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Here is the first ever video of a fish using a tool. Specifically, an orange-dotted tuskfish using a rock to crack open a clam. But it might not be long before fish are using clams to crack open our skulls. More »
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When you happen upon a couple of bear cubs in the woods, what's the first thing that should come to mind? If you answered "I wanna squeeze 'em," you're wrong. It should be "where's the mom?" And with good reason. Numerous non-human mammals are known to exhibit heightened levels of aggression in defense of their young. More »
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Every once in a while, especially on a Monday, you have to visit Alan Sailer's Flickr stream. He's the master of using high speed photography to capture images of pellets from a pellet gun hitting everything from frozen strawberries to Christmas ornaments (actually, he has a special section devoted to "the war against Christmas"), candy and dolls. He also has a small air cannon that allows him to launch objects like, say, eggs at 170 mph. Warning: High speed eggs can shatter glass. Yes, this is just one of the many fun facts Sailer will teach you. All while giving you the vicarious thrill of shooting jellybeans and rubber bands. More »
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Do people become more aggressive when they are forced to bottle up their emotions? It seems like a simple enough question, but psychologists decided to find out in the most sadistic way possible, with a little help from Monty Python. More »
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You control your urges for violence and sex using a tiny tangle of neurons located in a very ancient part of your brain. Now it turns out that this knot of nerves, located in the hypothalamus, can be controlled with a new gene therapy technique that uses flashes of light. What this means is that scientists may be on the verge of turning us into mindless soldiers, unable to stop ourselves from attacking anyone or anything that gets in our way. But this discovery is also the perfect shutdown command for people who can't control their violent urges. Either way you look at it, in ten years, we could be manipulating people's most primal urges with beams of light. More »
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When a bully picks on you, you might get consoled by grown-ups who say things about how he's just jealous or trying to get your attention. But now a group of psychiatry researchers at the University of Chicago have revealed the true reason behind bullying: That bully beats you up because he enjoys it. Healthy kids' brains (pictured) respond to other people's pain with sympathetic twinges in their own pain centers. But bullies who witness pain show activity in their brains' reward centers. More »
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