There is a rich tradition in psychology and neuroscience of using animals as models for understanding humans. Humans, after all, are enormously complicated creatures to begin even from a strictly biological perspective...
Original image by Charles M. Schulz/Peanuts .
Well, I've gone and submitted my dissertation to my committee.Like this San Diego Zoo polar bear, I intend to hibernate through the weekend. And then, we prepare the defense.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about a new study by Peter Cook and colleagues from the Pinniped Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In their study, Cook claimed that Ronan the California sea lion was the first non-human mammal to show evidence of "rhythmic entrainment," or the ability to synchronize the movements of his body with an external rhythm...
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about wildlife conservation psychology, especially in light of last month’s TEDxDeExtinction event.
Ronan is the name of a the California sea lion ( Zalophus californianus ) who can bob her head in time to music. She apparently dances to Boogie Wonderland , and the Backstreet Boys song Everybody ...
#PHD2013 is getting closer and closer. In the meantime, here are some more portraits of San Diego Zoo residents, following on from last week's post.Here's an angolan colobus monkey, with some bits of breakfast stuck to its face.An African Grey Parrot, a conspecific of the famous Alex.A menacing Steller's Sea Eagle, the best of all of Steller's birds, according to John McCormack...
Longtime readers of this blog know that I like to take photos, and I primarily take them of two types of subjects: nighttime cityscapes, and animals.
Changes are afoot around here! Six new blogs were launched today, which when combined with the previously-existing Sci Am psychology and neuroscience bloggers, form the new Scientific American MIND Blog Network.What does it mean for this blog?...
The brain has a problem. Information can only enter it through sensory apparatuses: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. And the information that enters the brain is fairly simple.
My latest piece for BBC Future is now up, and it focuses on how the things we may think of as odd, gross, or strange when it comes to human sexual practices are perhaps entirely normal for other species...
Tomorrow night, Friday February 22 at 7:30pm, Cinefamily and and Cinespia Salon will present the latest installment of the their Science on Screen series at the old Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles...
Empirical research on the effects of science fair participation seems scant, but the research that does exist suggests that participation is generally a positive experience for students, that participation increases scientific literacy, and, importantly, that participation results in an increased understanding the process of science...
Mindshare LA Presents: "Your Primal Instincts" ...on the West Side!I'll be speaking at a special sciencey Valentine's Day version of Mindshare this month in Santa Monica along with Christopher Ryan (of Sex at Dawn fame) and science journalist Sharon Brock.We'll all be covering the science of love from our own perspectives, and my talk will be about how animals shout at each other for sex, how some types of shouts are more effective than other types of shouts, and what (if anything) it might tell us about how we humans go about finding that special someone...
In his book Cosmos , Carl Sagan wrote, "Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere."In the photo above, Koko the gorilla plays with a doll, apparently pretending to nurse it...
What responsibilities do filmmakers have in terms of scientific accuracy? Usually, I argue that filmmakers are storytellers first, and while scientific accuracy (or plausibility) can often support a narrative, the first responsibility of the filmmaker is to weave a captivating tale...
The triumph of corvids over numbers yesterday in the Super Bowl meant two things to me: first, that ornithology continues to trounce math in any contest that matters, and second, that I would have to follow up this weekend's groundhog post with a post about the amazingness of one of the most clever of winged critters.Here, then, are six seven things you didn't know about ravens...
Happy Groundhog Day! Today is the day each year in which we look towards a giant rodent to find out how much more winter we'll have to endure. This year, we probably know the answer: winter hasn't been very wintery, even for Los Angeles...
Among animal welfare professionals, those who work at zoos might have the toughest jobs. Keepers and curators at zoo must alternately serve as biologists, psychologists, trainers, chefs, janitors, and educators...
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
