Comparing cognition in humans and other animals “When a worm is suddenly illuminated,” Charles Darwin wrote, it “dashes like a rabbit into its burrow.” But if you keep scaring it, the worm stops withdrawing. Such apparent learning suggested to Darwin “the presence of a mind of some kind.” Watching as worms evaluated the suitability of […]
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Bluefin Tuna: New Study Doesn’t Hold Water
Bluefin tunas are extreme athletes with fins. Warm-blooded fishes capable of growing to 1,500 pounds they sprint at highway speeds through seawater 800 times denser than air, coring through oceans on multi-year, multi-thousand-mile migrations between spawning and feeding areas. At least three bluefin species inhabit the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, the Pacific, and the South […]
When Animals Teach, It’s Special
Like toolmaking, teaching was once thought to be an exclusive capacity of the human mind. It’s not, but teaching is rare, and teachers are an elite group. “Teaching” requires this: one individual must take time from their own task to demonstrate and instruct and the student must learn a new skill. That’s a tall order. […]
An Arctic gift-wrapped in plastic?
Let’s hope not. But—. All of us who’ve traveled long and far have seen the amount of plastic on beaches increase incredibly in our lifetime. And it isn’t slowing anytime soon. The worst plastic accumulations I’ve seen are in the tropics, near where most of the people are. A lot of it comes to the […]
Spectacularity – While it lasts
The high Arctic is—well, it’s cold. It’s the Arctic after all. And we are very far north. Far north of Iceland, way up at 78º N and way north of Norway, in the waters around an astonishing group of rock-and-ice islands known as Svalbard. Greenpeace has invited me to join them for a while on […]
Life aboard Greenpeace’s ship Arctic Sunrise
I’m here in the Norwegian Arctic for a few days, cruising the waters of Svalbard as a guest on Greenpeace’s ship Arctic Sunrise. Fish like cod are moving north as ice melts and waters warm. So Greenpeace has worked an agreement with fishing companies and giant retailers like McDonald’s to put fishing expansion here on […]