Rethinking The Lab Rat

You probably know someone who has a condition that, until last week, was known as PCOS, or polycystic ovary syndrome. It affects one in eight reproductive-aged women. But despite it being such a common disorder, patients are often misdiagnosed and have delayed treatment. Now, med ...  Show more

For years, farmers in California have been pumping huge amounts of water from their wells to irrigate their crops. The state’s Central Valley is the nation’s single biggest source for many different foods. But all that water use is making aquifers shrink, wells go dry and, in som ...  Show more

Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a controversial new paper that estimates how many rodents are used in research in the United States each year. Though there is no official number, the paper suggests there might be more than 100 million rats and mi ...  Show more

New recordings featuring the voices of 53 species of turtle, caecilian and tuatara previously thought to be silent have illuminated the evolutionary origins of vocal communication. Gabriel Jorgevich-Cohen a PhD student at the University of Zurich has travelled the world collectin ...  Show more

Neuroscientists are creating more naturalistic experiments that they hope will provide a more nuanced understanding of animal — and human — behaviour.These set-ups differ from the classic laboratory experiments that have been used for decades, and may help in the understanding of ...  Show more

A fur-stripped mouse carcase might not sound like the cosiest of homes – but that is where the burying beetle makes its nest, and where Rebecca Kilner has focused much of her research.A professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Cambridge, Rebecca’s work – initially w ...  Show more