Do you refer to your dog or cat as “somebody”? As in: When you love somebody that much, you don’t mind if they slobber. In other words, is your pet a somebody or a something? Also, for centuries, there was little consistency in the...
A new book about how animals perceive their environment reveals immense worlds beyond our own. A bee can see ultraviolet light, catfish have taste buds all over their bodies, and manatees use highly sensitive lips to examine nearby objects. Also...
A pheromone in the urine of male mice is called darcin, named for Mr. Darcy, the man Elizabeth Bennet finds irresistible in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (Bookshop|Amazon). Manatees use their sensitive lips to oripulate their environment...
The new book An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (Bookshop|Amazon) delightfully combines scientific writing with a literary sensibility and a gift for vivid similes. It’s by Ed Yong, who won a Pulitzer for...
Chris in Northampton, Massachusetts, and his mother are debating whether you can refer to your dog as somebody? Is it reasonable to say your pet is a someone rather than a something? Strictly speaking, dictionaries define the word someoneas...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle is about animal anatomy, specifically nouns and adjectives formed by combining the name of an animal with another word. For example, what zoologically-related noun is associated with the idea of “a high...