#mouse-utopia

#mouse-utopia

Madden combed through this sparse record, confirming the oldest-known dice and establishing an unbroken, previously hidden lineage of chance-based games dating back at least 12,000 years, 6,000 before any counterpart in the Old World.

When faced with a choice between a box with eyes painted on it and a plain box, the gulls were slower to approach the box with eyes and less likely to peck at it.

Social foraging strategies illustrate the balance between competition and cooperation, where individuals either produce resources or exploit the efforts of others, navigating ecological and social constraints.

Asexual reproduction is ultimately unsustainable for mice, and potentially other mammals, too. The clones looked normal and lived as long as normal mice. But large mutations - including the loss of an entire chromosome - accumulated in the cloned lineage at an unusually high rate.

Raccoons have very dense brains, and that likely explains their heightened ability to solve problems and to be behaviorally flexible, says Lauren Stanton, a cognitive ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley. But new research published in Animal Behaviour suggests raccoons will try to solve problems even when they don't expect a food reward for the work.

The charity claims long-term separation was not a viable solution, as wolves' welfare is closely tied to living within a stable pack structure, and isolation can create further welfare concerns.

An unnamed tourist saw it and told Aidan Moore, who works for Alcatraz City Cruises. Moore told SFGATE that he was initially skeptical, but the guest's iPhone footage left little room for doubt. The video shows, not a sea lion or an otter, but an actual Canis latrans, doggedly dogpaddling, then clambering out of the water, noticeably shaky and struggling to settle tired paws on the craggy rocks.

After washing and displaying them, I invited my colleagues to observe them. One colleague seemed very angry after examining them, picked up a piece straight away, hit it hard on the other stone fragments, and exclaimed, 'These kinds of broken stones can be seen everywhere on the road!' But later that fall, the French archaeologist Henri Breuil examined the crystals and agreed with Wenzhong: The crystals were not just stones, but artifacts collected by the early humans who lived in the cave.

Inspiration, intuition, and interrogation are nodes in a living network, each one feeding and refining the others, generating a sort of generative consciousness: the capacity not just to respond to the world, but to reimagine it.

Last November, the UK government announced a bold plan to phase out animal testing in some areas of research. Animal tests for skin irritation are scheduled for elimination this year, and some studies on dogs should be slashed by 2030. The long-term vision is 'a world where the use of animals in science is eliminated in all but exceptional circumstances'.

How did hundreds of women find themselves on operating tables in surgery centers and strip malls several states away from where they live? A forty-million-dollar scam that hinged on product-liability lawsuits. Casey Cep reports "

I'm always looking for books that challenge the status quo, and when I learned about Roland Ennos' new book The Powerful Primate: How Controlling Energy Enabled Us to Build Civilization, I couldn't wait to get my eyes on it, and I'm thrilled I did. In this landmark book, Ennos offers "a compelling argument that flips the traditional view of humanity on its head."

Countless millions of nonhuman animals (animals) of all sorts are used in a diverse array of laboratory research. Their treatment varies from being unspeakably inhumanely abused to being treated with kindness, depending on the questions at hand and the values and attitudes of the researchers themselves. The lives of these animals truly are hidden, and most people are incredulous when they learn that laboratory rats and mice still are not considered "animals" under the current federal Animal Welfare Act.

Recently, two unexpected examples by a wild wolf and a domesticated cow named Veronika attracted global attention and once again opened the door for experts and others to weigh in on the question, "Are these really examples of tooling?" Many people are eager to know more about the nitty-gritty details of tooling, so I am thrilled that Dr. Benjamin Beck, an expert in this area, could answer a few questions about this fascinating behavior.

Reflecting on the dramatic shifts in public opinion, political leanings, and social norms, a friend recently asked how it's possible that so many people seem to have changed their values so quickly. The more unsettling answer is that many haven't changed their values at all; they've changed how much attention they can afford to give. Increasingly, people aren't asking what they believe, but how much they can still carry.