While some of you were gaping in awe at the discovery of the Higgs Boson, Cornell University also made a really important discovery: Eating with former lovers can provoke jealously in current lovers.

As reported in PLoS ONE July 11, postdoctoral researcher Kevin Kniffin and Professor Brian Wansink of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab polled 79 undergraduates to rate how jealous they would be if their romantic partner were contacted by an old flame and subsequently engaged in an array of food and drink-based activities. An additional 74 students were questioned about how they thought their best friend would react to the same scenarios.

In both cases, meeting up for coffee and other interactions such as email correspondence or phone conversations elicited less jealousy than going out to eat together, they found.

“It becomes clear that people think that the practice of eating together might have functional significance beyond the concurrent consumption of calories,” Kniffin said.

Thanks, eggheads. Looking forward to your upcoming study on whether people prefer pictures of kittens or genital mutilation.

Where does Cornell do its science anyway? On facebook?