The New York Times, April 12, 2005

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The 18th-century Italian anatomist Luigi Galvani found that a spark could make a frog’s leg kick. His experiments established that electricity was the hidden force nerves used to control the body. Now researchers at Yale have done Galvani one better. They can make fruit flies walk, leap or fly by shining a laser at the insects, setting off certain neurons inside them.

It’s possible, at least in theory, that this method could someday be developed into a sort of animal remote control. But its biggest promise is as a scientific tool that may shed light on the function of different kinds of neurons. The ability to switch on particular neurons may allow scientists to discover clues about a range of disorders, from Parkinson’s disease to drug addiction.

Continue reading “An Off-and-On Switch for Controlling Animals?” →

The New York Times, April 5, 2005

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The inland taipan, a nine-foot-long Australian snake, is not the sort of creature most people would want to bother. Drop for drop, its venom is the deadliest in the world, 50 times as potent as cobra venom. Its fangs are so long they can poke through the snake’s lower jaw. Its victims collapse in seconds and suffer a quick death.

Dr. Bryan Fry, a biologist from the University of Melbourne, will readily admit he is not like most people. He not only bothers inland taipans; he hunts them down in dense cane fields, pins them down and bags them. Later he grabs them by the head and squeezes venom from their fangs.

Continue reading “Open Wide: Decoding the Secrets of Venom” →

The New York Times, March 10, 2005

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NEW YORK — Parents of wailing babies, take comfort: You are not alone. Chimpanzee babies fuss. Sea gull chicks squawk. Burying beetle larvae tap their parents’ legs. Throughout the animal kingdom, babies know how to get their parents’ attention. Exactly why evolution has produced all this fussing, squawking and tapping is a question many biologists are trying to answer.

Someday, that answer may shed some light on the mystery of crying in human babies.

Continue reading “Clues from animals on why babies cry” →

The New York Times, March 8, 2005

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Parents of wailing babies, take comfort: you are not alone.

Chimpanzee babies fuss. Sea gull chicks squawk. Burying beetle larvae tap their parents’ legs. Throughout the animal kingdom, babies know how to get their parents’ attention. Exactly why evolution has produced all this fussing, squawking and tapping is a question many biologists are now trying to answer. Someday, that answer may shed some light on the mystery of colic in human babies.

Continue reading “A Darwinian Look at a Wailing Baby” →

The New York Times, March 3, 2005

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A team of Dutch scientists is trying to solve the mystery of personality. Why are some individuals shy while others are bold, for example? What roles do genes and environment play in shaping personalities? And most mysterious of all, how did they evolve?

The scientists are carrying out an ambitious series of experiments to answer these questions. They are studying thousands of individuals, observing how they interact with others, comparing their personalities to their descendants’ and analyzing their DNA.

Continue reading “Wild birds with a lot of personality” →