Sensing Calories
Our brains may get pleasure from high-calorie foods that has nothing to do with taste.
Conspicuous Camouflage
Scientists test whether predators really mistake the eyespots on the wings of some butterflies for real eyes.
Podcast
INSECTS & SPIDERS: Spiders play dead for sex, how to make a queen bee, foiling the mosquito's sense of smell, and a new treatment for Lyme disease.
Honeybee Royal Jelly
Royal jelly creates queen bees by changing gene expression.
Mosquito Repellent
The insect repellent DEET doesn't repel mosquitoes so much as confuse them.
Cat Domestication
A listener asks: where and when were cats first domesticated?
Snakes vs. Newts
Eating a toxic newt could kill a human, so why can some hungry snakes get away with it?
Monkey Alarms
Some monkeys combine their alarm calls to create an entirely new meaning.
Encyclopedia of Life
A new, comprehensive repository of scientific information for all life on earth comes to the web.
Animal Roundup
Beaver dams help conserve water and scientists discover a behemoth amongst frogs.
Podcast
What happened to our vitamin C, new insights into childhood leukemia, and why artificial sweeteners make rats fat.
Podcast
How air pollution could cause heart disease. Global warming may make Antartica vulnerable to predators. "Virtual" children help real children thrive.
Antarctic Invasion
Global climate change could open the Antarctic up to predators it hasn't seen in millions of years.
Podcast
AAAS 2008 ANNUAL MEETING SPECIAL: Sand spiders use elaborate camouflage, a new interactive map tracks threats to the oceans, and four healthful habits of long-lived people.
Sandy Spiders
Researchers discover how a spider renders itself nearly invisible using a coat of sand.
Podcast
Space Research Update: the 11-year solar storm cycle returns, the MESSENGER spacecraft reports back from Mercury, and the search for intelligent life in the universe continues with the help of your computer. Also: Unique animal and plant adaptations.
This week's web links:
Space Weather Network: www.swpc.noaa.gov/SWN;
Latest MESSENGER photographs of Mercury: messenger.jhuapl.edu;
Sign up for SETI@Home: setiathome.berkeley.edu
Parasitic Butterflies
Butterflies use chemical signals to fool ants into raising their young.
Animal Grandparents
Researchers scientifically document grandparenting behavior in animals for the first time.
Blind Cave Fish
Breeding blind cave fish from different populations results in offspring that can see.
Podcast
Brain Pathways: Why we shiver, blind people who still sense light, and brain chemicals and intelligence.
Animal Roundup
Squirrels foil their predators by making themselves smell less like squirrels and more like their predators.