behavior
grrlscientist | June 13, 2007tags: behavior, evolution, humans, mate choice
A recent study has found a strong correlation between a woman's choice of a partner and her relationship with her father. Basically, the better she was treated by her father when she was a child, the more closely that her partner's face resembled her dad's.
The team's leader, Lynda Boothroyd from Durham University in the UK, said that her findings add to our understanding of how we become attracted to certain types of people. Such knowledge could have important implications for fields such as relationship counselling, she added.
In this study,…
grrlscientist | June 11, 2007tags: reasoning, Wändi Bruine de Bruin, behavior
Have you ever known someone who is intelligent but still makes astonishingly stupid decisions again and again? According to a recently published study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, reasoning is a distinct skill, and not everyone possesses it in equal measure, even those people who are thought of as being intelligent. A "decision scientist" at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh claims that while reasoning abilities are influenced by intelligence and socioeconomic status, reasoning ability may also be a skill that…
grrlscientist | June 10, 2007Where in the brain does déjà vu originate? Why it happens more frequently with increasing age and with brain-disease patients? Basically, the brain generates memories near its center, in a looped wishbone of tissue called the hippocampus. But a new study suggests only a small chunk of it, called the dentate gyrus, is responsible for "episodic" memories that allows us to tell similar places and situations apart. The dentate gyrus is a region within the brain that notes a situation's pattern -- its visual, audial, olfactory, temporal and other cues for the body's future reference. So what…
grrlscientist | June 10, 2007tags: death penalty, murder
I am a person who argues against the death penalty for ethical and economic reasons (I won't get into those here), but I was quite surprised to learn that one argument that has been made against the death penalty (but not by me) seems to have been refuted; whether the death penalty serves as a deterrent to murder. In fact, a series of scientific studies published during the last five or six years have shown that between three and 18 lives could be saved by the execution of each convicted killer. Further, if executions were sped up, the deterrent effect would be…
grrlscientist | June 10, 2007tags: internet, Pew Research Center, poll
The Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 4,001 adults and found that half of them only use the internet occasionally, and even many avid Internet users surf the Web in the same way they did 10 years ago. Yeowza, not me!
"We were struck by a couple of things in the survey," says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Here's the list;
49 percent are not weaving Internet use into their daily life. These include people who don't check their e-mail every day -- or aren't online at all
20 percent are middle-of-the-road…
grrlscientist | June 2, 2007tags: rooks, cigarettes
British commuters are noticing strange behaviors among rooks recently. It seems that these birds, which are relatives of crows, are using discarded burning cigarettes to remove parasites from their feathers, a behavior known as "anting" because the birds originally relied on ants to do this.
Apparently, Rooks swoop down on to the tracks at Exeter St David's railway station in Devon, pick up discarded cigarette butts that are still burning and place their wings over the smoke to collect the fumes underneath.
Commuter Jeff Jones, of Budleigh Salterton, said: "I noticed…
grrlscientist | June 1, 2007tags: learning, rat brain, airplane, streaming video
This research shows how brains learn at the cellular level. By placing neurons from a rat into a cell culture that is contected to a flight simulator, the neurons learn how to fly an airplane. And they learn it by trial and error. [3:25].
grrlscientist | May 31, 2007tags: cat, battle, Africa, streaming video
It's a little long, and it has been all over the internet by now, but this video shows a fascinating battle between a pride of lions, a herd of buffalo, and 2 crocodiles at a watering hole in South Africa's Kruger National Park while on safari [8:23].
grrlscientist | May 30, 2007tags: cheetahs, evolution
Researchers studied 47 litters of cheetah cubs over nine years. Nearly half contained cubs from multiple fathers.
Image: Sarah Durant [larger]
DNA technology has revealed that female cheetahs, Acinonyx jubatus, often produce litters that are comprised of cubs sired by multiple fathers. This research, recently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, studied cheetahs found on that part of the Seregeti in the African nation, Tanzania.
"If the cubs are genetically more variable it may allow them to adapt and evolve to different circumstances," Dada…
voltagegate | May 21, 2007I'm reading an excellent book right now called In the Company of Crows and Ravens (review pending) and found a couple of uncanny videos illustrative of their capacity for ingenuity. The first involves modified tool use and the second, from Attenborough's Life of Birds, shows how crows can use human landscapes to their advantage.
grrlscientist | May 12, 2007tags: Rhabdophis tigrinus, snake, toad, toxins, evolution
The Asian snake, Rhabdophis tigrinus, obtains toxins from toads it eats and uses the potent chemicals as a defense against predators, according to a new study.
The toxin-containing glands are clearly visible on this juvenile snake as a large ridge on the back of the neck. The snake is native to the toad-rich island of Ishima, Japan.
