In the early nineties, researchers predicted that at the current rate of growth, there would be two televisions per US household by 1995. It’s probably safe to say that we have likely exceeded that prediction. While our smart phones, tablets, and laptops may have a prominent place in our lives, they haven’t quite replaced our televisions. Once rooted in our living rooms or family rooms, the television has moved into our bedrooms, kitchens, and even bathrooms. They’ve gotten slimmer and more portable. But as they’ve changed, has our relationship with them has changed as well?....
Animal Cognition is a relatively new website, highlighting the latest research on cognitive abilities of animals, from dogs to lizards to insects. Horses Comprehend Human Gestures is a typical example - a brief summary of findings, abstract and link:
...For many people, horses are rarely the first animal they think of when it comes to intelligence. Their capacity to learn is something that has been particularly passed over, likely because much of the behavior they learn from humans has long been expected. For example, we tend to see a horse that is able to be ridden as normal, forgetting just how many complex cues the animal must learn in order to perform basic riding tasks. Despite this general attitude, more and more research is being conducted that puts a spotlight on the cognitive abilities of equines.....The Mysterious Genetics of the Four-Leaf Clover by Nick Stockton at Wired:
....There are over 300 different species of clover, but the type most associated with the rare fourth lucky leaf is the widespread white clover (so named because of the fluffy, delicious-looking white blossoms). “It’s like having a cat with an extra claw. We know it has a genetic basis, and a mutation that happens at a slow but regular frequency,” says Wayne Parrott, who studies crop genetics at the University of Georgia. His lab has come closest to finding the genetic roots of the four-leaf mutation. “We know more or less where it is on the chromosome,” he says. But the clover seems to have done everything possible to make its genome inscrutable.....Where There Are Ants, There Are Ant Lovers by Sasha Paris at Evolution-Institute:
...Enormously numerous and ecologically dominant, ants today attract thousands of insect, plant, and fungal species which partner with them to receive protection or food. But this myrmecophily (Greek for “ant love”) is rarely evident in the fossil record, so its evolution is poorly understood. Scientists from Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History recently discovered the oldest known myrmecophile, an amber-encased beetle in the supertribe Clavigeritae, which lived in the early Eocene Epoch when ants were rare but poised to proliferate....This week's podcast: Under The Knife, Episode 7 – Medieval Urine Wheels by Dr Lindsey Fitzharris at The Chirurgeon's Apprentice:
In Episode 7 of Under The Knife, I discuss how a pot of pee used to be a crucial diagnostic tool in the past. Learn all about piss prophets and medieval urine wheels!You can predict how rabbits run by looking at their skulls (using this one weird trick!) by Matt Wedel at Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week:
....That rabbit will cut you, man. And just look at how flat its skull is. Even in life Caprolagus looks more rodent-y than rabbit-y. Or, more precisely, more Ochotona-y. At the the other extreme are taxa like Bunolagus and Pronolagus, which really push the “I’m going to cute you to death by dint of my incredible bunnosity” thing:....How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time by Jonathan Berger at Nautilus:
One evening, some 40 years ago, I got lost in time. I was at a performance of Schubert’s String Quintet in C major. During the second movement I had the unnerving feeling that time was literally grinding to a halt. The sensation was powerful, visceral, overwhelming. It was a life-changing moment, or, as it felt at the time, a life-changing eon. It has been my goal ever since to compose music that usurps the perceived flow of time and commandeers the sense of how time passes. Although I’ve learned to manipulate subjective time, I still stand in awe of Schubert’s unparalleled power. Nearly two centuries ago, the composer anticipated the neurological underpinnings of time perception that science has underscored in the past few decades....Phineas Gage, Gauging Time by Cody C. Delistraty at The Atlantic:
....As Berlin’s experiment showed, people with healthy brains experience time slightly slower than it is actually is not just in dangerous situations but in normal situations as well. The potential reason for this, according to Morgan’s research, is that NPY is always being released, just at lower levels during safe situations. So for healthy people, time always seems a little slow, with the potential to slow down even more in the face of danger. This function of stress regulation in the brains of healthy people means that they are able to remain calmer and act more reasonably, in danger and the rest of the time, Morgan says. People with orbitofrontal cortex damage, however, have a more accurate (which, relative to healthy people, is a faster) perception of time. Berlin told me that this tends to make people with orbitofrontal cortex damage “feel pressured to react more quickly when it might be more adaptive to take a bit more time and be more methodical.”....Is this the world's most bird-friendly coffee? by Jason Goldman at Earth Touch:
