Graycen and Alison talk about The Blob, bird song inception, and rats on wheels! After the break, they talk to CU Boulder chemist Kristina Vrouwenvelder about her work on quantum dots, nano rods, and more. Listen here or on iTunes!
Meet the latest creature taking up residence at the Paris Zoo: The Blob! It’s a slime mold, an excellent puzzle solver, and a bit of a mystery.
- Article: Matt Reynolds, Wired
- Article: Reuters
- Special thanks to Julie Sadino for suggesting this story!
Do birds learn to sing using memories of their parents’ songs? The only way to find out is to use bird inception to implant a fake memory of a different song and see if the birds learn that.
- Research paper: Wenchan Zhao et al., Science
- r/AskScience post
For our Stuart Little megafans out there: our apologies. We don’t know whether mice can drive (although we assume they can wear little sweaters, with a little assistance). However, rats can definitely drive cars, and it is a DELIGHT.
- Research paper: L.E. Crawford et al., Behavioural Brain Research
- Article: Alice Klein, New Scientist
- Article: Scottie Andrew, CNN
Buffs Talk Science 