Tag: Science

When the U.S. wrestler and actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was in his prime, his Body Mass Index (BMI) was around 33 kg/m², technically ‘obese’ by World Health Organization (WHO) standards. Yet no one watching him could call him unhealthy. This paradox is one glimpse of how numbers alone can’t be used to define good...

At first glance, the photograph looks like a scene from a science-fiction film or one of those viral, digitally altered images. A woman lies calm on an operating table under bright white lights, a headset snug over her ears. But it’s real and was taken inside a hospital in New Delhi more than a year...

Many scientists believe at least some animals can have problems that are similar to human mental health disorders. We can’t ask them how they feel, so we look for changes in behaviour, body chemistry, and brain activity that match what we see in stressed or unwell humans. Some companion animals make for clear examples. Some...

Animals often meet the same threats across generations. A central question in biology is whether experience with a threat can be passed from parents to offspring in a way that changes the latter’s behaviour. In the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, one such experience is learning to avoid a dangerous bacterium called Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PA14. Previous...