We know that humor promotes health and fires up the brain’s engines to learn more. But have you ever considered what makes us laugh and what does not? In The Scientific Quest for the World’s Funniest Joke, we read three conditions for funny jokes.

Apparently jokes are funniest when we come away feeling superior, while others look stupid. For example, “A guy walks past an asylum, and can hear inmates inside screaming, “Thirteen! Thirteen! Thirteen!” he presses his face to a hole in the fence and suddenly feels a jab in the eye, followed by shouts from inmates…”Fourteen! Fourteen! Fourteen!.

We also laugh more at events that we’re taught to take seriously. How about this one listed… “For eighteen years my husband and I were the happiest people in the world. Then we met.”

It seems people also laugh most at incongruity, puns and word plays. Here’s the joke quoted to illustrate a play on words…” Guy comes to a local gym and asks… “Can you teach me how to do the splits?” Coach replies … “How flexible are you?    man shoots back … “I can’t make Tuesdays.”

What do you find funniest in a joke?

The book also tells us what makes people laugh least. People said they disliked jokes about fellow countryfolk. Check out this one to see if you agree…

When NASA first signed up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens do not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to create a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface - including glass - and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 degrees Celsius. The Russians used a pencil.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what makes mid-lifers laugh, and what doesn’t. Would you have chosen these for the top jokes in the world? What makes you laugh and what does not?