"How dare you ask that question!'' Mr. McCain shot back in a mock rage, generating laughter from the crowd.
The scans identified three regions of interest: one deciding that something is funny, one generating laughter and one providing the happy feelings that accompany laughter.
We often find ourselves laughing round the table at funny remarks and comments of his; he has always had the ability to generate laughter.
Scientists suspect it occurs when the brain stem, which generates laughter and crying, loses communication with parts of the brain that control emotional expression.
"Eighteen years seems just about the right amount of time to me," he said, generating laughter with the obvious reference to his opponent's three-term tenure in the Senate.
For mild comic distraction in a movie that is skimpier than most in generating laughter, there is Minion David Crosss), Megamind's loyal assistant, who has a fishbowl head, the body of a robot gorilla and a fanged underbite.
If you activate the area of the brain that generates laughter, for example, the subject may happily "explain" that his hilarity stems from an overly earnest looking doctor or an odd diagram on the wall.
Presumably, as a standup comedian, I am paid to generate laughter, which I do, almost nightly, in rooms all around the country, and simply putting the word "comedian" in inverted commas in your below-the-line comments about me will do nothing to alter that demonstrable fact.
Above all, both are governed by a structure of illogical logic that generates laughter in one and fantasy in the other.
