It is one of the most iconic songs of all time, and I guarantee that most of the population of the world can at least rap a little bit of that intro. I am, of course, talking about the theme tune of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air! Lol, just kidding, I'm talking about Lose Yourself - the smash hit by Eminem that was released in 2002 and went on to go quadruple platinum as well as featuring in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

However, while it may be a song to define an era; if you are a big fan of Lose Yourself, it turns out you are also possibly a psychopath.

That is according to a completely random study that was performed by the New York University, which found that people who liked the songs "No Diggity" by Blackstreet, and "Lose Yourself" by Eminem, are more likely to have psychopathic tendencies.

Obviously, this goes against infamous psychopaths like Alex in A Clockwork Orange and Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, who preferred classical music to hip hop tracks. The results, which are preliminary and unpublished, have caused such intrigue among scientists that they are now set to launch a major study in which thousands of people across the psychopathy spectrum will be asked about their musical preferences.

So if psychos listen to Eminem and Black Street, what do the least psychopathic people listen to? Well, the answer to that is My Sharona by The Knack, and Titanium by Sia.

"The media portrays psychopaths as axe murderers and serial killers, but the reality is they are not obvious; they are not like The Joker in Batman. They might be working right next to you, and they blend in. They are like psychological dark matter," said Pascal Wallisch, who led the research.

It's estimated that about one per cent of the general population is psychopathic, but in prison the figure is much higher, with one in five prisoners having the disorder.

"You don’t want to have these people in positions where they can cause a lot of harm," said Wallisch. "We need a tool to identify them without their cooperation or consent."

The larger study will now investigate whether there is a clear link between musical tastes and psychopathy, and whether groups of songs can predict potential psychopaths. If the team can identify a group of say, 30 songs, they could then create playlists of them for online music providers to use to identify potential psychopaths.

If you're unsure of the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath, take a look at the video below which outlines the key differences.

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"The beauty of this idea is you can use it as a screening test without consent, cooperation or maybe even the knowledge of the people involved," Wallisch said. "The ethics of this are very hairy, but so is having a psychopath as a boss, and so is having a psychopath in any position of power."

Fortunately for ethicists, the possibility is some way off yet. "This work is very preliminary," Wallisch added. "This is not the end of an investigation, it is the very beginning."

So next time you're on Spotify or Apple Music, avoid listening to Lose Yourself or Back Street, as it will be giving out the wrong impression of you.

People can be very particular about their tastes in coffee. Just go to any coffee shop in your town and you'll soon realise this, especially if you get stuck behind the guy ordering a skinny mocha frappe latte with light soy milk and an extra shot of sugar-free caramel syrup with some cinnamon sprinkles on top.

As for me, I like my coffee the same way I like my men: I don't like men.

Still, that hasn't precluded me from noticing the coffee-drinking habits of others (nor the dating habits of other female friends, for that matter), and I always find it a little strange that some people choose to have their coffee without anything else added to it. To me, it's always seemed too strong and bitter, and I can't ever help but assume that anyone who chooses to drink their coffee black is just a little - how do I put this gently? - odd.

And, according to one study, there might actually be some scientific truth behind this assumption, as those who prefer black coffee are more likely to have psychopathic tendencies.

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The study, conducted by the University of Innsbruck in Austria and published in the journal Appetite, used a sample of almost 1,000 adults and quizzed them on their flavour preferences. Then, they gave those same adults personality tests in order to assess their proclivity for narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, and aggression.

According to the researchers, "The results of both studies confirmed the hypothesis that bitter taste preferences are positively associated with malevolent personality traits, with the most robust relation to everyday sadism and psychopathy."

In other words: the people who preferred bitter tastes (i.e. black coffee) were more likely to have sadistic or psychopathic personality traits.

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Meanwhile, the converse was true about people who had especially sweet tastes, as those who enjoyed milky or sugary coffee were found to have more "agreeable" personality traits such as sympathy, cooperation, and kindness.

Before you go jumping to conclusions about that guy from your office who drinks super strong coffee, however, there are a number of things that should be noted.

First of all, "bitter" is a subjective term, and taste preferences can be influenced by a whole number of things. The kinds of foods we favour also change over time, so there is every chance that someone who prefers black coffee right now will later prefer a sweeter beverage, and vice versa.

