"Relationships with animals are simple," notes one researcher. In a year when life feels fraught, pets have been healers, helping human companions get exercise, quell anxiety and make new friends.
Experiments in people have long shown that the presence of indifferent bystanders hurts the chances that someone will help a stranger in an emergency. Rats, it turns out, behave the same way.
Scientists have found that dolphins learn a neat trick to trap fish by watching their close associates do it. This means that dolphins aren't just motivated to learn from their mothers.
Move over, fruit flies, rats and zebrafish. Squid and octopuses have elaborate brains and behaviors, and scientists say studying them in the laboratory could yield important biological insights.
Scientists say comedian Lewis Black has a lot in common with fruit flies. They're both really good at acting angry, probably because human anger has roots in animal aggression.
The drug makes the usually antisocial creatures much more interested in friendly contact with other octopuses. It's one more sign that the chemistry of social behavior has deep evolutionary roots.
Do you know which paw your cat uses first when coming down the stairs? Anthropologist and cat lover Barbara J. King discusses with researchers why a new finding of paw preference matters for our pets.
In response to a report of "heroic" behavior by a female mountain gorilla aiming to protect her baby, anthropologist Barbara J. King explores questions of conscious awareness of infanticide in apes.
Feeling grumpy and antisocial because you've got a cold? That's not just a random side effect. It's your body saying, "Hey, slow down and rest so you can get better."
Given a choice, bonobos tend to prefer people who act like jerks and dominate. That's very different than humans, who even as infants consistently prefer people who are cooperative and not mean.
Tiny filler words in human rapid-fire conversation hold the key to understanding how language is unique, according to a new book. But anthropologist Barbara J. King raises some questions.
Could the condor in this video that went viral be expressing affection or, even, gratitude? Anthropologist Barbara J. King explores what's really happening.
Bears do it, bats do it. So do dogs and humans. They all yawn. It's a common behavior, but why is a bit of a mystery. Researchers think yawning may perk up the brain and help with social bonding.
Speeding cars have become the biggest threat for bears in Yosemite. But rangers hope tracking tools, like the website where the public can track bears, will help keep both humans and bears safe.
Eels sometimes swim thousands of miles from their birthplace in the Atlantic to rivers and lakes where they live. Researchers say the creatures might use the Earth's magnetic field to find their way.
Don't call it empathy, scientists say. These termite-eating ants only retrieve injured comrades on the way home from a hunt, not before. But the hurt ants do recover better at home — to fight again.
OK, so they're not using Fitbits. But zoos across America are using software to minutely track the activity, behavior and physiology of captive elephants, and using that data to improve zoo life.
Cancer cells, it turns out, reflect light in a particular, polarized way that mantis shrimp can see. A tiny camera based on the shrimp's eye might help doctors better visualize tumors during surgery.
The 15-year project wasn't a flight of fancy. Biologists used a plane to successfully teach many young, captive-bred whooping cranes to migrate cross-country. But the birds aren't reproducing well.
When the gloomy octopus of Australia turns dark and towers threateningly over his neighbor, he's likely signaling aggression, scientists now say. Neighbors get the message — they turn pale and flee.
Many people spend summertime in the great outdoors, enjoying simpler living. Reporter Fred Mogul took his city dog to a farm in Pennsylvania to see if she might enjoy exploring her shepherding roots.
It can take more than just a keen ear to figure out what animals are saying. Sometimes, scientists are learning, you have to talk back to map the rich networks of conversation in a forest.
Given two choices of attractive mates, female frogs pick the top vocalist. But add a third, inferior male to the mix, and females go for No. 2. The "decoy effect" shapes some human choices, too.
