Emily Kwong

There are, turns out.

And without breaking FCC guidelines, Juana, I want you to imagine your favorite swear word.

Don't say it.

Just hold it in your mind.

Had to pick just one.

I'm holding it.

Okay.

Next time you need to summon your physical strength, say one of these words.

And now his team at Keele and the University of Alabama in Huntsville has a possible explanation.

That the choice to swear to break social taboos and shed inhibitions through words moves a person into a state where they act in a more disinhibited way and just go for it.

Psychologists even have a term for this, state disinhibition.

They published these results in the journal American Psychologist last week.

And it turns out that swearing participants held their body weight for much longer.

And they also reported more positive emotion, humor, distraction, self-confidence, and psychological flow, all of which are linked to state disinhibition.

But not all of these birds look the same.

Junkos in the wildlands outside L.A.

have longer, more slender beaks, whereas the junkos within Los Angeles, including the birds on the UCLA campus, have shorter, stubbier beaks.

But the shapes of the city bird beaks changed during COVID.

And her team thinks it has to do with campus closures.

When campus is full of people, the trash cans are, you know, full of food waste and stubbier beaks could be good for foraging in that environment.