April 11, 2025—Crows have an eye for geometry, the most detailed map of the mammalian brain, and JWST just spotted a planet that fell into its own star.
—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor |
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This planet's orbit decayed over time and it eventually fell into its star. NASA, ESA, CSA, R. Crawford (STScI) |
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- The James Webb Space Telescope observed, from some 12,000 light-years away, the remains of a planet smaller than Jupiter that had fallen into its own star. | 3 min read
- Researchers have created the largest and most detailed wiring diagram of a mammalian brain to date, by mapping cells in a cubic millimeter of a mouse’s brain tissue. | 4 min read
- Fossils confirm the third location of extinct hominins known as Denisovans. The results show how well these human cousins adapted to a broad range of environments. | 4 min read
- A fresh analysis of a decade's worth of Hubble Space Telescope observations shows a day on Uranus is 28 seconds longer than astronomers thought. | 2 min read
- The U.S. formally eliminated measles in 2000, thanks to widespread vaccination, but public health experts fear the current growing outbreak of the disease may allow it to reclaim its hold. | 5 min read
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Contrary to popular myth, crows can be incredibly cute, cuddly and social—and they’re also extremely intelligent, especially when it comes to geometry. Neuroscientists now report that the birds display an impressive ability to tell shapes apart using geometric irregularities as a cognitive cue. These crows could even discern subtle differences, such as those between a square and a rectangle.
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How they did it: First, the crows were trained with treats to identify “outlier” shapes among several others displayed on a digital screen, such as one moon and five stars. As the experiment continued, the researchers introduced more shapes with trickier variations, for example a slightly skewed square versus five squares of different sizes. The crows were able to “peck out” the outlier, without needing additional training—or rewards.
What the experts say: Telling shapes apart based strictly on geometric properties, such as side lengths or inner angles, is a lot trickier than it sounds, says Giorgio Vallortigara, a neuroscientist at University of Trento, Italy, who was uninvolved in the new study. Scientists had assumed such abilities were limited to humans. “I suspect that the origin and the drive for the development of these abilities mainly has to do with spatial orientation,” Vallortigara says. “It could be that, depending on foraging habits or other things, [crows] had more need to develop that [than] other species.” —Gayoung Lee, news intern
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