Truly, is there anything more pleasing than a fresh pot of coffee? Hot water mixes with the oils seeping out from the coarsely ground beans, waiting to be forced into emulsion as you lower the plunger on the French press? It would not be hyperbole to say that the hard work of writing day in and day out about the science of wildlife and conservation biology in the Earth Touch offices would be wholly impossible were it not for a constant supply of the liquid gold. But is it good for wildlife? ...Why Organic Can't Fulfill Our Food Supply Ideals by Steve Savage at Applied Mythology:
The important contribution of organic early in the last century was its focus on improving soil health/quality. The pioneers of the organic movement worked out certain farming methods using “natural fertilizers” to mitigate the nutrient-depleting and soil-degrading effects of the plow-intensive farming of the late 19th and early 20th century. The organic focus on natural also meant that it eschewed some of the early pesticides, which were later found to be problematic for health and the environment. For a period of time, organic may have been, in fact, the best farming option for us and for the environment. Since then we have learned more and more about environmental systems, genetics, microbiology and human health. Based on that, increasingly rigorous regulatory processes were put in place and farming practices have changed dramatically. Sometimes organic growers were in the lead in making those changes. But increasingly, the “natural” constraints of organic are making it difficult or even impossible for organic farmers to implement what we now know to be best for us, best for the environment, or best for the food supply. I'd like to describe six specific examples of those limitations....Why "High Functioning" Autism Is So Challenging by Lisa Jo Rudy at About Health:
The autism spectrum is very large. If you think of it as a rainbow (or a bell curve), you'll note that there's an awful lot of the spectrum that is at neither one end nor the other -- but somewhere in the middle. At this point in history, we don't have good information to tell us whether MOST people on the autism spectrum are "somewhere in the middle," but it is clear that the lion's share of media attention goes to folks at the high and the low ends of the spectrum -- that is, the profoundly disabled and the very high functioning...The Bug That’s Eating the Woods by Hillary Rosner at National Geographic:
....Unlike other organisms that have been ravaging the American landscape—Asian carp, kudzu—the mountain pine beetle isn’t an immigrant. It’s native to western pine forests, especially lodgepole and ponderosa forests, where it normally lives in relatively small numbers, killing a tree or two here and there. It’s been normal too for the beetle’s population to boom every now and then, and for it to kill large swaths of forest. But mainly in a single region—not across half a continent. The scale of the current epidemic is unprecedented. Since the 1990s more than 60 million acres of forest, from northern New Mexico through British Columbia, have suffered die-offs. By the time the outbreak in British Columbia peters out, some 60 percent of the mature pines in the province may be dead. That’s a billion cubic meters of wood.....Citizen Science Goes Meta by Chandra Clarke at Popular Science:
...While it might seem like the citizen science movement is all shiny and new, in part because of all the mainstream media attention it has been getting lately, in fact, citizen science has been around for a long time. Indeed, well before there were the “professional” scientists we know today, scientific investigations were conducted by anyone with the time and the means. The Victorian era was a particularly rich time for both citizen involvement in science and public interest in all things scientific and technological; this interest was fueled in part by the printing press and the rise of the ‘science popularizers.’ The public consumed vast quantities of books and magazines, many of which were lavishly illustrated. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about who the illustrators were.....Is Neuroscience Based On Biology? by Neuroskeptic at Neuroskeptic:
There is a popular view that all of the natural sciences can be arranged in a chain or ladder according to the complexity of their subjects. On this view, physics forms the base of the ladder because it deals with the simplest building-blocks of matter, atoms and subatomic particles. Chemistry is next up because it studies interacting atoms i.e. molecules. Biology studies complex collections of molecules, i.e. cells. Then comes neuroscience which deals with a complex collection of interacting cells – the brain. Psychology, perhaps, can be seen as the next level above neuroscience, because psychology studies brains interacting with each other and with the environment....Scientists just found an ocean trapped under the ice of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon by Joseph Stromberg at Vox:
In recent years, scientists have found evidence for liquid oceans trapped under the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus. And today, Hubble Space Telescope researchers announced they've found one more. They have evidence of a subsurface saltwater ocean on ice-covered Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon — which is also the largest moon in the solar system. If their calculations are correct, Ganymede could have more water than Earth's entire surface does...
Photo: SteveStein1982