Barbara J King

When we think of curiosity in the animal kingdom, chimpanzees, along with elephants and dolphins, may leap to mind first — the species most widely understood to be clever. Intelligence and curiosity go together, after all.

But curiosity expressed by clever cows?

Yes, definitely.

For a new book I am ...

The summer vacation season is upon us. I got an early start today, heading up the road to the Jersey Shore, also known as Springsteen country, also known, to me, as home.

My goal is to have — for a few glory days — no goals! Unless you want to ...

On Monday, the Mars One Project announced that its group of 1,058 finalists for a one-way trip to Mars has been whittled down to 705, based on the results of medical examinations and on personal decisions to drop out of the pool.

Last month when I wrote about ...

Last week, Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, a shaman of the Yanomami peoples who is sometimes called "the Dalai Lama of the forest," visited the United States. Survival International, an organization that fights for tribal peoples' rights, sponsored his trip and invited me to interview him by Skype.

It was ...

In the Atlantic forest of Brazil, a female marmoset monkey — a small, arboreal primate — fell from a tree to the ground, striking her head. This female, known to observing scientists as F1B and as dominant to other females in her group, was severely injured and died two-and-a-half hours ...

Religion is a cross-cultural universal, even though not every human being professes faith in God or some other supernatural being. Those of us who are atheist or agnostic make up 6 percent of the American population. A further 14 percent say they are not affiliated with any particular religion.

"You could say that most people would rather lose a leg than live the rest of their life on a cold, hostile planet, having said goodbye to friends and family forever, the best possible video call suffering from a seven minute delay—one way."

True enough, I thought upon ...

A week ago today, I ate my first crickets.

It was a first step into entomophagy, the practice of insect eating. I wrote about this topic here at 13.7 in January but had never before tried it myself (excluding accidental ingestion of the insect parts often found in peanut ...

On April 3, one week from today, Dr. Jane Goodall, the world-renowned chimpanzee expert and conservationist, will turn 80.

In advance of this milestone birthday, we all have a chance to thank Goodall for her lifelong work on behalf of chimpanzees and other wildlife.

As a scientist, I have ...

Why do little boys tend to behave differently from little girls? Why do boys and girls play differently, for instance, choosing different toys as their favorites?

Ask these questions and you invite a firestorm — of more questions.

Is the premise behind these queries even accurate? Aren't our sons and ...

On March 3, William R. Pogue died in Cocoa Beach, Fla., at the age of 84. An Air Force pilot and astronaut, Pogue was never a household name — but I think he deserved to be.

As the obituary in The New York Times explains, Pogue did something ...

On Tuesday I visited a small public space in New York City, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. I went there to see an exhibit called Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community and to seek an answer to a question I'd pondered ever since first hearing ...

"Without original research or new data, Dominguez-Rodrigo attempts to resurrect 'the spirit of the old savanna hypothesis' via word games and revisionist history ... This attempted resurrection of an obsolete mind-set will stand as a monument to futility. — paleoanthropologist Tim White, in response to prehistorian M. Dominguez-Rodrigo's

I want to thank so many of you who have kindly inquired how I'm doing. Since last spring, I've written three times at 13.7 about my cancer diagnosis.

• Facing Cancer With A Robot Surgeon By My Side (May 2013)
• Is Cancer A Gift? (July 2013)
• A ...

Every now and then, just once in a while, really, someone asks me to do something unexpected and a little bit onerous, something I feel I shouldn't have to do, and I catch myself muttering: "But that's unfair!"

Then, in the next moment, I do two things.

I vow never ...

Like joy and grief, anxiety is something we share with certain other animals.

Chimpanzees and elephants sometimes get anxious. Dogs and cats too. They are aware creatures who — at times — becomes fearful about the bad things that might happen (or happen again).

Those are my conclusions after years ...

Imagine five people out walking together along a river. Three are adults, the other two of juvenile age. As they walk together, they leave footprints in the mudflats.

Eight-hundred-thousand years later, a team of 12 archaeologists led by Nick Ashton of the British Museum and University College London announced ...

The Winter Olympics have begun in Sochi, Russia. Along with millions of others, I'll devote hours to watching the games over the next 17 days. (And when I'm away from the TV, I'll follow the happenings in Sochi via The Edge and On The Road!)

Ever since I ...

Amy Chua is known as the Tiger Mom. Ever since writing a book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother about raising her daughter according to the strict — and very high — expectations of her own Chinese-immigrant parents, she's been a lightning rod for controversy about parenting ...

A few days ago, a friend uploaded to her Facebook page a 30-second video she had found on the Internet. It starred two hens and two rabbits. Idly, I clicked it on:

Filmed by Elizabeth Skinner in her Arizona backyard, the clip dates from 2006 and received a good bit ...