August 3, 2010

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Editor’s Selections: Touch, Mirror Neurons, Cat Cognition, and Smelly Lemurs

Here are my Research Blogging Editor’s Selections for this week: “Touch imagery has always been a useful storytelling tool,” says Livia Blackburne of her eponymous blog.

By Jason G. Goldman

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Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week:

  • "Touch imagery has always been a useful storytelling tool," says Livia Blackburne of her eponymous blog. "We talk about warm smiles, slippery personalities, getting caught between a rock and a hard place." But does touch imagery serve a larger purpose, perhaps helping give structure to human thought?

  • "The idea that mirror neurons support action understanding is by far the dominant interpretation of the function of these cells in the monkey motor system. However, it is not the only interpretation," according to Greg Hickock of Talking Brains. There are alternative explanations.

  • Anne Corwin of Existence is Wonderful describes a study about causality inferences made by cats, and runs an experiment on her own cats.

  • Hormonal Manipulation of Olfactory Cues, or How to Lose a Guy in 10 days. Body odors are important cues used for social and sexual discrimination. The Olfactics blog describes research with ring-tailed lemurs, which demonstrated that drugs can alter body scents and change behavior.

Jason G. Goldman is a science journalist based in Los Angeles. He has written about animal behavior, wildlife biology, conservation, and ecology for Scientific American, Los Angeles magazine, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the BBC, Conservation magazine, and elsewhere. He contributes to Scientific American's "60-Second Science" podcast, and is co-editor of Science Blogging: The Essential Guide (Yale University Press). He enjoys sharing his wildlife knowledge on television and on the radio, and often speaks to the public about wildlife and science communication.

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