Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The students were hundreds of miles apart. Drugs were blamed at first. But now, researchers believe the truth was far stranger: It ...

On January 30th, 1962, an all-girls boarding school in Kashasha, Tanganyika, witnessed one of the oddest types of mass hysteria ever recorded in human history: The Laughter Epidemic. This epidemic, ...

Last week, loud popping sounds triggered a frightening chain of events at J.F.K. Airport. Mass panic spread through two terminals as travelers ran toward exits, sought cover under tables, and broke ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Gary Drenik is a writer covering AI, analytics and innovation. This article is more than 10 years old. In psychology it is called ...

It sounds sexist, and it’s sure to raise the ire of some feminists, but the literature does not lie. Throughout history, groups of people in cohesive social units have suddenly fallen ill or exhibited ...

Fifteen teenage girls report a mysterious outbreak of spasms, tics and seizures in upstate New York. But tests find nothing physically wrong. Scores of adults in Northern California report crawling ...

Humans are social animals and like all social animals have fantastic mechanisms for synching up behavior. If I start yawning, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll start yawning. If I start puking, ...

It usually starts with one person. It could be a fainting spell, a laughing fit, crying jag and suddenly an entire school is in chaos. That evening, the television news will feature wailing, laughing ...