Labrador retriever owners are likely familiar with how persistent their dogs can be in their quest for food, whether begging under the dinner table or stealing a snack left unattended.…
Category: Life
International Women’s Day 2025 – Arianne Harris – Functional Ecologists
To celebrate International Women’s Day 2025, we are excited to share a collection of blog posts showcasing the work of some of the BES community. In each post, they discuss…
Psychological “Noise” May Reveal More About Human Thought Than Expected
Summary: New studies challenge the idea that variability in human behavior, often seen as “noise,” is simply an error to be minimized. Researchers argue that noise provides valuable insights into…
Anxiety and Apathy Affect Decision-Making in Opposite Ways
Summary: A new study reveals that anxiety and apathy lead to fundamentally different patterns in decision-making under uncertainty. Anxious individuals perceive their environment as highly volatile, leading them to explore…
International Women’s Day 2025 – Katie Field – Functional Ecologists
To celebrate International Women’s Day 2025, we are excited to share a collection of blog posts showcasing the work of some of the BES community. In each post, they discuss…
Crickets and flies face off in a quiet evolutionary battle
Hawaii’s male crickets can’t hide from their buzzing boogeymen for long. In just a handful of years, cricket-killing parasitic flies have evolved hearing that’s more sensitive to their prey’s new,…
A Journey into Symbiotic Mysteries – Functional Ecologists
In our new post Kenji Suetsugu, professor at Kobe University (Japan), presents his work ‘Mycorrhizal specialization toward each distinct Oliveonia fungus in two closely photosynthetic Dactylostalix orchids’. He talks about…
Maternal Diet Influences ADHD and Autism Risk
Summary: A large study analyzing over 60,000 mother-child pairs found that a Western diet during pregnancy—high in fat, sugar, and processed foods—was associated with a significantly increased risk of ADHD…
Brain Changes From Early-Life Stress May Be Reversible
Summary: A new study reveals how prenatal infections followed by early-life stress—known as “two-hit stress”—can lead to brain dysfunction and psychiatric-like behaviors. Researchers found that affected mice showed abnormal cerebellar…
It’s axiomatic among environmentalists that plastic packaging is a sustainability disaster. Hard science and life-cycle analysis say that’s not true
Plastic packaging can have substantially smaller environmental impacts—including 70% lower greenhouse gas emissions—compared to other packaging materials, according to a new study. The findings suggest that although there are major…
