Mind & Brain / Animal Intelligence

Of Mice and Men and Medicines

Drugs that alleviate symptoms of psychological illness in mice often wind up producing human treatments. There is just one small problem: Their mental breakdowns look nothing like ours. 02.24.2012

When Good Tweets Go Bad

Some birds seem to have grammatical rules in their songs. And they'll let you hear about it if you mess up. 11.07.2011

It's Complicated: The Lives of Dolphins & Scientists

In the escalating war over dolphin rights, two pioneers in the study of cetacean consciousness have sacrificed their decades-old friendship for their beliefs. 09.07.2011

Man's Best Friends Know Who Their Best Friends Are

Dogs can help themselves by deciphering humans' social interactions. 09.05.2011

Brain Malfunction Prevents Rats From Remembering Deliciousness of Spicy Food

For this study, rats are the perfect lab rats: they can learn about foods through one quick sniff of another rat's breath. 08.27.2011

Monkeys 
& Morality

The institutions of science are slowly unwinding and assessing the problems that have been revealed in psychologist Marc Hauser's research. 06.20.2011

Head-Mounted Laser Microscope Peers Inside Rats' Brains

The ingenious rig shows animals making real-world decisions in real time. 06.20.2011

Discover Interview: Lynn Margulis Says She's Not Controversial, She's Right

It's the neo-Darwinists, population geneticists, AIDS researchers, and English-speaking biologists as a whole who have it all wrong. 06.17.2011

Natural Born Dancers: Birds Bob to Beats But Monkeys Are Mixed Up

One theory taking flight says only vocal-learning animals can sync up with musical rhythms, and those species make up an exclusive club: humans, some birds, elephants, whales, and dolphins. 04.14.2011

The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010

Every year DISCOVER sorts through the scientific accomplishments of the past 12 months, and assembles a list of the coolest experiments, most brilliant discoveries, and most world-changing events. As you page through the countdown to the #1 science story, we think you'll come to the same conclusion we did: 2010 was quite a year. 12.16.2010

Who You Callin' "Bird Brain"?

The amazing smarts of crows, jays, and other corvids are forcing scientists to rethink when and why intelligence evolved. 06.28.2010

Stunning High-Speed Photos of Birds

Photographer Andrew Zuckerman earns the title of the new Audubon with his high-definition, high-speed avian portraits. 01.19.2010

#58: Orangutans Use Tool to Lower the Sound of Their Voices

By putting leaves between their lips, the apes apparently make themselves sound bigger and more threatening. 12.29.2009

#80: Chimps Plan Ahead. (Plan #1: Throw Rocks at Humans.)

“Santino has a great time scaring visitors, and as the group’s dominant male, he is showing the other chimps that he can protect them.” 12.21.2009

#87: Mockingbirds Know Who You Are... And They Hold a Grudge

The birds learned to identify an aggressive researcher and ignore the others—and eventually they dive-bombed the malefactor. 12.19.2009

Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Connect

The most profound bonds between people begin in our bodies with imitation and synchronized movements. 11.19.2009

The Brain: Humanity's Other Basic Instinct: Math

New research suggests that math has evolved its way right into our neurons—and monkeys', too. 11.17.2009

The Most Incredible Things Ants Can Do

They're organized and ruthless, brilliant engineers and cold killers. They're ants, and this is their world. 07.30.2009

Darwin Plays Game Theory—and Wins

A computer simulation predicts that ravens should have evolved a behavior called "gang foraging," which is then observed in real ravens. 05.22.2009

The Pentagon’s Beetle Borgs

Researchers create what may be the perfect scout: a bug controlled remotely through a chip implanted in its optic lobes and flight muscles. 04.30.2009

The First Pre-School: Animals Learning Before Birth

Advance lessons in avoiding predators and identifying kin 02.15.2009

Darwin's Dystopias: Ghastly Visions Inspired by Evolution

A new collection of art shows how one scientist shocked the world. 02.12.2009

Think Animals Don't Think Like Us? Think Again

One extraordinary parrot helped shatter our preconceptions about animal intelligence. 01.20.2009

What Makes You Uniquely "You"?

Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman says your brain is one-of-a-kind in the history of the universe. 01.16.2009

#30: Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror

The birds pass the test for "rudimentary sense of self." 12.17.2008

#64: Spain Gives Great Apes Legal Rights

The animals have the right to life and protection from harmful research practices. 12.10.2008

#71: Slime Molds Show Surprising Degree of Intelligence

A creature with no brain can learn from and even anticipate events. 12.09.2008

The Man Who Found That "Genes Hold Culture on a Leash"

Edward O. Wilson looked at ants and made fundamental discoveries about humans. 11.17.2008

Laurie Santos

What does the "Monkey Whisperer" read at night? 10.30.2008

Why Darwin Would Have Loved Botox

All those wrinkle-causing winces, smirks, and sneers may have been the product of evolution. 10.15.2008

The "Monkey Whisperer" Learns the Secrets of Primate Economics

Laurie Santos penetrates the world of monkeys... and finds they're more like humans than we think. 10.13.2008

E. O. Wilson Says Ants Live in Humanlike Civilizations

They do, after all, engage in many of the hallmarks of our societies: farming, warfare, and air conditioning. 10.12.2008

How Often Do Animals Get STDs?

