Apes Capable of 'Mental Time Travel'

A single cue—the taste of a madeleine, a small cake, dipped in lime tea—was all Marcel Proust needed to be transported down memory lane. He had what scientists term an autobiographical memory of the events, a type of memory that many researchers consider unique to humans. Now, a new study argues that at least two species of great apes, chimpanzees and orangutans, have a similar ability
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ScienceShot: Some Young Planets May Be Mirages

Planets emit no light of their own, so observers hunting for worlds orbiting other stars usually detect them indirectly. Now, one such technique has come under fire. The gravity of a planet circling a star in a dusty disk can carve gaps in the disk. But as researchers report online today in Nature, if the disk harbors as much gas as dust, the gas can cause the dust to clump into rings with sharp edges—even in the absence of planets

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Science and social media: a case study

More and more scientists are embracing social media.

Many are on twitter and Facebook, others write blogs and share images using Instagram and flickr.

But what value does this have? Are there any rewards or positive outcomes to be gained by scientists through delving into these relatively new and sometimes scary online platforms?

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