The truth about blushing: why we do it, how we can resist it – and why it’s actually good for us
Should we see that as an affliction, or as a blessing?Joel SnapeTue 4 Aug 2026 05.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 4 Aug 2026 05.01 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on Google‘Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions,” Charles Darwin once wrote, and he wasn’t wrong. “It’s not fakeable, and there aren’t many things that humans do that fall into that category. You can’t blush on command.”You might, of course, hate it when it happens, but it’s a useful signal, one way or another.
- ▪Should we see that as an affliction, or as a blessing?Joel SnapeTue 4 Aug 2026 05.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 4 Aug 2026 05.01 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on Google‘Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions,” Charles Da
- ▪“It’s not fakeable, and there aren’t many things that humans do that fall into that category.
- ▪You can’t blush on command.”You might, of course, hate it when it happens, but it’s a useful signal, one way or another.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — Science |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/04/why-we-blush-how-to-resist-why-good-for-us |
| Publication time | Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:00:17 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-08-04T09:15:42.304Z |
| Last seen | 2026-08-04T09:15:42.304Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 1jMSQLe5WbLL · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Composite: Guardian Design; Jamie Garbutt/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreen Composite: Guardian Design; Jamie Garbutt/Getty ImagesSecrets of the bodyLife and styleThe truth about blushing: why we do it, how we can resist it – and why it’s actually good for usHumans are the only animals whose faces redden with embarrassment. Should we see that as an affliction, or as a blessing?Joel SnapeTue 4 Aug 2026 05.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 4 Aug 2026 05.01 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on Google‘Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions,” Charles Darwin once wrote, and he wasn’t wrong.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Guardian — Science.
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