“For more than 2,000 years pundits have assumed that all forms of humor share a common ingredient. The search for this essence occupied first philosophers and then psychologists, who formalized the philosophical ideas and translated them into concepts that could be tested.” In Scientific American, Giovanni Sabato provides the latest findings in the long quest to understand why we laugh. How Many Psychologists Does It Take … to Explain a Joke? While interesting, this article is not at all funny. But that shouldn’t be too surprising. As EB White pointed out: “Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.”

+ Maybe we’re just laughing through the tears. Or, more likely, the rage. NPR: Americans Say We’re Angrier Than A Generation Ago.