(Our happy hour fact to amaze your drinking buddies with.)

A University of California scientist recently discovered that the ability to use and understand sarcasm happens on the right side of the brain and served a purpose in the evolution of human beings.

Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin observed that those with dementia or head injuries in the parahippocampal gyrus, which is located in the right side of the brain, often lose the ability to pick up on sarcasm and are unable respond in a socially appropriate ways.

Because evolutionary biologists maintain that sociability has made humans successful as a species, this would seem to indicate that sarcasm is actually an evolutionary survival skill.

Though that may be true, we think early man probably had a better chance of surviving a saber-tooth tiger attack with brute strength, than with a smart-ass remark about the animal's dental work.