Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Nov 30, 2013

Wild Animals are Not for Petting (Op-Ed)

Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This Op-Ed is adapted from a post on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Recently, a woman stuck her arm...

Nov 30, 2013

Ridiculously Cute Photos of Mother Cats and Kittens

Ridiculously adorable (Image credit: Veronica Burns)New research shows that British and American cat owners harbor some pretty serious misconceptions about the reproductive habits of their feline companions. A study of British cat owners, for example, found that 84 percent of the 715 people surveyed thought cats can't get pregnant before...

Nov 30, 2013

Will 'Green Bullets' Ruin Hunting?

Lead, a heavy metal with a notorious reputation for causing severe health problems, has been used for centuries in everything from cooking pots and plumbing to lead shot for hunters. But lead ammunition may be going the way of leaded gasoline, as an increasing number of wildlife conservationists and public...

Oct 31, 2013

Pronghorn Adapt to New Animal Overpasses

Each fall, thousands of pronghorn make an impressive migration southward across Wyoming, traveling 93 miles (150 km) to get to their wintering grounds in the Upper Green River Basin. The most dangerous part of this journey may not be predators or a lack of resources, but an all-too-familiar obstacle: traffic....

Oct 31, 2013

Should Animals Be Used in Laboratory Testing? (Op-Ed)

Marc Bekoff, emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is one of the world's pioneering cognitive ethologists, a Guggenheim Fellow, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. This essay is adapted from one that appeared in Bekoff's column Animal Emotions in Psychology Today....

Oct 31, 2013

The World's Most Dangerous Band Promotes Shelter Pets (Op-Ed)

Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This Op-Ed is adapted from a post on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. This has been a year of...

Oct 31, 2013

Chill Out, Dudes! Female Flies Have Anti-Aggression Powers

Female fruit flies have a secret superpower: Just by their presence, they keep male flies from butting heads. A new study revealing this strange insect phenomenon could eventually lead to new understandings of how human aggression functions. This is really an entry point to study how aggression can be modulated,...

Sep 30, 2013

As Constrictor Attacks Continue, Look to the Snake Trade (Op-Ed)

Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This Op-Ed is adapted from a post on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. A New York area animal control...

Sep 30, 2013

Humans and Rats Think Alike After Making Mistakes

When it comes to learning from mistakes, humans and rats think alike, research suggests. In a study that tracked how humans and their rodent cousins adapted to errors during a time estimation task, the two species showed similar brain activity in the medial frontal cortex (MFC), which sends signals that...

Aug 31, 2013

After 2,500 Studies, It's Time to Declare Animal Sentience Proven (Op-Ed)

Marc Bekoff, emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is one of the pioneering cognitive ethologists in the United States, a Guggenheim Fellow, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. This essay is adapted from one that appeared in Bekoff's column Animal Emotions...

Aug 31, 2013

Dogs Become New Treatment for a War that Never Ends (Op-Ed)

Vanessa Woods is a research scientist at Duke University and the co-founder of Dognition, a website that helps owners find the genius in their dogs. She is also the co-author of the New York Times Bestseller The Genius of Dogs. She contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed &...

Aug 31, 2013

A Blueprint for Ending the Euthanasia of Healthy Animals (Op-Ed)

Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This Op-Ed is adapted from a post on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. At The HSUS, we are working...

Aug 31, 2013

Dogs to Prairie Dogs, Animals Need Rescue from Disaster (Op-Ed)

Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This Op-Ed is adapted from a post on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The HSUS responds to natural disasters...

Aug 31, 2013

How Cute! Trilobites Curled Up in Self-Defense

About 513 million years ago, a creature curled up like a pill bug to protect itself from predators, a recently-discovered fossil suggests. The new discovery is the oldest evidence that trilobites rolled up in self-defense so early in their evolutionary history. Until now, it was thought that this group was...

Aug 31, 2013

Goosefish Lays Billowy Veil Holding 1 Million Eggs

Goosefish, also known as monkfish, may be among the most aesthetically challenged creatures around, but when the homely bottom-feeders lay their eggs, they create something beautiful: a gauzy, billowy veil that drifts in the ocean for days. On Monday afternoon (Sept. 23), a female monkfish at the New England Aquarium...