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How and Why Whiskers Whisk

January 20, 2002

Scientists at Weizmann Institute found some interesting things about whiskers, reports EurekAlert. While working with rats, they noticed that the whiskers are always in motion, twitching and sensing objects around them. They discovered that two kinds of neurons are involved in sending whisker signals to the brain. The “whisking” neurons are active all the time, […]

Amazing Facts

Live at the Improv: DNA Polymerase

January 20, 2002

When a DNA reader hits an unfamiliar line, it improvises, reports EurekAlert: Prof. Zvi Livneh and Ph.D. student Ayelet Maor-Shoshani of the Biological Chemistry Department cut a DNA strand — from the bacterium E. coli — and inserted material similar to that which composes crude oil in between both its ends. As expected, the regular […]

Dumb Ideas

Monkey See, Monkey No Comprendo

January 20, 2002

In 19th century mythology, a million monkeys might type the works of Shakespeare by chance, given millions of years. But monkeys would make lousy computer programmers, because they cannot understand the “if-then” construction. Comparison studies on humans and monkeys showed that while the monkeys could be trained to recognize when one word is followed by […]

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