Ew, boys! A species of spider monkey has been found to live in strictly sexually segregated societies, apparently because the males attack the females if they spend too much time together. They are the first non-human primate species known to systematically separate along gender lines. Geoffroy’s spider monkeys, Ateles Geoffroyi, live in loose groups of a few dozen individuals, and anecdotal evidence…
Whether we realize it, African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are listening to us. The pachyderms can tell certain human languages apart and even determine our gender, relative age, and whether we’re a threat, according to a new study. The work illustrates how elephants can sometimes protect themselves from human actions. “It is a most remarkable finding,” says Frans de Waal, a…
Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical that is used in a wide variety of consumer products, such as resins used to line metal food and beverage containers, thermal paper store receipts, and dental composites. BPA exhibits hormone-like properties, and exposure of fetuses, infants, children or adults to the chemical has been shown to cause numerous abnormalities, including cancer, as well…
A new brain-imaging study of mankind’s best friend has found a striking similarity in how humans and dogs — and perhaps many other mammals — process voice and emotion. Like humans, dogs appear to possess brain systems that are devoted to making sense of vocal sounds, and are sensitive to their emotional content. These systems have not previously been described…
There is no biological cure for deafness—yet. We detect sound using sensory cells sporting microscopic hairlike projections, and when these so-called hair cells deep inside the inner ear are destroyed by illness or loud noise, they are gone forever. Or so scientists thought. A new study finds specific cells in the inner ear of newborn mice that regenerate these sensory…
Why does a mouse’s heart beat about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant’s, although the mouse lives about a year, while an elephant sees 70 winters come and go? Why do small plants and animals mature faster than large ones? Why has nature chosen such radically different forms as the loose-limbed beauty of a flowering…