Most importantly, the researchers are not sure why there is a correlation between bitter taste preferences and psychopathic tendencies, and more studies would need to take place in order to work this out.

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Essentially, drinking black coffee or eating bitter foods won't make you a psychopath, but a preference for those sorts of flavours might hint at sadistic or psychopathic personality traits.

Still, there is at least one benefit to hanging around with someone who drinks black coffee: when they're in front of you at Starbucks, you know it's not going to take a million years to prepare their order.

If you're somebody who has a physical reaction to music, you may be more special than you may realize.

We all have our favorite songs, artists, and albums - but how many of us can really say that we get goosebumps when hearing a certain singer's voice? Or perhaps you're somebody whose hair stands up on the back of your neck when you hear a certain guitar riff.

Well, a groundbreaking study published in Oxford Academic titled 'Brain Connectivity Reflects Human Aesthetic Responses to Music' delves into the fascinating phenomenon of experiencing chills and goosebumps while listening to music.

The study, led by former Harvard undergraduate Matthew Sachs, sheds light on the intricate workings of the human brain and its response to musical stimuli, Science Times reports.

Credit: AsiaVision / Getty

And it turns out that those who experience a physical reaction to music appear to have a different brain structure than others.

According to Sachs' findings, individuals who experience chills and goosebumps when listening to music possess a denser volume of fibers connecting their auditory cortex to the areas of the brain responsible for processing emotions. This heightened connectivity allows for more efficient communication between these regions, resulting in a stronger emotional reaction to music, termed as musical stimuli.

"The idea being that more fibers and increased efficiency between two regions means that you have more efficient processing between them," Sachs explained, emphasizing the significance of this enhanced connectivity in shaping emotional responses to music.

Do you experience goosebumps when listening to music? Credit: Roberto Gomez / Getty

To conduct the study, Sachs selected 20 individuals aged between the ages of 18 and 34. The group comprised of eight males and 12 females, with varying degrees of engagement with music.

Ten participants reported experiencing chills and tingling sensations when listening to specific songs, while the remaining ten did not report such responses.

Participants were asked to submit three to five songs that evoked strong emotional responses, with the chills group selecting songs that consistently induced goosebumps. The curated playlist included diverse tracks ranging from Bon Iver's 'Flume' to Coldplay's 'Strawberry Swing' and N'SYNC's 'This I Promise You'.

During the experiment, participants listened to excerpts from their chosen songs and rated their emotional responses on a scale from 0 to 10. Additionally, they were instructed to indicate moments of chills by pressing and holding the space bar.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), a type of MRI-based technique, was employed to scan the brains of each participant, providing insights into neural connectivity patterns.

While the study primarily focuses on human responses to auditory stimuli, Sachs believes its implications extend beyond the realm of music. He suggests that these findings could inform philosophical and scientific inquiries into the evolutionary origins of human aesthetics, offering valuable insights into the universality of music and art across diverse cultures and historical contexts.

Alissa Der Sarkissian - a research assistant at USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, based at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and a friend of Sachs - revealed that she is somebody who has an emotional connection to music.

"I sort of feel that my breathing is going with the song, my heart is beating slower and I’m feeling just more aware of the song — both the emotions of the song and my body’s response to it," she said, per Neuroscience News.

I can certainly relate. Every time I hear the Heartbeat theme song I come out in a cold sweat as it reminds me of having to go to bed on a Sunday evening before school.

Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music by Matthew E. Sachs, Robert J. Ellis, Gottfried Schlaug, and Psyche Loui in Social and Affective Neuroscience. Published online March 10 2016 doi:10.1093/scan/nsw009

Featured image credit: AsiaVision / Getty

If you like a super strong, freshly-roasted black coffee then you may be someone who prefers to take care of their health or just enjoys the strong, bitter flavors.

Or, you may have a very dark and scary side to you, meaning you possess psychopathic personality traits that include: anti-social behavior, sadism, and narcissism.

At least, that's according to a study carried out by researchers from the University of Innsbruck in Austria, who investigated 953 Americans on their coffee preferences.

The investigation discovered a correlation between a love of black coffee and sadist or psychopathic tendencies.

