Mind & Brain
Female and Male Hummingbirds Aren't so Different When It Comes to Finding Food
Article written by Maria Tello-Ramos, edited by Felicity Muth. Like it or not, male and females differ from each other in a number of ways.
Not bad science
New discoveries in animal behavior and cognition
Mind & Brain
Invasive Fish Used to Feed Homeless (and Bears)
I recently read a remarkable story of research done by people right at my home university at the University of Nevada, Reno. Thirty minutes from where we live is Lake Tahoe, which is a large lake which is half in Nevada, half in California...
Mind & Brain
Serotonin-Deprived Cleaner Fish Are Socially Withdrawn
You might have heard of serotonin as one of the ‘happy’ hormones in humans. Indeed, mood disorders like anxiety and depression are associated with low levels of serotonin.
Biology
Why Are Black Widow Males So Destructive?
We often hear about animals where the males mate with multiple females. However, many animals have the opposite system, where a single female courts and mates many males.
Mind & Brain
When Do Scorpions Spray Their Enemies?
Some animals defend themselves by spraying liquid at potential threats. Perhaps the most well-known example of this is the skunk, whose spray contains chemicals that smell awful to the animals it's defending itself from...
Mind & Brain
A Meeting of Art and Science
Art and science are usually held up as two opposing disciplines. However, arguably very similar abilities are needed to be an artist and a scientist: an ability to observe the world in detail, to perhaps notice things that other people don't, to creatively come up with ideas and to draw novel connections...
Mind & Brain
Inside the Wonderful World of Bee Cognition - Where We're at Now
As I wrote about in my last post, bees are capable of learning which flowers offer good nectar rewards based on floral features such as colour, smell, shape, texture, pattern, temperature and electric charge...
Mind & Brain
Inside the Wonderful World of Bee Cognition - How it All Began
One of the first things I get asked when I tell people that I work on bee cognition (apart from `do you get stung a lot?') is `bees have cognition?'.
Mind & Brain
Male Bark Beetles Have to Sing a Password to Be Given Access To a Female's Home
The males of many animals compete with each other for females. This can be through direct fighting, as in the case of crickets and fruitflies.
Mind & Brain
Both Winning And Losing Fights Makes Flies More Aggressive
Many animals behave aggressively towards one another. This is usually when they are fighting for something like territory, mates or food. However, an animal's decision to become aggressive isn't a simple on-off switch and many factors feed into how aggressive an animal is...
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