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behavior

Videos

  • Do Lab Rats Dream of Running Mazes?

    Neuroscientists Matthew Wilson gives the audience a rare look at the activity in a rat’s brain while it runs a maze. Using that data, he then set the rat through the maze again,...

  • Getting Sleep in the Wild

    New advances in brain imaging over the years has allowed researchers to study the sleeping brains of animals. But while scientists have learned much about animal sleep patterns,...

  • Why Study Birds?

    All animals sleep in some form, what makes birds special? Why are scientists like Niels Rattenborg particularly interested in avian sleep patterns? Turns out, birds have evolved...

  • What is Sexual Orientation?

    What is sexual orientation? What criteria can you use to define it? Is it behavior? Is it psychology? How have these notions changed over time? After all, what is now sexual...

  • The Smell of Fear

    People always claim that animals can smell fear. Is there anything to it or in this case does “smell” just represent a wide range of perceptions? Artist and scent researcher...

  • Strip Club Science

    Hormonal changes in the body can often give off scent cues, whether we’re aware of them or not. For example, factors such as sexual maturation, pregnancy, and ovulation all cause...

  • The Great Pheromone Debate

    Pheromones are chemicals secreted by an organism that trigger a social response in members of the same species. Hive insects such as bees and ants rely on these chemical signals...

  • The Power of Smell

    Despite being one of the oldest senses, our sense of smell is easily one of the least understood. It’s also the only one with a direct connection to our brain. With each breath we...

  • How Good Is Your Memory?

    One of the fascinating things about people who have had a misattribution memory is the confidence in which they will defend their recollection. Building upon his anecdote about...

  • Genius’ Dark Cousin

    When talking about geniuses, the conversation inevitably strays towards topics of eccentricity, or even madness. One needs only to look at the lives of artists such as Vincent Van...

  • Robot Learning: Rebuilding Newton

    Hod Lipson’s self-aware robot used feedback from its limbs in order to learn how to walk. He had successfully created a machine that learns like we do, with observation, modeling,...

  • Robot Learning: Look at My Watch

    A simple gesture, such as pointing, is filled to the brim with social cues, feedback, and expectations—many of which are subconscious. Roboticists like Rodney Brooks know that...

  • The Ant Cemetery

    After checking the pulse or the brain activity, the doctor officially pronounces a person dead; and then that person is buried. But what do ants do with their dead comrades? How...

  • Order out of Chaos: Ant Communication

    An ant colony is a frenzy of activity. Somehow, in the midst of what appears to be a sea of chaos, the ants manage to work together to create an orderly home. Does this...

  • Fighting Ant Foes

    Ants may seem, at first look, to be cooperative—or even harmonious—with their fellow ants.  However, here the legendary evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson shares footage of...

  • Thinking about Thinking

    Animals may not understand English or Chinese, but can they read our body language? Can they get inside our heads? Brian Hare demonstrates tests with dogs that assess their...

  • What Bonobos Can Teach Us

    Bonobos share 98.7% of our DNA. Physically, they resemble chimpanzees. But something remarkable sets them apart from their primate cousins, making them an altogether different...

  • Doggone Devious

    A mother turns her back for a moment, and her naughty child jumps at the opportunity to dip his hand in the cookie jar. The ability of humans to deceive our neighbors hinges on...

  • Sharing Is Caring?

    “Share your toys and your treats!” Sharing is just about the first priority on the curriculum of life and school. But is that why we do it, because we’re told to? Or are there...

  • All Creatures Great and Smart

    Does your dog really think and feel like a human? Do our closest primate relatives have brains and emotions similar to ours? What about the storied intelligence of dolphins and...

  • !@#$% Traffic: From Insects to Interstates

    Can marching ants, schooling fish, and herding wildebeests teach us something about the morning commute? Robert Krulwich guides this unique melding of mathematics, physics, and...

Blog Posts

  • The Smell of Fear

    Yesterday we looked at the power of scent to signal biological changes and influence attraction. But what about other emotions? Can one really smell fear?

  • Love Is in the Air

    Hormonal changes in the body can often give off scent cues, whether we’re aware of them or not.

  • Man-Made Minds: Full Program Now Available

    All week, we've been exploring the next-generation of robots and thinking machines, hearing from the leading minds, who stand to reinvent what know as artificial intelligence. Today, we present the full program of Man-Made Minds in all its glory.

  • I, Learning Robot

    Yesterday we saw Eric Horvitz's Bayesian Medical Kiosk in action. He showed us the potential in human/robot interaction and it's potential in public health applications. Today we look at machines that interact on an interpersonal, physical level—from making eye contact and...

  • Are Flowers Smelling You Back?

    Animals utilize their sense of smell to explore their surroundings. But what about plants? When you smell a flower, is it smelling you back? Is it trying to figure out if your nose would make a good pollinator? Chemical ecologist Consuelo De Moraes shows us a parasitic vine that...

  • Instant Reaction:  Origins of Orientation

    Origins of Orientation panelists delved into riveting discussions about arousal, longing, bonding and, of course, sexual activity on Saturday night at the World Science Festival.

  • A Curious Case of Sleep Violence

    On September 11, 1982 I started my career in sleep medicine at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. I had three new patients on my schedule for that day. The second patient was a 67-year-old gentleman from Golden Valley, Minnesota named Donald Dorff who...

  • Thinking About Thinking

    If you have a dog at home, you know that they take notice when you point out something. But did you know that this is a fairly unique trait in animals?

  • Animals Like Us

    What is it that makes us humans unique? Is it our capacity to learn language? To cooperate on a vast scale and build civilizations? To make fun of celebrities? To answer all those questions (except maybe the last one), scientists don't limit their research to our own species. We...

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