Category: Animals

  • Domesticating our self…

    Domesticating our self…

    Domestic animals’ cuteness and humans’ relatively flat faces may be the work of a gene that controls some important developmental cells, a study of lab-grown human cells suggests. Some scientists are touting the finding as the first real genetic evidence for two theories about domestication. One of those ideas is that humans domesticated themselves over […]

  • Adapting…

    Adapting…

    Researchers tried to assess the effect of a new road to the local turtle populations. “It turns out that turtles liked to hang out (a lot) in fun places like thick patches of greenbrier and multiflora rose,” says Weigand, one of the researchers. “Overall, we found that turtles at both roadless and roadside sites used […]

  • Why doesn’t any animal have three legs?

    Why doesn’t any animal have three legs?

    If ‘Why?’ is the first question in science, ‘Why not?’ must be a close second. Sometimes it’s worth thinking about why something does not exist. Such as a truly three-legged animal. At least one researcher has been pondering the non-existence of tripeds. “Almost all animals are bilateral,” he said. The code for having two sides […]

  • Listening to music. Humans. Apes.

    Listening to music. Humans. Apes.

    In the eternal search for understanding what makes us human, scientists found that our brains are more sensitive to pitch, the harmonic sounds we hear when listening to music, than our evolutionary relative the macaque monkey. The study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, highlights the promise of Sound Health, a joint […]

  • Octopuses’ arms. Universe’s brain.

    Octopuses’ arms. Universe’s brain.

    How octopuses’ arms make decisions: Researchers studying the behavior and neuroscience of octopuses have long suspected that the animals’ arms may have minds of their own. A new model is the first attempt at a comprehensive representation of information flow between the octopus’s suckers, arms and brain, based on previous research in octopus neuroscience and […]