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King of all blogmemery Drugmonkey has started another one this week.
The rules for this blog meme are quite simple. Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year.
Seems easy enough. Instead of just choosing the first blog entry this month, however, I'm going rogue and just randomly choosing a blog entry from each month. I've been blogging The Thoughtful Animal for exactly a year, so I'll have something for each month (my one-year bloggiversary will be duringScience Online).
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Without further ado:
January: As promised, here is the beginning of a series of posts on path integration. Let's start with one of my mostest favorite sets of studies, concerning the humble desert ant, Cataglyphis fortis.
February: The question for today is: is path integration innate, or is it learned (even if only minimal experience is required)?
March: This has been a long week.
April: What are the cognitive and neural systems that allow us to build buildings, play checkers, do multivariate statistics, receive DVDs by mail, follow Dr. Isis's pesto recipe, or navigate the tangled LA freeways?
May: Some kids more readily recognize Ronald McDonald than the President of the United States of America.
June: You can have a pet domesticated fox of your very own - from the Russian fox farm I've previously written about - for the low low price of just $5,950.
July: If you've been around Scienceblogs today, or on Twitter, you may have noticed that there appears to be a new blog around these parts.
August: In most zoos and animal parks, polar bears (ursus maritimus) attract such a disproportionate amount of attention that they are referred to in the industry as "charismatic megafauna," or in other words, "really cool animals."
(Runner up: Apparently when something interests you, the best way to figure it out is to smack it really hard, and repeatedly. If you're a cat, at least.)
September: If I had to describe the mission, the point, the raison d'etre of the entire field of psychology in just one sentence, I would say: Psychology aims to determine the relative extents to which biology and experience determine cognition and behavior."
October: Whether you're a dog, a cat, or a grad student who hasn't been home to shower for a few days, fleas are a major problem.
November: Scientists thought they had a pretty good handle on the social interactions of bottlenose dophins (Tursiops).
December: Eric M. Johnson and I spent about 45 minutes discussing "evolutionary psychology beyond sex" last night, which you can see today on Bloggingheads "Science Saturday."