Animals

Brain

Cool Jobs: Getting in your head

Experimental psychologists study animals and people to understand the roots of behavior.

Animals

Scientists Say: Quoll

This small marsupial is about the size of a housecat. It lives in Australia and New Guinea, where it is under threat from toxic toads.

Animals

Elephants’ trunks: These leaf-blowers snag food

Researchers at a Japanese zoo filmed two elephants using their trunks as leaf-blowers, pulling food toward them with puffs of air.

Oceans

Scientists identify plankton from space

Plankton are often too tiny for our eyes to see. But when huge numbers bloom at once, they now can be ID’d from space, a new study shows.

Animals

Profile: A human touch for animals

Temple Grandin uses her own autism to understand how animals think. The animal scientist is famous for fostering the humane treatment of livestock.

Genetics

Taking attendance with eDNA

Environmental DNA, or eDNA, tells biologists what species are in an area — even when they’re out of sight.

Environment

Wildlife forensics turns to eDNA

Environmental DNA, or eDNA, tells biologists what species have been around — even when they’re out of sight or have temporarily moved on.

Animals

Kangaroo farts: Not so ‘green’ after all?

Scientists had thought that kangaroo farts were environmentally friendly because they had little methane. That may not always be true.

Genetics

Gene editing creates buff beagles

Scientists showed that a potentially useful new gene-editing tool can work in dogs. It created a pair of adorable, muscular puppies. But the goal is to use it for other research purposes.

Animals

Cool Jobs: Crazy about cows

Scientists are studying cows from one end to the other, with the goal not only of making the animals healthier but also of helping the environment.

Animals

New site for where wild canines became dogs

By studying the genetics of living dogs from around the world, scientists think they may have homed in on the origins of dog domestication: Central Asia.

Fossils

This prehistoric meat eater preferred surf to turf

For years, paleontologists thought the fierce, sharp-toothed Dimetrodon made a meal of land-based plant eaters. Not anymore. New fossils suggest aquatic animals were its meals of choice.