We’ve all occasionally wished that our pets could speak, but their mouths, tongues and vocal cords just aren’t built for it. However, cats do sometimes use their tongues to communicate with us; they just employ a form of nonverbal communication — licking. This simple act sends a message that we, being only human, may not always understand — or appreciate.Anyone who has ever been licked by a cat knows to expect one thing: the sudden sensation of a patch of skin being lightly sanded — ov ...read more
A study led by researchers at the University of Maine spearheaded a new approach to finding where ticks love to lurk. The Maine Forest Tick Survey trained hundreds of woodland owners in Maine to systematically comb their properties for disease-toting ticks to discern how forest management may influence the pest’s prevalence.Ticks pose a growing public health burden. Lyme disease, which can be transmitted by deer ticks, is the second most common infectious disease reported in Maine. Each year, ...read more
Imagine someone chopping vegetables on a cutting board. No, really. Before reading on, take a moment to truly visualize the scene as vividly as possible.Try as you might, odds are your mental image will omit some basic features. Was the picture thorough enough to specify the size of the knife or the material of the cutting board? The kind of vegetables? The person’s gender? The color of their hair and clothes?A recent study published in Cognition found that most people respond “yes” to som ...read more
Many birds survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but not all. Some went extinct along with the non-avian dinosaurs, and scientists aren’t sure why. When an asteroid hit the Earth, tossing up dust into the sky, why did some winged creatures survive while others fell by the wayside?A pair of new studies, based in part on the discovery of ancient baby bird feathers preserved in amber, suggest that a major factor lies in how the different bird groups molted.Two Different Types of Baby BirdFeat ...read more
Sharks inhabit every ocean around the globe, and despite most people not living near the ocean, many have likely heard of great white sharks and tiger sharks. While these well-known sharks are major predators, they tend to stay in shallower waters. There are some sharks, however, that swim so deep in the ocean that people know little about these predators. In recent years, technology has helped scientists better understand deep-sea sharks. Learn more about them here with these four sharks tha ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
