Archives: Mammals

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Brawn over brains?

There’s no question that broadly speaking, big brains are smart. Take humans, for instance: our brains weigh in at about 3 pounds on average, nearly four times the size of the brains of chimpanzees (whose brains weigh in at less than a pound apiece). What’s less clear is why. There are a number of... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Monkeys draw from memory

We’re a little bit closer to understanding what it’s like to be a monkey, and it’s thanks to the same technology that powers your smartphone: the touchscreen. The latest victory for touchscreens is in the field of memory research. Scientists have been studying this ability in animals for decades – some birds, for example,... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

I can haz toxoplasmosis

In which you will learn why online cats are so attractive, and discover a new way to lose hours to the internet. First, the cats. Charlie and I were hashing out the finer points of Facebook, memes and internet superstars, when, in frustration, I brought up his most hated animal. “Look. Cute baby videos and LOLcats are... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Identity evolves

“Everyone is special.” The paradoxical refrain of baby boomer parents to their millenial offspring is true, so long as you’re a rodent living in a large, stable group of good communicators. I recently wrote about the phenomenon of identity signals in animals, where variable colours and patchy-looking patterns can provide signatures of... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

You are what you feed

What makes you you? The problem of identity – and its flip-side, change – has been vexing philosophers ever since the discipline got started in ancient Greece. As early as 500 years BC, Heraclitus was musing about the ever-changing nature of a flowing river, recorded by his contemporary Plato with the enduring line, “You cannot step in... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

A case of mistaken celebrity

They all look the same to us. Celebrities, that is. And by us, I mean academics. The proof starts with peacocks. Last fall, I was working on some measurements I took of the crest ornament in these birds. Peafowl have this funky little fan of feathers on top of their heads, and though it’s... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

The winning score

As Hollywood gets dolled up for the Oscars, fans at home might surprised to learn that a field biologist could tell us a thing or two about the winning films. Dan Blumstein, a behavioural ecologist who works, quite fittingly, at UCLA, is an expert on yellow-bellied marmots. He might also be the person to turn to... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

A royal waste?

Giant pandas are in the news again, this time for their annual date night at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC. But hardly a day goes by without a report somewhere on the latest captive panda birth, strategic breeding attempt or panda relocation. A blogger at the London Review of Books compared the bears to members of the... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Groupthink

Which animal would use Facebook most, if it could? My poll in class last week was a popular one – a fact that I couldn’t properly enjoy, since Charlie came up with it for me in a fit of brain-dead incapacity. Charlie’s Facebook question elicited chirps of excitement, compliments and even a few drawings... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Not when cupid strikes

“Not when cupid strikes.” That was Christine Drea’s response at the Animal Behavior meeting last summer. She had just given a talk on her latest study, showing the dramatic effects of hormonal contraception on the way lemurs communicate with the opposite sex1. I was asking her what advice she gives to women about birth control. On... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Wherefore the mustache?

Ears, palms, toes, neck, and nose. In that order. These are the grossest places for humans to have hair, according to Queen’s students. Ok, there were a few others that I didn’t mention. The upper lip, however, did not receive a single vote. Last fall a number of men in the biology department grew competitive... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Science fictions

Fakery is not just for Hollywood films anymore. Nature documentaries are full of it, from elegant narratives to some downright dirty tricks. This tradition goes back a long way: the myth that lemmings commit mass suicide to save their brethren from overpopulation was spread widely as as result of the 1958 Disney film White Wilderness. This is... More

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