When Jonah Lehrer was in town to talk about his latest book, How We Decide, we snagged the opportunity to interview him for Science in Action. He took our Visualization Studio through a tour of the brain as we make decisions– whether in the cereal aisle or piloting a plane. Then our artists went to work, creating the brain visuals. It was a great collaboration! What do you think? Let us know.

 

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How smart are crows? Very, according to researchers at the University of Auckland and Oxford. How crows use tools to get food have scientists believing that not only are they smart birds, but they may prove to be smarter than apes. And this research just continues.

One of our favorite science reporters, Robert Krulwich, and his team at NPR recently set-up a quiz to test if humans are as smart as crows. Go ahead, give it a try.

As our own bird researcher, Jack Dumbacher, puts it, “Next time someone calls you a bird brain, you can thank them for the compliment.”

 

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Throughout history, humans have used animals as companions and partners.  And lets face it, from dog shows to cat sweaters, people are crazy in love with their pets.  But what really makes the best pet?  A purebred, a mutt, or a miracle of modern science?

Take dogs– through selective breeding people have created a wide variety of traits, sizes, and colors.  But since selective breeding requires breeding populations from limited numbers of dogs (inbreeding), some breeds not only have distinct colors and traits, but distinct genetic susceptibility to diseases.  For instance, German Shepherds, Labradors and Dobermans have a tendency toward hip dysplasia.

Mutts offer more genetic variance, but when you get a beautiful, or unusually great mutt you have a breed of one.  A mutt is a totally unique genetic mix that would be nearly impossible to recreate (depending on how many different breeds are mixed together).  So, what do you do if your mutt great, and you would like another?

One company based in the Bay Area has an answer: cloning.  Encore Pet Science (a division of BioArts International) offers a unique pet cloning service.  The CEO of BioArts, Lou Hawthorne, even owns a pair of beautiful cloned dogs.  After spending the afternoon with the dogs, it’s truly amazing. They’re very hard to tell apart.

But, not everyone is thrilled with the idea of pet cloning.  The American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) claims that cloning is cruel because it produces a lot of wasted animals for one viable result.  And the San Francisco SPCA would rather see an animal rescued from the pound than have families attempt to resurrect or copy their beloved pets.

But what’s the real science behind this issue?  Brian Simison, Curator/Head of the Center for Comparative Genomics at California Academy of Science says, “I think that the common perception of cloning is… off.” He continues on that this may be as a result of movies like Jurassic Park.  Apparently humans have been cloning organisms since the 20s or 30s (beginning with bacteria) and the sheep Dolly was cloned in 1995. (By the way, Dolly died at the age of 6 from a virus– not as a result of the cloning processas urban legend claims.)  “The argument that cloning produces a lot of organisms that are mutants and have to be put down I think is false…” Brian Simison continues, “…either the clone works or it doesn’t.”

But the controversy surrounding cloning continues.  Whatever your opinion, the cloning of pets is an amazing scientific achievement that is sure to spawn many other applications of the theories behind it.

-Ty

 

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The effects of global climate change could be devastating: rising sea levels, melting Arctic ice, stronger heat waves, intense wildfires…and now, shrinking sheep?

(Flickr Creative Commons photo by jonesor)

 

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When Jean-Michel Cousteau came to give a presentation at Nightlife this spring, we had the great opportunity to interview him for Science in Action.

Because of his work to help establish the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument in 2006, we thought this would be a good subject to have him discuss. California Academy of Sciences researchers were instrumental in the monuments declared earlier this year and we wanted to do a story on it.

These designations, covering over 325,000 square miles of ocean, represent former President Bush’s so-called Blue Legacy. A very surprising legacy, indeed.

 

 Marine National Monuments: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download