[Season 2 Finale!] Who doesn’t love a good laugh? If you’re lucky, you laugh so hard you cry, your stomach cramps, you can’t breathe and you hopefully collapse on the floor. Nothing better. Professor Sophie Scott, Director of University College London’s Speech Communication Lab, studies the science of laughter. Occasionally she’ll even use her tight five as a standup to further inform her research on the power and effects of laughter. Not only is laughter fantastic for your mental and physical health, it is also an important social, communication and diplomatic tool (looking at you Bill Clinton). Ever peed your pants from laughing so hard? There's an absurd reason for that. Ali also answers a bunch of listener questions she’s been waiting to dig in to.

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Links of Interest:

Ali’s New Book: Ali’s Well That Ends Well

Sophie Scott, Why We Laugh, TED 2015 (4.4M views):

https://www.ted.com/speakers/sophie_scott

Sophie Scott, What’s in a Voice, TEDx 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeHlgJSM-wM

UCL Speech Communication lab:

https://speechcommunicationlab.weebly.com/

Sophie’s podcast: The Neuromantics, a podcast about science and art

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-neuromantics/id1455641494

Sophie’s New Book:

The Brain: 10 Things You Should know (releases 9/2/222)

Koko and Robin Williams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9I_QvEXDv0

Boris Yeltsin & Bill Clinton Press Conference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=951Tz2GfgQQ

Liam Neeson & Ricky Gervais:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpKwqiAWWrA

Ricky Gervais - Humanity (2018) (clip regarding dogs):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBWyyHfrlbU

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