

A Canadian study of adult birdwatchers with varying levels of experience found something interesting: the brains of more seasoned birdwatchers had denser areas related to perception and attention than those of novices. This density was also present in older participants.

@todayshow
It turns out birding might be good for the brain! A new study published in the Journal or Neuroscience says birdwatching can improve attention and perception. Al shares more about his hobby, and Craig shares a hilarious story about the time he caught Al talking to the birds at his bird feeder. 🐦 #AlRoker #Birding
♬ original sound – TODAY Show – TODAY Show

Compared to their less experienced counterparts, expert birdwatchers also showed increased activity in three brain regions when identifying non-local birds: the bilateral prefrontal cortex, bilateral intraparietal sulcus, and right occipitotemporal cortex. These regions are involved in attention, memory, object identification, and visual processing.

This suggests that taking up birdwatching could help maintain brain function and encourage neuroplasticity as we age. That makes sense, given how mentally engaging birdwatching can be.

“[Birding] combines fine-grain identification, visual search and attention to the immediate environment and sensitivity to motion, pattern detection, building these elaborate conceptual networks of different related species,” said Erik Wing, a research associate at York University in Toronto and lead author of the study, according to NBC News.

@birdladydrin
Reply to @narielthetrue They’re getting used to me!!! 💕 #birdladydrin #facefeeder #chickadee #birdwatching #fyp
♬ Funny Song – Sounds Reel

Should birdwatching be a part of senior living?

Caregivers for seniors can vouch for birdwatching as a brain-stimulating activity for older adults.

Debra Maddox, director of community relations at Springs Ranch, a memory care senior living center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, tells GOOD that birdwatching has become a regular part of their clients’ activities and care.

“Because many of our residents who are living with dementia enjoy birdwatching, last summer, we installed a wild bird sanctuary outside our dining room windows,” said Maddox. “Since then, watching the various bird types has become a popular activity enjoyed by residents, families, and team members.”

“The activity offers sensory stimulation, promotes relaxation, and provides opportunities to reminisce, all of which are especially meaningful for those living with memory loss,” added Maddox. “Additionally, when our residents and their families birdwatch together, they connect on a unique level and discuss what they see outside.”

A geriatrician weighs in on birdwatching

Dr. Manisha Santosh Parulekar, a geriatrician at Hackensack Meridian Health, confirmed the potential brain benefits of birdwatching to GOOD.

“[Birdwatching] is a mentally stimulating activity that can be as simple or as challenging as you choose to make it, from identifying common backyard birds to learning complex bird songs and migration patterns,” said Parulekar. “Research has shown that learning new, cognitively demanding skills can enhance memory function in older adults.”

Parulekar added that birdwatching can help an older person’s brain for reasons outside of the actual activity.

“Furthermore, hobbies like birdwatching can become a meaningful part of one’s daily routine, providing a sense of purpose and accomplishment,” she said. “It can also be a social activity, connecting you with a community of fellow enthusiasts and warding off the loneliness and depression that can contribute to memory loss. Consistently engaging in such purposeful activities is a powerful, evidence-based strategy for lowering the risk of dementia and extending your ‘healthspan,’ the years you live without chronic disease or disability.”

While evidence can’t prove that birdwatching prevents cognitive decline, it’s helpful to know that staying active and participating in hobbies like this can help our brains “stay in shape” as we grow older and wiser.

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Cream on a young girl’s burn. – Photo credit: Canva

Health, Research

Oxygenating hydrogel and a tiny battery may heal chronic wounds and transform recovery

Self-oxygenating gel could save limbs, heal chronic wounds, and grow organs.

Mark Wales

2/26/2026

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside created a new gel that oxygenates and regenerates damaged tissue. By attaching a tiny battery about the size of a hearing aid, the gel becomes an electrochemical device capable of healing previously unhealable wounds. This breakthrough oxygenating hydrogel could reshape tissue restoration and address challenges across multiple conditions.

Some injuries develop complications and never fully heal. Without sufficient oxygen reaching the deeper layers of the skin, these wounds remain inflamed and never receive the medication needed to heal.

A medical provider treats a wound.
Photo credit: Canva

Researchers create oxygenating hydrogel

People suffering from chronic wounds—injuries that haven’t healed for over a month—face the risk of potential amputation. In the absence of oxygen, bacteria continue to flourish and the deepest layers of tissue worsen instead of rebuilding—a condition known as hypoxia.

The 2026 UC Riverside study described a soft, flexible gel containing a nontoxic, antibacterial liquid and water. When an electric current travels through the hydrogel, the water molecules split, releasing a steady trickle of healing oxygen. By placing the gel-and-battery system into an absorbent patch, the hydrogel can be replaced as needed.

Iman Noshadi, an associate professor at UC Riverside who led the research team, described the problem this way:

“There are four stages to healing chronic wounds: inflammation, vascularization where tissue starts making blood vessels, remodeling, and regeneration or healing. In any of these stages, lack of a stable, consistent oxygen supply is a big problem.”

