Thomas D. Seeley: Honeybee Democracy

In September of 2010, The New York Times said this about the book and author: What can we learn from the bees? Honeybees practice a kind of consensus democracy similar to what happens at a New England town meeting, says Thomas D. Seeley, author of “Honeybee Democracy.” A group comes to a decision through a consideration of options and a process of elimination. The bees are making a life-and-death decision: where to establish a new hive. Choosing a site that is too exposed, too small or too close to the ground can be fatal. Swarms don’t always do it right, but they do succeed a remarkable amount of the time, with 10,000 or more bees following the advice and signals of a few hundred leaders to re-establish themselves in a new location every spring. Along the way they have to make sure the precious queen, fatter and more sluggish than the others and prone to take a rest stop, is not lost. Read that NYT piece here.

hiving a swarm from a bait hive from matthew smith on Vimeo.

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean

Author Susan Casey spent five years following waves, surfers and ocean scientists. The result is her compelling nonfiction work "The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean," which conveys how it feels to be in the grasp of a sea monster. It is a sequel to her best-selling "Devil's Teeth," about white sharks that terrorize the Northern California coastline. After taking readers into the cold, clear danger beneath the surface, Casey now chases another oceanic phenomenon in a riveting tale that packs the narrative power and dexterity of Richard Preston's "The Wild Trees." She picks up where Sebastian Unger's "The Perfect Storm" ends by blending scientific mysteries with extreme-sport "why-do-they-do-this?" Casey gets closer than any spectator would dare, witnessing famous surfers in action from photographers' vantage points just yards away. Eventually, at a celebrated Maui break, she also shoots down the face of a colossal wave on the back of a Jet Ski.

This was out of the San Jose Mercury; you can find that article here. The Daily Show had Casey on as a guest, below is that interview. Case also wrote: The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks, Women Invent!: Two Centuries of Discoveries That Have Shaped Our World.

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Susan Casey
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The Man Who Turned Taxidermy Into An Art Form from NPR Podcast Talk of the Nation

In Kingdom Under Glass, author Jay Kirk tells the life story of Carl Akeley, the pioneering taxidermist and adventurer who once killed a leopard with his bare hands. Taxidermist David Schwendeman runs his family's 90-year-old studio and describes the techniques and hazards of modern taxidermy.

Download the podcast here.

"To give or not to give: It's all about the brain" from APM's Marketplace

JONAH LEHRER: The first thing to note about giving away money is that it feels really good. For instance, several brain scanning experiments demonstrate that donating to a worthy cause leads to activation in the dopamine reward pathway. It's the same part of the brain that's turned on when we have sex, or eat a slice of chocolate cake. In fact, there is typically more "reward-related" activity when we donate money than we receive an equivalent amount. Giving is literally better than getting, at least from the perspective of the brain. But this generosity comes with a catch. Yes, we have altruistic instincts. Still, these instincts come with some real blind spots. Consider the work of Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon. He told undergraduates about a starving child named Rokia -- she lived in a crumbling refugee camp in Africa. His students acted with impressive generosity. They saw her emaciated body and haunting brown eyes and they donated, on average, about $2.50 to Save the Children.

View the Marketplace webpage of the story, here. Download the podcast here. See also: Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Decisive Moment, the, Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average, (PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST)PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST BY LEHRER, JONAH[AUTHOR]Paperback{Proust Was a Neuroscientist} on 2008

Oliver Sacks Discusses Vision and 'The Mind's Eye' from NPR Podcast Science Friday

Normally the eyes and brain work together in a seamless, intricate system. But what happens when the brain can no longer make sense of visual information? Neurologist Oliver Sacks talks about his new book, The Mind's Eye, and what visual disorders reveal about how the brain processes sight.

Download the podcast here. See also: The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition, Migraine

Searching For Science In A Glass of Beer from NPR Podcast Science Friday

Yeast, hops, grain and water all need to combine with biology, chemistry and physics to make a great glass of beer. Charlie Bamforth, University of California, Davis professor of brewing science and author of the new book Beer Is Proof God Loves Us, offers a toast to honor the beverage.

Download the podcast here. See also: Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: Reaching for the Soul of Beer and Brewing, Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing, Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: Reaching for the Soul of Beer and Brewing, In Keeping with the Wolves, Grape vs. Grain

Oliver Sacks Discusses Vision and 'The Mind's Eye' from NPR: Science Friday Podcast

Normally the eyes and brain work together in a seamless, intricate system. But what happens when the brain can no longer make sense of visual information? Neurologist Oliver Sacks talks about his new book, The Mind's Eye, and what visual disorders reveal about how the brain processes sight.

View the webpage for this particular Science Friday show, here. See also: The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition, Migraine

The Unconscious Toscanini of the Brain (Radio Lab: Sunday, 29 January 2006) from WNYC's Radio Lab by listenerservices@wnyc.org (Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich)

How does the brain produce a thought? Or experience a unitary, whole, synchronized perception of a cup of coffee? For neuroscientists, this is the Mount Everest of questions. We have a look at one possible theory (that a thought is like lots of little neurons singing together in harmony) and then visit neurologist Christof Koch to ask: who conducts the brain chorus? Koch thinks he knows, and he tells us of the cutting edge work of one of science’' great thinkers, Francis Crick...an inquiry which lasted until his dying day.

The Radio Lab story and podcast are here. See also: Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul