Considering how closely the lives of our ancestors were tied up with the lives of animals, the ancestors got some things shockingly wrong. Like, mice are born from a mixture of grain and dirty cloth. And a dog with a dry nose is sick. This subject arose, as it does a dozen times a day, [...]
How do you make people more generous with their cash? Less tight-fisted and more open-handed? You have to aim very carefully, but it can be done. Yesterday I wrote about why we so much prefer a bird in the hand to a bird in the bush. The bird in the hand represents labor we’ve already [...]
Why is a bird in the hand worth two in the bush? Because deep in your brain dwells a clear eyed hunter-gatherer. The aphorism (wow, that is actually the right word), while mathematically suspect, gets at a deep truth about human nature. If psycholigist had pondered on that aphorism they might have saved themselves a [...]
Free: One uterus, average size. This uterus has never been used, so I can’t vouch for its performance. Manufactured in 1963, it is developing a patina typical of its age. It has one “small” fibroid, as expected in a postmodern uterus. And ultrasonic analysis has revealed “something else,” which I’m told is a temporary phenomenon. [...]
People who study ancient people always seem to assume that ancient people were garden-slug stupid. I get a thrill of “told you so” from discoveries like this: “Garden-slug stupid people apparently knew how to make boats much earlier than they should have.” It must irritate a whole bunch of ancient-people-dissing scientists that someone has found super-old [...]
I don’t know where we expect sex offenders to go when they get out of jail. Perhaps we need dedicated ex-con communities where they can hang out together. Or more domestic oil and gas production. New research shows that towns with a new gas or oil industry still conform to the stereotype of frontier towns [...]
When scientists discovered that spraying oxytocin up a person’s nose made her more trusting, the first reaction was, “Eeeek! Macy’s will put it in the air, and sell us all mink tea cozies!” The second thought was… what would this do for a person with autism? It takes a few years for such studies to [...]
I remember the day I found them, two baby raccoons by the road in Bristol, Maine. One scuttled for cover while the other hunched right on the shoulder, as though he had concluded that humans were his only hope. I can’t remember how I picked them up — probably by the scruff of their little [...]
A variety of talented navigators — salmon, honeybees, and homing pigeons — are known to use magnetic fields to orient themselves on the face of the Earth. But chickens? For that matter, molluscs? How much travelling does your average mollusc do in a lifetime? But never mind. The new headline is that chickens appear equipped [...]
I thought it was the bugs, the legendary swarms of high-protein insects, that drew birds far-north to nest. And that may help. But the major draw is the stuff that isn’t there: The predators. This is one of those “duh” studies, the findings that make you feel dumb for not thinking of it yourself. But [...]
