2,477 results
- Animals
Bird Plans: Jays show foresight in breakfast menus
The strongest evidence yet that animals plan ahead may come from western scrub jays preparing for their morning meals.
- Humans
What’s Cookin’
Science and cooking have gotten intimate, resulting in a new understanding of how molecules are transformed into food and how food is transformed by the body.
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19708
On this article, real cats do this too. I have observed many adult cats teaching kittens (not necessarily theirs) to hunt. People who receive “presents” from their cats are not being gifted. The cats are trying to teach them how to hunt, but the cats probably think we are pretty dumb. Emily JohnstonWestminster, Md.
- Humans
Science News of the Year 2007
A review of important scientific achievements reported in Science News during the past year.
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19748
I am amazed that this article concluded that “Scientists have a long way to go to explain why” prey animals play dead. As a veterinarian, I have learned that there are separate centers in the brain dealing with predatory behavior and with hunger. The effect seems to be that predatory behavior, by itself, is satisfying, […]
- Humans
Letters from the September 16, 2006, issue of Science News
Hot topic It seems more likely that a decline of total precipitation and humidity would be the direct cause of both temperature and fire incidence (“The Long Burn: Warming drove recent upswing in wildfires,” SN: 7/8/06, p. 19). It is fashionable to blame every weather problem on greenhouse gases and global warming, but in this […]
- Humans
Letters from the December 23 & 30, 2006, issue of Science News
Playing dead is a lively topic I am amazed that “Why Play Dead?” (SN: 10/28/06, p. 280) concluded that “Scientists have a long way to go to explain why” prey animals play dead. As a veterinarian, I have learned that there are separate centers in the brain dealing with predatory behavior and with hunger. The […]
- Health & Medicine
Restoring Scents
Experimental treatments may activate the sense of smell in people who can detect few or no odors.
- Paleontology
Society sans frills
The discovery of the fossils of several young dinosaurs in one small space suggests that the members of one dinosaur group evolved complex social behaviors millions of years earlier than previously suspected.
- Paleontology
Going Under Down Under: Early people at fault in Australian extinctions
A lengthy, newly compiled fossil record of Australian mammals bolsters the notion that humanity's arrival on the island continent led to the extinction of many large creatures there.
- Animals
Flea treatment shows downside of social life
The flealike parasites that build up in a shared burrow take an unexpectedly large toll on the ground squirrel's reproductive success.
- Health & Medicine
Red Heat Might Improve Green Tea
Roasting green-tea leaves using infrared heat boosts the concentration of various beneficial chemicals in tea brewed from the leaves.
