Don: [LAUGHING] And then, see, Moe pokes Curly right in the eye with a pool cue! Hilarious!

Yael: [NOT LAUGHING] Sure. I guess.

D: What? You don't like the Three Stooges?!?

Y: To be honest, Don, not really.

D: C'mon, Yael. What could be funnier than grown men hitting each other on the head with frying pans, and lighting each others' shoes on fire?

Y: I'm sure you think that's hilarious, but it's just not my cup of tea. That's probably because men and women respond to humor differently.

D: Get outta town!

Y: Really. Allan Reiss of Stanford University did a study with ten men and ten women who rated the funniness of cartoons while hooked up to MRI machines. Their brain activity showed that while men and women use the same basic brain areas when responding to humor, there are some differences. For example, the parts of the brain responsible for language, analytical thinking, and reward were more active in women than in men. This suggests that women are more analytical when it comes to finding something funny.

D: You mean that women are more discerning about whether something is funny or not?

Y: That's the idea. And when women do find something to be genuinely funny, they feel rewarded in a way that men don't.

D: So the implication is that women are humor connoisseurs while men are dolts that'll laugh at pretty much anything.

Y: Well, not all men, of course. Just men in general.

D: That doesn't seem fair. Just because I think slapstick humor is funny doesn't mean I'll laugh at anything.

Y: Maybe not. It's still true that men are more likely than women to laugh at someone slipping on a banana peel.

D: Well, that is hilarious.