Hypoxia is a medical term that means low oxygen levels in the body’s tissues.
Photo credit: Canva

A steady flow of healing oxygen

A 2024 study published in Oxford Academic revealed that hypoxia is a natural part of the healing process. In the early stages, it helps wounds form and promotes cell migration. However, chronic hypoxia in long-term wounds harms immune function and limits tissue regeneration.

There are significant benefits to using the oxygenating hydrogel. First, the gel adapts to a wound’s specific shape. By seeping into small gaps, it reaches areas where oxygen levels drop and infection risk is highest. Second, it delivers a continuous flow of oxygen that can last up to a month. Because tissue regrowth can take weeks, brief oxygen spikes don’t solve hypoxia. With controlled oxygen release, cells that were once unstable can begin to regrow.

The chemical element oxygen.
Photo credit: Canva

Oxygenating hydrogel has future applications

One of the major challenges in organ-growing research has been oxygen supply.

A 2025 study by researchers at Stanford University revealed that a lack of internal blood vessels limits oxygen delivery to growing cells. As a result, engineered tissues have restricted growth and never reach full maturity. Another 2025 study by a team at the University of Tokyo attempted to mimic the placenta to enhance liver growth, again aiming to counter the challenges posed by hypoxic conditions.

Noshadi believes the gel could be a “bridge to creating and sustaining larger organs for people in need of them.”

Whether scientists are trying to heal chronic wounds or grow fully functional organs, the challenge often comes down to oxygen. Innovations like oxygenating hydrogel aim to solve this problem. By delivering oxygen exactly where it’s needed, the technology could become a turning point—transforming stalled healing and organ engineering into life-changing medical breakthroughs.

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(L) A woman sleeps soundly; (R) A man can't fall asleep – Photo credit: Canva

Health, Well-being

Husband discovers his wife’s early-morning alarm habit was secretly ruining his sleep every day

The small, daily cost of someone else’s schedule.

Adam Albright-Hanna

2/26/2026

He thought he was just tired from a busy schedule. His wife needed to be up by 6:30 a.m. His own alarm didn’t go off until 7:45. The gap seemed manageable. Then he looked at her phone.

Under the username u/Cautious-Extreme-208, the man posted to social media on February 11, 2026, explaining what he found: not one alarm, but a chain of them, programmed at five-minute intervals from 6 a.m. to 6:45 a.m. Nine separate alarms. Each one nudging him slightly further from sleep before he had any reason to be awake. He called the screenshot he shared the “dark truth” behind his wife’s morning routine. The post has since been deleted, but not before Newsweek picked it up and the comment section filled with people saying some version of the same thing: same. Same house, same problem.

A 2025 study from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, published in Nature, analyzed more than 3 million nights of sleep data from users of a sleep monitoring app and found that more than half of all sleep sessions, 55.6%, ended with a snooze alarm. The average snoozer hit the button 2.4 times per morning, for a total of about 11 minutes of fragmented half-sleep. The researchers described frequent snooze alarm use as a potential marker of poor sleep health overall, and recommended that people set their alarm for the latest realistic wake time rather than building in a buffer of repeated alerts.

A frustrated man suffers from insomnia. Photo credit: Canva

The logic makes sense once you understand what the alarm is actually interrupting. Sleep in the final hour or two before waking tends to include some of the most important rest your brain gets, the kind that consolidates memory, processes emotion, and leaves you feeling human. Every alarm that fires before you need to be up pulls you partially out of that state. Not enough to wake you, but enough to disrupt it. Multiply that by nine alarms over 45 minutes and you have a pretty efficient system for making two people feel worse than they should.

That said, the science isn’t entirely one-sided. A 2024 study published in the Journal of Sleep Research found that for habitual late sleepers, a brief snooze period of around 30 minutes actually improved cognitive performance on rising compared to an abrupt awakening, and helped prevent being jolted out of the deepest stages of sleep. The key word there is brief. A single snooze as a gentle transition is a different thing from a 45-minute chain of beeps every five minutes.

Back on Reddit, the responses ranged from sympathetic to practical. u/One_Anything_2279 related immediately, joking about his own earlier-rising wife: “I hope she doesn’t find this and think this is my post.” u/Tempyteacup was blunt about the habit: “genuinely really bad for your sleep,” they wrote, recommending one alarm set for the time you actually need to get up. u/RefuseMysterious513 mentioned using apps that require solving a math problem before the alarm stops, a trick that forces full wakefulness. u/MJR-WaffleCat kept it simple: phone across the room.

None of those solutions address the underlying issue, which is that two people sharing a bed with an hour-plus difference in their wake times are always going to need some negotiation. The alarms are almost beside the point. What the post really captured is the small, daily math of living with another person’s schedule, and how much it costs you in sleep before you even realize it’s happening.

This article originally appeared earlier this year.

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