Credit: GeorgHanf / Getty

The participants were questioned about their opinions on sweet, sour, salty, and bitter meals and beverages. They were then instructed to answer four different personality surveys that evaluated anti-social characteristics such as psychopathy, narcissism, aggression, and sadism.

The results shockingly revealed that there was an important link between the "increased enjoyment of bitter foods" - which includes gin and tonics, black coffee, and dark chocolate - and "heightened sadistic proclivities."

"In two studies, we investigated how bitter taste preferences might be associated with anti-social personality traits," the study’s abstract read. "Two US American community samples self-reported their taste preferences using two complementary preference measures and answered a number of personality questionnaires assessing Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, everyday sadism, trait aggression, and the Big Five factors of personality.

"The results of both studies confirmed the hypothesis that bitter taste preferences are positively associated with malevolent personality traits, with the most robust relation to everyday sadism and psychopathy," they added.

The study discovered a correlation between a love of black coffee and sadist or psychopathic tendencies. Credit: cold snowstorm / Getty

According to Psychology Today, everyday sadism refers to a person who "takes pleasure from ordinary experiences in which cruelty is vicarious," meaning they may enjoy gory films, violence, or think torture is exciting.

Meanwhile, Psychopathy is a disorder "characterized in part by shallow emotional responses, lack of empathy, impulsivity, and an increased likelihood for antisocial behavior," as stated in the National Library of Medicine.

The research concluded that "bitter taste preferences are associated with more pronounced malevolent personality traits, especially robustly with everyday sadism." They added that since a "large community sample" was questioned, it was a clear representation of a "wide section of the population".

However, the investigators acknowledged the crucial distinction between preference and practice, emphasizing that some people will avoid consuming desired foods that are expensive or fattening while eating other meals to be social or healthy.

They also noted that food items such as beer, wine, chili pepper, and coffee are initially disliked, yet become fondly accepted through exposure and social consequences. There is also the case of food sensitivity, as well as experience, which can occasionally result from accidental consumption.

Nevertheless, if you enjoy your coffee black then you need to reevaluate your life...

