Jean Balchin • Dec 20, 2017 •
Both chimpanzees and six-year-old children love seeing punishment doled out, even if it costs them, according to a paper published online this week in Nature Human Behaviour. These findings reveal new insights about the evolution of peer-punishment as a means to enforce social norms and ensure cooperation. We know from previous research that humans and some animal species experience … Read More
Alison Campbell • Jan 09, 2017 •
I’m currently supervising a graduate student who’s writing a review of the literature on tool use in wild chimpanzees. This has become a most enjoyable interaction: it’s a topic I’ve been interested in for quite a while now, so the supervision role is an excuse to extend my own knowledge, and it’s great helping the student to enhance their own … Read More
Julie Iles • Aug 12, 2016 •
This Olympic season Michael Phelps has been unmatched as the most decorated Olympian of all time, though there has still been media scrutiny surrounding his ‘glaring’ rivalry with Chad le Clos of South Africa. Professor J Benenson of Harvard University Rivalries like Phelps and le Clos’ have been making a splash at Rio, and close attention has been paid to how athletes … Read More
Steve Pointing • Jul 13, 2016 •
Sometimes it is easy to find science that makes you smile, and this week I feature three interesting and amusing advances by scientists in New Zealand and the UK. Listen live today on 95.0 bFM radio at 12:15 or catch the podcast on-demand. Why thumb-sucking babies get fewer allergies Did you suck your thumb … Read More
Sarah-Jane O'Connor • Mar 14, 2016 •
What do dengue fever, yellow fever, bubonic plague, bovine tuberculosis and West Nile fever have in common? Add to them swine flu, bird flu, SARS, HIV and Ebola and perhaps it becomes more obvious: all are zoonotic diseases – those that have crossed from animals into humans, often with devastating consequences. In 2012, science writer David Quammen tackled the subject … Read More