From wolf rival to human companion, Canis lupus familiaris has mastered empathy, communication, and survival by being the friendliest predator of all.
Tag: animal
Most of us can accept that animal experiments are ok before allowing new drugs on the market. But allowing such animal testing is important even when no specific application is at stake. They are also crucial for understanding complex biological processes to help treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and depression.
Insects like ants heal their fellow species, and they even perform surgeries. Biologist Erik Frank is researching their methods. He believes that humans can also benefit from them.
The violence and anger depicted in films, such as RRR, Pushpa, Kabir Singh, or Animal, prompt contemplation on the underlying reasons for the increasing appeal of such violently toxic masculine representations in Indian cinema.
The species of pig evolved into ultra-resilient, disease-free predators while isolated on Auckland Island that could be a boon for state-of-the-art xenotransplantation, a medical procedure in which cells, tissues, or organs from one species are transferred into another species, which could reduce the need for human organ donors.
Thanks to advances in science, the reintroduction of extinct animal species is now feasible — even inevitable. But beyond possible benefits for biodiversity, these projects raise numerous environmental and ethical dilemmas.
Opening bee skulls. Electric shocks for cockroaches. Some researchers want to grant more invertebrates ethical consideration, questioning long-held assumptions on consciousness.
Boji the dog was giving a good image to Istanbul’s public transportation system. Some wonder if opponents of the mayor exercised the canine nuclear option…
Some may find this story a little hard to gobble.
A Chinese dog meat festival has generated outrage in France. The controversy is a complex dance between animal rights, racism and consumer hypocrisy.
Categories
A Turkish Camel’s Life
My clearest camel memory from this same trip to Turkey 30 years ago was witnessing the millennia-old tradition of camel wrestling. Just a few miles down the road, near the Ancient Greek site of Ephesus, this fellow was in the mood for nothing of the sort.
A dozen dead and mutilated seals, together with a few porpoises, have recently been found on Polish beaches in the Baltic Sea. How did it get to this?
Can a clone have a birthday? Well, let’s just say that Dolly the sheep was delivered 22 years ago on July 5 — the world’s first cloned mammal to see the light of day. The result of a successful cloning experiment at The Roslin Institute in Scotland, the wooly work of science sparked public outcry back in 1996, eventually leading to an extension of the ban against embryo research in the United States. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/-uYYsNf61WA expand=1] Hello Dolly! — OneShot (© Roslin Institute) Fears of cloning linger: Earlier this year, Chinese researchers were busy trying to convince the public that […]
This bio-friendly cattle rancher doesn’t win many friends among either vegetarians or traditional ranchers. But those who eat his ‘no-stress’ beef can taste the difference.
Categories
Ostrich-And-Egg Arithmetic
It took 14 tourists — including my wife and I — to eat a gigantic omelette made with a single ostrich egg. But when it came to riding one at this South African farm, I thought better to let my fellow travelers make fools of themselves!
PARIS — Why does a nation of 75 million share a name with a holiday fowl? Is it mere linguistic coincidence? Some unsolved historical-ornithological riddle? A bad idea for a cookbook? Here is how Reference.com’s dictionary talks turkey: In the 1540s, the guinea fowl, a bird with some resemblance to the Thanksgiving avian, was imported from Madagascar through Turkey by traders known as Turkish merchants. … Then, the Spaniards brought turkeys back to the Americas by way of North Africa and Turkey, where the bird was mistakenly called the same name. Europeans who encountered the bird in the Americas latched […]
NEW DELHI — Wearing orange dresses with matching turbans, a group of folk musicians play tunes on their pungi, also known as been, a traditional flute made from gourd fruit. The audience at Surajkund Craft Fair on the outskirts of the Indian capital is enthralled. Many break into dance. But the musicians themselves don’t look very enthusiastic. “This is not what we want to do; it’s been thrust upon us,” says Badri Nath, 75, who heads the troupe. “But since our original work has been banned, this is all we can do. Whether we are happy or not doesn’t matter.” […]
Wild parakeet populations are expanding in many European cities, where they enjoy the relative warmth of dense urban settings and have easy access to food.
Investigators in Mannheim, in southwestern Germany, have a real whodunnit on their hands, a brutal kidnapping-murder case — but with a twist. The victim is a five-kilogram Humboldt penguin whose lifeless and decapitated body was found last month in a local parking lot. The gruesome discovery came five days after the animal, of South American […]
Categories
One Unfriendly Canadian
Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies varies widely in elevation, climate, and plant life, making it the perfect place to catch (from a respectable distance) an incredible diversity of wildlife in their natural habitat. That was one grouchy-looking bighorn sheep. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
Categories
A Pelican’s Pause
When the famous pelicans of Mykonos get tired of all the attention, do they take a break and fly down to the calmer shores of Cyprus? See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Categories
Sorry, Monkey
Sorry, little spider monkey of Crococun zoo, near Cancun: My favorite zoo is still Hamburg’s Tierpark Hagenbeck. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Peter Wohlleben wrote an unlikely bestseller about trees. Now the lifelong forester explores the spiritual side of animals.
Categories
Praying Primate
Not only is the Swayambhunath shrine near Kathmandu fascinating, it’s also swarming with monkeys — some more pious than others.
Categories
That’s It, I’m Leaving
This Galapagos marine iguana looks like he was just fed up with living on a volcanic archipelago.
Categories
Change Of (Marine) Life
The owners of SeaWorld San Diego bought Los Angeles’ Marineland of the Pacific in early 1987 before suddenly closing it. That meant all the animals had to be transferred to San Diego. A year later, when we went to see them, Corky the killer whale had been renamed “Shamu.”
Categories
Exotic Taste
I can’t say we always knew for sure what was on our plate when we toured China in the mid-1990s. Grilled scorpions, grasshoppers, we tried it all — probably one of these big rodents too, on sale for consumption in Guangzhou’s street market.
A 19-year-old has died from machete injuries in north-central Colombia, after trying to stop a drunken man who appeared set to decapitate a dog with the same machete. The alleged killer has been arrested. The attack occurred Saturday night when Miguel Ángel Palacio Montoya and his brother approached a man taunting a dog with his […]
Categories
The Lion’s Share
We haven’t seen much of Sub-Saharan Africa over the course of our travels, except for Zimbabwe, Swaziland and South Africa, where I took this picture, in one of the continent’s largest game reserves. This lion was feeding on giraffe remains by the side of the road. As grim as it sounds, there is something about […]
Categories
The Llama Guarantee
There are llamas and alpacas everywhere in Peru. Contrary to what people may think, they are very docile creatures and their infamous bouts of spitting are apparently quite rare. More to the point, both animals produce high-quality wool, which I can attest to: The bedspread I bought in Peru on this trip is still as […]
DAILY MAIL, BBC NEWS, THE GUARDIAN (U.K.) Worldcrunch British Police are investigating reports on Monday of a lion on the loose in the southeastern county of Essex, near the village of St. Osyth. Residents of #stosyth are advised to enjoy the bank holiday Monday but to be cautious. Officers still in the area conducting searches […]