At a young age, kids learn that the cookies are still there, even though they have been placed in a jar. And they learn that a car driven into a tunnel will reappear on the other side. 

The ability to represent and to track the trajectory of objects which are temporally out of sight is important in many aspects - and also cognitively demanding. In non-human primates, only the great apes have shown convincing abilities there.

Alice Auersperg and her team from the University of Vienna and Oxford have shown that "object permanence" abilities in the Goffin Cockatoo (Cacatua goffini) equals apes and four year old human toddlers. 

A new solar cell and a photo anode made of a metal oxide has resulted in storing nearly five percent of solar energy chemically, in the form of hydrogen.

The solar cell is simpler than that of traditional high-efficiency triple-junction cells based on amorphous silicon or expensive III-V semiconductors.

Like with cigarettes and alcohol, no amount of awareness campaigns about health risks are needed. People know by now and some choose to do it anyway.

Among Swiss men, average age 20, 91 percent drink alcohol, almost half of whom drink six beverages or more in a row and would be categorized as at-risk drinkers. 44 percent smoke tobacco, and are categorized as at-risk smokers (because they smoke at least once a day) and 36 percent smoke cannabis, where over half are at-risk consumers, using the drug at least twice a week.

University of Leicester archeologists lifted the lid of a medieval stone coffin near the final resting place of Richard III this week - and found a mysterious coffin-within-a-coffin.

Though we have access to a seemingly limitless amount of new music each day, we keep coming back to songs or albums, mostly stuff we liked at college age.

It's common to prefer the familiar - even by college students who may self-identify as preferring new music. People pick familiar with even when they believe they would prefer less familiar music. It's one of the reasons why the Pandora algorithm is regarded so highly. Yet we often hear the complaint that radio stations are playing the same songs over and over - and even Pandora plays the same 50 or 100.

The Canadian boreal forest,  stretching from the Yukon in the west to Newfoundland and Labrador in the east, remains one of the world's great natural treasures.

The ecologically diverse region contains the largest blocks of intact forest and wetlands left on Earth and scientists have found 1 billion to 3 billion nesting birds from 300 species there. Its abundant wildlife and freshwater have sustained Aboriginal communities for millennia.

Hemp (Cannabis sp.) has been a fundamental plant for the development of human societies. Its fibers have long been used for textiles and rope making, which requires prior stem retting.

This process is essential for extracting fibers from the stem of the plant but can adversely affect the quality of surface waters. The history of human activities related to hemp - its domestication, spread, and processing - is frequently reconstructed from seeds and pollen detected in archaeological sites or in sedimentary archives, but this method does not always make it possible to ascertain whether retting took place.

The Muon g-2 team has completed transport of a 50-foot-wide electromagnet from Long Island to the Chicago suburbs in one piece. The move began on June 22nd at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and concluded this week at Fermilab, a 3,200 mile journey - at least the way they did it.

Why such a torturous route? They couldn't flex it. Or twist it. And it doesn't exactly travel well on highways. 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory indoor air researchers have found hazardous levels of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide in a surprisingly large percentage of California home kitchens.

And the most common device for mitigating this indoor air problem — range hoods — vary widely in performance.

In a study ( submitted to Environmental Health Perspectives) of southern California homes which was submitted to Environmental Health Perspectives, Brett Singer group found that a significant portion of residences exceed outdoor air quality standards for several pollutants on a weekly basis as a result of cooking with gas burners. 

Salmonella bacteria is most frequently spread to humans by infected food and as they develop a resistance to one group of antibiotics they are also less susceptible to killing by other, unrelated antibiotics and a biocide used in common household items. 

Researchers have discovered that a common mutation in Salmonella, which makes it resistant to fluoroquinolones, an important class of antibiotics, also allows survival of bacteria in the presence of other antibiotics or the biocide, triclosan. Triclosan is an antibacterial and antifungal agent found in toothpastes, deodorants and soaps.