1,416 results
-
Furry Math: Macaques can do sums like people in a hurry
Macaques and college students showed similarities in performance on a computer test of split-second arithmetic, suggesting a common inheritance of the ability to do approximate math without counting.
- Anthropology
Disinherited Ancestor: Lucy’s kind may occupy evolutionary side branch
A controversial analysis of a recently discovered jaw from a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis puts Lucy's species on an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out.
-
Chimp Champ: Ape aces memory test, outscores people
A young chimp outperforms college students on a test of recalling numbers glimpsed for less than a quarter of a second. With video.
-
Automatic Networking: Brain systems charge up in unconscious monkeys
Even when monkeys are anesthetized, their brains show patterns of electrical activity similar to those exhibited during wakeful activity.
- Humans
Letters from the April 7, 2007, issue of Science News
Winter wonders The theory of “nuclear winter” was originally put forward by an Eastern European mathematician in the 1980s (“Sudden Chill,” SN: 2/3/07, p. 72). Some months later, it was shown that an error in his original calculations so vastly exaggerated “nuclear winter” as to make it meaningless. Still, the dramatic concept of a “nuclear […]
-
Talk to the Hand: Language might have evolved from gestures
Language might have evolved from hand gestures, say researchers who study communication in chimpanzees.
- Anthropology
When female chimps become baby killers
Although long thought to be rare, instances in which female chimps band together to kill other females' infants occur fairly regularly under certain circumstances.
- Life
Twin Fates
Animal and human studies suggest that a girl with a twin brother may never completely escape the influence of her opposite-sex womb-mate.
- Health & Medicine
Beyond Blood
Bloodless MRI seeks a more direct window into the working brain than conventional techniques.
-
Brain Gain
The brain constantly sprouts new neurons, a recently discovered phenomenon that neuroscientists and drugmakers are working to understand and harness.
- Humans
From the July 10, 1937, issue
Photographing the earliest developmental stages of opossum eggs, a 'heavy electron' in cosmic rays, and teaching chimpanzees to use sign language.
- Humans
Science News of the Year 2007
A review of important scientific achievements reported in Science News during the past year.
