Behavioral Science News

April 20, 2024

Top Headlines

Health Behaviors Accumulate and Remain Relatively Stable Throughout Middle Adulthood

Apr. 16, 2024 — According to a recent study, either healthier or unhealthier health behaviors cluster among individuals. These health behavior patterns remain relatively stable in middle adulthood and are predicted ...

Bonobos Are More Aggressive Than Previously Thought, Study Shows

Apr. 12, 2024 — Chimpanzees and bonobos are often thought to reflect two different sides of human nature -- the conflict-ready chimpanzee versus the peaceful bonobo -- but a new study shows that, within their own communities, male bonobos are more frequently ...

Shy Sea Anemones Are More Likely to Survive Heatwaves

Apr. 4, 2024 — A study shows that sea anemones that react more slowly to change can survive a heatwave better than individuals that change their behavior ...

Heat Stress from Ocean Warming Harms Octopus Vision

Apr. 5, 2024 — While climate change has led to an increase in the abundance of octopuses, heat stress from projected ocean warming could impair their vision and impact the survivability of the ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:22am EDT

Storks Fly With a Little Help from Their Friends

Apr. 17, 2024 — All storks choose to migrate with conspecifics, but young storks rely more on social influences than adults ...

Older Males out-Compete Young Males Outside Breeding Pairs, Bird Study Shows

Apr. 16, 2024 — Young male blue tits are less successful in fathering offspring outside their breeding pair, not because of a lack of experience, but because they ...

New Tagging Method Provides Bioadhesive Interface for Marine Sensors on Diverse, Soft, and Fragile Species

Apr. 16, 2024 — Tagging marine animals with sensors to track their movements and ocean conditions can provide important environmental and behavioral information. ...

Nudging in a Virtual Supermarket for More Animal Welfare

Apr. 4, 2024 — It may be possible to change the purchasing behavior of consumers noticeably using some simple strategies. At least this is what a new study indicates. The researchers investigated the effect of ...

Prairie Voles Display Signs of Human-Like Depression

Apr. 4, 2024 — Researchers make the case that prairie voles, small rodents that are found throughout the central United States and Canada, can be effectively used as animal models to further the study of clinical ...

How and Why Animals Can Live Alongside Humans

Apr. 2, 2024 — New research suggests animals can thrive in human-dominated environments by being expert judges of risk. Researchers examined the behavior of great-tailed grackles, a bird species successfully ...

Lyrebird Synchronizes Elements of Its Mating Dance

Mar. 28, 2024 — To woo a mate, the Albert's Lyrebird of Australia becomes a real song-and-dance bird. Each male first chooses a stage of entangled vines, then in performance he shakes the vines as part of his ...

Understanding Cattle Grazing Personalities May Foster Sustainable Rangelands

Mar. 27, 2024 — New research finds that not all cattle are the same when it comes to grazing, and knowing that could lead to better animal health and range ...

Looking to the Past to Prevent Future Extinction

Mar. 27, 2024 — Anthropologists created a computational model to predict the likelihood of animal extinctions based on the complex interaction of hunting and environmental ...

The Behavior of Ant Queens Is Shaped by Their Social Environment

Mar. 26, 2024 — The queens in colonies of social insects, such as ants, bees, and wasps, are considered the veritable embodiment of specialization in the animal kingdom. The common perception is that the queen's ...

Caller ID of the Sea: Tagging Whale Communication and Behavior

Mar. 25, 2024 — Biologists use a novel method of simultaneous acoustic tagging to gain insights into the link between whale communication and ...

Your Dog Understands That Some Words 'Stand For' Objects

Mar. 22, 2024 — It's no surprise that your dog can learn to sit when you say 'sit' and come when called. But a new study has made the unexpected discovery that dogs generally also know that certain ...

Entanglements of Humpback Whales in Fish Farms Rare -- And Naivety Could Be to Blame

Mar. 21, 2024 — The first study of humpback whale entanglements in B.C. aquaculture facilities found eight over 13 years, with the curiosity of young whales a potential contributing ...

