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dr. dolittle | September 23, 2013 Image of male great tit from BBC Nature News.
A new study published in Ecology Letters suggests that shy male great tits build stronger bonds with birds in their own flock. This population of birds has been studied in Wytham Woods, near Oxford, UK since 1947.
In case you are wondering, the team determined "shyness" and "boldness" by capturing birds and placing them in a novel environment for 10 minutes. Shy birds were slow to explore the new environment whereas bold birds explored it quickly. The birds were then tagged and tracked using radio transmitters. The researchers observed that "…
neurophilosophy | May 20, 2010OF all the techniques used by neuroscientists, none has captured the imagination of the general public more than functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The technique, which is also referred to as functional neuroimaging and, more commonly, "brain scanning", enables us to peer into the human brain non-invasively, to observe its workings and correlate specific thought processes or stimuli to activity in particular regions. fMRI data affect the way in which people perceive scientific results: colourful images of the brain have persuasive power, making the accompanying data seem more…