Featured image credit: Jordan Lye / Getty

We're all guilty of glorifying celebrities to a certain extent. Find me someone who didn't have a poster of a household name blue tacked to their wall growing up, or who hasn't been goaded into finding out the juicy details of the latest Hollywood split. Admiring the famous often appears to be something that is untaught; almost Darwinian in its nature, it replicates the natural order where both animals look up to creatures perceived to be the strongest of the pack. But what happens when this inexhaustible adoration of the fittest (AKA, the most beautiful, the most talented, the richest) goes too far? What happens when it's not just a gaggle of young girls mooning over Justin Bieber at a sleepover, but instead a mindless horde of rabid fans frantically chasing the alpha, all the while suffering from bona fide psychological condition: Celebrity Worship Syndrome. As a society we've always recognised that there were certain frenzied groups who stepped so far past the line, it became only a blurry dot in the distance. Rewind to 1841, where fans of Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt showed a level of fanaticism that was previously unheard of; one account even tells of the time "music's first superstar" threw away an old cigar stump in the street "under the watchful eyes of an infatuated lady-in-waiting", who then collected it from the gutter and had it encased in a locket and surrounded with the monogram "F.L." in diamonds. Then, of course, there were the four Liverpudlians who captured every teenage girl's hearts in the 1960s; Beatlemania gripped the world with fans screaming themselves into hysteria, nothing behind their vacant eyes but fantasies of the acclaimed Mop Topped foursome. However, it wasn't until the early 2000s that the condition was officially defined. In a 2003 study named 'A Clinical interpretation of attitudes and behaviors associated with celebrity worship', researchers John Maltby, James Houran and Lynn McCutcheon named the phenomenon as Celebrity Worship Syndrome, an obsessive-addictive disorder where an individual becomes overly involved and interested (i.e., completely obsessed) with the details of the personal life of a celebrity. Subsequent research on larger samples by Dr. Maltby and his team determined that the condition could be separated into three independent dimensions; based on a continuum, they were named as entertainment-social,  intense-personal, and borderline pathological. Those associated with the entertainment-social dimension were attracted to celebrities because of their perceived ability to entertain and to become a social focus of conversation with likeminded others. These individuals were only mildly afflicted with the newly-founded psychological disorder, they tended to be extroverts with lots of friends and were passionate about using famous people as a conversation topic. All in all, pretty harmless stuff. Yet CWS ramped things up with the intense-personal level, where individuals would have intensive and compulsive feelings about a star. This was edging towards the danger zone. It was found that these people would have higher levels of anxiety, depression, high-stress levels, increased illness, and poorer body image. Lastly, and most concerningly, were level three sufferers, the hardcore devotees who were solitary, impulsive, anti-social and troublesome, with insensitive traits. These were the people who felt they had a unique bond with their chosen celebrity and were prepared to lie, or even to die, for their idol. Described by professionals as "borderline pathological", about two per cent of people are said to be at this stage in their celeb worship. [[heroimage||http://cdn.junglecreations.com/wp/junglecms/2017/09/fan-crying-compressor.jpg||alt||image]] Driven to insanity by their dedication, for these fans celebrities had taken the place of family members and friends. They had replaced their normal relationships with a one-sided love that would never be reciprocated but they still couldn't halt in its tracks. All of a sudden, people who used to be able to have a handle their mania had become one colossal fanatical hormone that was out for blood. Dr. Maltby summarised his team’s research in an interview to the BBC saying: "Data from 3,000 people showed only around one per cent demonstrate obsessional tendencies. Around 10 per cent (who tend to be neurotic, tense, emotional and moody) displayed intense interest in celebrities. Around 14 percent said they would make a special effort to read about their favourite celebrity and to socialise with people who shared their interest. The other 75 per cent of the population do not take any interest in celebrities' lives. Generally, the vast majority of people will identify a favourite celebrity, but don't say they read about them or think about them all the time. Like most things, its fine as long as it doesn't take over your life." But the small percentage of people suffering from new breed of fan were nonetheless troubling. Nowadays they are perhaps are most distinctly seen in One Direction devotees who claim to have an everlasting bond with X Factor runners-up, Harry, Liam, Louis, Niall and Zayn. The world was given a glimpse into their obsessive tendencies in the Channel Four documentary Crazy About One Direction, where one fan threateningly - and most likely quite accurately - described herself as "part of a fandom that can kill you if they wanted". These were the enthusiasts who spent hours online each day talking about One Direction, creating a string of bizarre fan fiction and fantasies. They were the people who aggressively hounded their icons, working to find out which hotel they were staying in, then aiming to break in to their bedrooms as they slept. The individuals who attempted to bottle the band member's breath and display it in their rooms. A recurring theme that stood out in the TV show was the idea that the manic teenage girls being interviewed just wanted their idols to know that they existed. So desperate to get the band to notice her one fan had tweeted Styles with the words "Why won't you follow me? Should I kill myself." Another told how she tolerated helping her mother with the housework by telling herself: "I'm going to marry Zayn, I'm going to have a maid, I don't need to do all that." In addition, those onscreen displayed a dangerous obsession with the personal lives of the band members with one describing her meltdown when Styles was dating fellow singer Taylor Swift: "When Harry was with Taylor I was giving her death threats and she blocked me off Twitter. That's how bad it was. If I saw her now I'd rugby tackle her. I'd stamp on her. I'd rip all her hair out, I'd squeeze her eyeballs and step on them." Amid this alarming behaviour was the feeling that the word "worship" was an overwhelmingly accurate description of what was occurring here. Rather than a healthy interest in the rich and famous, these people's whole lives had become about admiring their celebrity and their actions now resembled religious worship where they performed rituals, followed their celebrity around and tried to collect items that had been touched by their actor, singer or musician, believing they were valuable. Although it's not immediately clear what exactly causes CWS, some experts believe that the deeper levels reflect an attempt to soothe an "empty self". Rather than just mere entertainment, some of us now turn to celebrities for all aspects of our lives and end up becoming emotionally involved with people we have never met. So it that it? Without famous faces, are some of us just empty shells of beings? Have people who were simply supposed to be there to entertain us, whether it be through singing, acting, dancing or whatever else, become our entire lives? Ultimately, the evidence shows that if you can have a bit of fun reading up on the latest gossip and not replace emotional connections in your real life, then you're probably pretty healthy. On the other hand, if you're a quivering wreck anytime your celeb boy gets a new honey and as we speak are hunting online for the napkin your favourite star apparently blew their nose on, there is a major problem that you need to address. Featured illustration by Egarcigu