While reporting “What Do Animals Think?” page 46, VERLYN KLINKENBORG spent many hours with animal behavior specialist Temple Grandin. “Her whole approach to animals has been so selfless,” he says. “It’s what she’s devoted her entire existence to. It’s very moving to be around.” Klinkenborg, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times and author of The Rural Life (Little, Brown, 2003), is also comfortable in the company of animals. He and his wife raise pigs and keep a stable full of horses at their small farm in upstate New York.

For “What Do Animals Think?” photographer WILLIAM WEGMAN snapped one of his iconic Weimaraners, Bobbin, with autistic children. One of them, 11-year-old Robby Schwartzman of Queens, New York, took this photo of Wegman. “The children’s emotional projection was very similar to the dog’s,” Wegman says. “They didn’t have the shyness most people have [about being photographed]. I could just position them and see what happened.” A retrospective that includes Wegman’s many Weimaraner photos will begin a two-year tour next spring.

SUSAN FREINKEL first heard of a link between mental health and vitamins at a conference in 2003. Two researchers mentioned a mysterious vitamin supplement’s effect on the brain but refused to answer any questions. “It immediately piqued my curiosity,” she says. The result of her sleuthing is “Vitamin Cure?” page 54. Freinkel’s articles have also appeared in Smithsonian, Reader’s Digest, Health, Organic Style, Real Simple, and The New York Times.

For photographer JOE McNALLY, hovering over an Arizona mountain in a helicopter to take pictures for “On Top of Kitt Peak,” page 42, was a surprisingly tranquil experience. He prefers the relative safety of aerial conditions to the risks of photographing the inner works of large telescopes. “They say there are two ways to get famous [in astronomy],” he says. “One is to make a very big discovery. The other is to break a very big mirror.” McNally is a former staff photographer at LIFE magazine.