Hand clapping is ubiquitous behavior for humans across time and cultures, serving many different purposes: to signify approval with applause, for instance, or to keep time to music. Acousticians often ...

ITHACA, N.Y. — Every time you applaud at a concert or celebrate a touchdown, your hands are performing a feat of physics that scientists have puzzled over for decades. Cornell University researchers ...

In a pivotal scene from the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand, a mutant claps his hands and blasts a shockwave across a battlefield. In a theater somewhere, Sunny Jung watched—and wondered. “It made me ...

What makes us clap more for some performances than others? You'd think it's obvious: The better the show, the more applause. Think again. Guest host Linda Wertheimer explores how and why applause ...

The clapping hands emoji: When used repetitively in a row, it signifies applause, but as any social media user by now understands, that is not the emoji's primary placement in the world of Twitter.