Lactones carry chemical messages inside a body, and nepetalactone carries its message straight to the pleasure center of a cats brain, where it can randomly excite the cats neural circuits associated with sex, playing, hunting, and feeding. Although...
Interestingly, many of these are traits that Darwin noted in the Origin of Species as being common among most domesticated animals. Now in the 50th year, the research is ongoing. The projects long term goals are not just to understand the process of...
Amazingly, after only ten years of selected breeding, the team had developed a strain of foxes with dog like tameness towards humans: tail wagging, face licking, playful friendliness. But thats not all. Although the scientists always selected foxes b...
For a planet to support life, the planet must be located within its stars habitable zone. That is, it must be located at a distance where the temperature would allow water to remain in liquid form. At present weve identified about 250 extrasolar plan...
Wine is roughly one part alcohol to five parts water, but the boiling point for alcohol is only 173 degrees Fahrenheit- 39 degrees lower than the boiling point for water. So the alcohol in wine can be distilled into brandy by heating the wine to just...
Although it started its life as a surveying tool, it was its use in theater that made limelight famous. At that time, theaters were commonly lit by dangerous gas lights. These were jets of burning gas, like the flame on a gas stove. Gas lights were d...
If someone loves being in the limelight, that means they enjoy being the center of attention. We use the word now to mean social prominence, but have you ever wondered what limelight actually is, or how it came to be synonymous with fame? Originally...
The researchers observed macaque moms gently bouncing their young, holding their heads and trying to attract their gaze. And when the monkey moms made lip smacks, their babies often responded in kind. OK. But besides being adorable, so what? Well, fo...
Heating the goo causes the coiled up proteins to unwind, or denature, exposing the water-hating red lights to water. To keep dry red lights from neighboring proteins glue together forming small nets of denatured proteins. Heat continuously applied to...
Have you ever wondered how heating an egg white turns that uncooked clear goo into an opaque gel? Well, that transparent goo is made of mostly water and proteins. Each protein is a long strand of amino acids that you can think of as a string of green...
Nuts, botanically speaking, are made up of both the seed itself and a hard outer layer that is the fruit, which does not split open when ripe. Some examples of true nuts are acorns, hazelnuts and chestnuts. Walnuts, pecans and almonds, in contrast, a...
But the reason honey helps keep baked goods fresh has to do with the ability of sugar to attract and hold onto water molecules. All these sugars are hygroscopic, that is they attract and hold onto water, each sugar molecule holding several water mole...
Honey has been around for a very long time. Cave paintings in Spain from over ten thousand years ago show people harvesting honey. Today honey is mostly used for its distinctive flavor, but for baking it has another advantage as well: baked goods mad...
Look closely at a lily pad sometime and youll see that its shape is different from virtually any other leaf. With most leaves, the stem attaches to one edge of the leaf. You can see how lily pads are different from other leaves if you imagine an inse...
Why? Because unlike lions, tigers, and other large predators, the average wolf doesnt have the bulk or attributes to take down large prey with a single blow. Wolves rely more on athleticism and endurance to bag elk. And like most athletes, wolves phy...
