Droughts were actually good times for early humans, helping to develop skills for survival in other parts of the world, Lisa Grossman reports in a blog from the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing's New Horizons in Science meeting.

Japan had been sacrificing a large number of pregnant whales in the name of science.

Chimps living in central Africa’s dense forests make and use complex sets of tools to gather honey from beehives, further narrowing the gap between the way humans and chimps use tools. (p. 9)

A survey of water-collection holes dug on the banks of an African river by wild chimpanzees indicates that, unlike people, these apes don’t have a preference for using either the right or left hand on manual tasks. (p. 9)

Evolution may have endowed a controversial species with small but humanlike brains equipped to support advanced thinking (p. 9)