Contrary to popular belief, not all poisonous snakes actually manufacture their poisons. In fact, according to a newly published study, some snakes obtain their poisons from their diet and store them in…
grrlscientist | May 4, 2007tags: evolution, birds, orioles, Icterus, research
"Oriole."
Image appears here with the kind permission of the photographer, Pamela Wells.
[Larger image].
I often think about differences in morphological and behavioral traits in closely-related species and wonder whether the speed and character of changes in these traits reveal anything about the evolutionary relationships between taxa. For example, in birds, both visual and auditory cues, such as plumage and song patterns, are essential for identifying members of their own species. However, these phenomena have rarely been…
retrospectacle | April 23, 2007A few months back I wrote a post on the topic of the psychology video game addiction, and today was contacted by a student who trying to study video game addiction in efforts of finding an effective treatment.
A survey-based study being conducted by a Southern California university is now seeking anonymous participants to take the 4 minute online survey.
This study is sponsored by The Center for Survey Research at an anonymous private university in Southern California. The results will be used to help understand how video game addiction affects the lives and family members of those who are…
retrospectacle | April 19, 2007 Ok, no nobody really *likes* to work. Even if you like your job, there are some days that you'd rather just sleep in or not have to jump through hoops or deal with your boss' same old TPS-report complaints. A recent survey (2006 General Social Survey) of 27,000 random Americans noted that less than 1/2 of Americans are satisfied with their jobs, with the trend being greatest for the under-25 crowd and weakest for the 55+ group. Seems about right, as most of the jobs you have when you're young are awful, and at 55 years old you've got retirement on the horizon.
Twenty years ago, the first…
grrlscientist | April 9, 2007A recent study by Dutch scientists has found that people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be less sensitive to physical pain than those who don't suffer from the condition. PTSD patients experience panic attacks, flashbacks, anxiety and depression following a traumatic event. Scans reveals that the PTSD subjects' brains were less active than those of their unaffected counterparts.
While other studies have suggested that patients with PTSD may have differences in the structure of certain parts of their brain compared with healthy people, the research team did not suggest a…
grrlscientist | April 9, 2007tags: ravens, intelligence, behavior, birds, ornithology
Common Raven, Corvus corax.
Image: John James Audubon.
Some of you know that Bernd Heinrich has spent many winters studying ravens and their behavior. This month, Heinrich and his colleague, Thomas Bugnyar, published an article in Scientific American that explores the intelligence of ravens. In this article, they investigate the question; do the birds consciously contemplate alternative behaviors and choose the most appropriate ones, or are they merely relying on instinct or learning to perform specific actions by rote?
They begin by…
grrlscientist | April 7, 2007I am sure I am the last person on Planet Earth to see this streaming video, but just in case I am not, I thought I'd share it with you. This is a pair of otters, one of which survived the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, that live at the Vancouver Aquarium. They are floating around their tank, asleep and holding paws. Why would they hold paws like this? Is it so a mated pair can remain together on rough seas? Or maybe you have another idea -- well, besides giving the watching public something to oooo and aaaa over!
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tags: sea otters, Vancouver Aquarium, hand-holding
grrlscientist | February 23, 2007Researchers have documented 22 cases of wild chimpanzees fashioning wooden spears to poke at smaller primates sheltering in cavities of hollow branches or tree trunks. Chimpanzees have not been previously observed hunting other animals with tools.
"There were hints that this behaviour might occur, but it was one time at a different site," said Jill Pruetz, assistant professor of anthropology at Iowa State University, US and the study's lead author. Pruetz and her colleague, Paco Bertolani, made the discovery at their research site in Fongoli, Senegal, between March 2005 and July 2006.
"While…
retrospectacle | January 29, 2007A law and economics professor at Vanderbilt, Dr. Joni Hersch, has recently published an interesting paper comparing the incomes of 2,084 legal immigants to the USA to their skin tone. Perhaps unsurprisingly, persons with lighter skintones were found to make more money on average than darker-skinned persons; in fact, 8-15% more. Taller immigrants made more than shorter ones, with a 1% increase in income for every extra inch of height.
Hersch took into consideration other factors that could affect wages, such as English-language proficiency, education, occupation, race or country of origin,…
grrlscientist | January 19, 2007tags: Cambodia, wild girl,jungle girl
A Cambodian girl who disappeared while tending buffalo when she was eight years old has apparently been found after living in the wild for 19 years. A man identified himself as her father after recognizing a scar on her right arm, and plans to have DNA tests done to prove his paternity.
However, it is possible that this woman could instead be lost from one of the Vietnamese tribes that often cross through the jungles into this same region of Cambodia to avoid religious persecution.
Local police said the woman was "half-human and half-animal" and…