Most of the animal kingdom never practices safe sex, and they have the battle scars to prove it. 09.09.2008

Exactly How Smart Is Man's Best Friend?

A new pooch IQ test shows that canines may be brainier than we think. 07.08.2008

74. Musical Scales Mimic the Sound of Language

The harmonics of human vocalization may generate the frequencies used in music. 01.14.2008

Birds Navigate Using Magnetic Compass-Vision

Combined with a GPS beak, it leads them on marathon migrations. 10.30.2007

Pavlovian Cockroaches Learn Like Dogs (and Humans)

Training bugs may help us understand our own brains. 09.05.2007

Raw Data: The Ancient Chimp Stone Age

Chimps created tools like humans' over 4,000 years ago. 05.23.2007

Lingua Franca

What your dog says when it barks. 04.12.2007

Not So Fast, Einstein

Human brain evolution seems to be slowing. 04.11.2007

Speaking Songbird

A human speech gene is found in other sonically skilled animals: songbirds, hummingbirds, bats, and dolphins. 03.07.2007

Speaking Songbird

A human speech gene is found in other sonically skilled animals: songbirds, hummingbirds, bats, and dolphins. 02.19.2007

Why Fathers Know Best

Babies aren't the only ones with developing brains. 11.21.2006

The Battle for #2 in Primate IQ

Who is our smartest relative? 11.10.2006

Your Color Gives You Away

Meet the emotionally naked ape. 06.25.2006

Drowsy Drosophila

Do arthropods dream of eclectic sweets? 06.08.2006

Relax And Think Like A Rat

People and animals learn best when given breaks between tasks. 05.28.2006

Secrets Of Bat Machismo

In some species, a successful male doesn't need much of a brain. 05.28.2006

Nemo Goes To College

Nemo Goes to College 04.27.2006

Midnight Ramblers

Night helps birds navigate earth's magnetic field. 04.07.2006

Dead Resolutions

Why the brain can't break habits. 01.19.2006

Biologists Crack Code of Chickadee Song

Biologists Crack Code of Chickadee Song 10.24.2005

Big Blue to Build a Brain

Big Blue to Build a Brain 09.09.2005

School of Flock

05.01.2005

What Do Animals Think?

Temple Grandin says animals think like autistic humans. She should know 05.01.2005

Stalking Spiders

Tarantulas reveal intriguing mammal-like behaviors, says a scientist who cares enough to study them (not to mention keep 500 of them alive in his lab) 02.05.2004

Zoology

01.02.2004

Artistic Neurons

11.10.2003

Through the Eye of an Octopus

An exploration of the brainpower of a lowly mollusk 10.01.2003

Neuroscience

01.01.2003

We're Not Dead Yet

01.01.2003

Works in Progress

How do migrating birds know where to go? 12.01.2002

Linguistics

Year In Science 01.13.2002

Biology

Year In Science 01.13.2002

Rat Dreams

Oh great—now we'll have rat psychologists 10.01.2001

Hairy Calculators

06.01.2000

Landlubber Genes

05.01.2000

Baywatch

They're sexy, smart, sociable, playful, fast, and very independent--no wonder biologist Randall Wells has spent more than 30 years spying on bottlenose dolphins 03.01.2000

Let Sleeping Dogs Arise

The discovery of an abnormal gene in narcoleptic pooches may soon lead to relief for millions of people who suffer from chronic insomnia 02.01.2000

Morals, Apes, and Us

Can animals learn to share, cooperate, punish, and show empathy? 02.01.2000

Polly Wanna Ph.D.?

How smart can an animal get? Ask Irene Pepperberg's parrots. They'll be glad to discuss the subject with you 01.01.2000

Eye of the Beast

The next time a panther stares you down, just try to imagine what the world looks like from its point of view 12.01.1999

Brain Jogging

06.01.1999

Octoplay

11.01.1998

Bird Brains

08.01.1998

The Year in Science: Earth 1997

His Chickens Quail 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Genetics 1997

Loner Mice 01.01.1998

Dolphin Monkeys

12.01.1997

Quantum Honeybees

How could bees of little brain come up with anything as complex as a dance language? 11.01.1997

Are We in Anthropodenial?

To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us. 07.01.1997

A Head for Numbers

Everybody has one--even rats and pigeons, to say nothing of people. The ability to grasp small numbers and map them onto a number line in the brain is an evolutionary birthright of ours. Arithmetic, of course, is another matter. 07.01.1997

The Tarzan Syndrome

Only apes, it seems, alone among all the animals, can truly distinguish themselves fromt he world around them. But only the naked apes, apparently, can conceive of not just self but other. 11.01.1996

The Fake Smell of Death

Novel chemicals may help teach dogs to sniff out corpses, drugs, and bombs. 03.01.1996

Apes of Wrath

08.01.1995

A Cult of Proteins

02.01.1995

Dog-eared

07.01.1994

The Young and the Reckless

Every day young primates leave the comfort of home to live through weeks and months of abuse at the hands of beastly strangers. Why in the world do they--and we--do it? 03.01.1993

What's Love Got to Do With It

Sex among our closest relatives is a rather open affair. 06.01.1992