How Butterflies Choose Mates: Gene Controls Preferences

Mar. 21, 2024 — Tropical Heliconius butterflies are well known for the bright colour patterns on their wings. These striking colour patterns not only scare off predators -- the butterflies are poisonous and are ...

Killer Whales Use Specialized Hunting Techniques to Catch Marine Mammals in the Open Ocean

Mar. 20, 2024 — Killer whales foraging in deep submarine canyons off the coast of California represent a distinct subpopulation that uses specialized hunting techniques to catch marine mammals, researchers ...

Less Social With Age

Mar. 15, 2024 — Scientists tested several hypotheses on the drivers of social aging in free-living Assamese macaques in Thailand. The researchers collected data on the social behavior of females for eight years and ...

Arctic Nightlife: Seabird Colony Bursts With Sound at Night

Mar. 15, 2024 — Acoustic recordings of a colony of little auks reveal their nocturnal activities and offer valuable monitoring means for avian biology in the ...

New Study on Mating Behaviors Offers Clues Into the Evolution of Attraction

Mar. 14, 2024 — In examining the mating rituals of roundworms, researchers uncovered a unique approach to reproduction that maximizes genetic ...

Sleep-Wake Rhythm: Fish Change Our Understanding of Sleep Regulation

Mar. 14, 2024 — Researchers have discovered that some fish -- unlike humans -- do not need orexin to stay awake. This molecule was thought to be necessary for normal wake and sleep rhythms in vertebrates. Humans ...

Chimp Moms Play With Their Offspring Through Good Times and Bad

Mar. 14, 2024 — A recent study observing wild chimpanzees over a period of more than 10 years revealed that when food gets scarcer, the adults put play aside and focus on survival, while mother chimps continue to be ...

Training Dairy Cows With Positive Reinforcement Can Turn Otherwise Stressful Events Into Play

Mar. 14, 2024 — Dairy cows receive a huge amount of care during their lives on a farm, but procedures, especially restraining during procedures, can be stressful for some animals. Positive reinforcement training -- ...

Interactions With Dogs Can Increase Brainwaves Associated With Stress Relief and Heightened Concentration

Mar. 13, 2024 — Spending quality time with dogs reduces stress and increases the power of brain waves associated with relaxation and concentration, according to a new ...

A Simple and Robust Experimental Process for Protein Engineering

Mar. 12, 2024 — A protein engineering method using simple, cost-effective experiments and machine learning models can predict which proteins will be effective for a given purpose, according to a new ...

Early Life Adversity Leaves Long-Term Signatures in Baboon DNA

Mar. 6, 2024 — Early experiences in an animal's life can have a significant impact on its capacity to thrive, even years or decades later, and DNA methylation may help record their effects. In a study of 256 ...

Bee-2-Bee Influencing: Bees Master Complex Tasks Through Social Interaction

Mar. 6, 2024 — Bumblebees successfully learned a two-step puzzle box task through social observation. This task was too complex for individual bees to learn on their own. Observing trained demonstrator bees ...

Do Some Electric Fish Sense the World Through Comrades' Auras?

Mar. 6, 2024 — It would be a game-changer if all members of a basketball team could see out of each other's eyes in addition to their own. Biologists have found evidence that this kind of collective sensing ...

Research Explores the Cooling Effects of 'Scuba-Diving' in Lizards

Mar. 5, 2024 — Anoles are the scuba-diving champions of the lizard world, able to stay underwater for more than 16 minutes. For animals whose body temperature depends on the environment, time spent in a cool ...

New Research Shows Migrating Animals Learn by Experience

Mar. 4, 2024 — Individual white storks incrementally straightened their migration routes to find more direct ways to move between destinations during the spring migration to summer breeding and nesting grounds, ...

A Model for the Evolution of Intelligence

Mar. 4, 2024 — When certain species of wild birds and primates discover new ways of finding food in the wild, it can serve to measure their flexibility and intelligence. In the largest experimental study ever ...

Orcas Demonstrating They No Longer Need to Hunt in Packs to Take Down the Great White Shark

Mar. 2, 2024 — An orca (killer whale) has been observed, for the first-ever time, individually consuming a great white shark -- and within just two ...