Think you're smarter than a fifth-grader? How about a 5-year-old chimp? Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won. ...more

December 4, 2007

An Abyssinian cat from Missouri, named Cinnamon, has just made scientific history. Researchers have largely decoded her DNA, a step that may aid the search for treatments for feline and human diseases. ...more

November 1, 2007

Washoe, a female chimpanzee thought to be the first nonhuman to acquire human language, has died of natural causes at the research institute where she was kept. ...more

November 1, 2007

Neanderthals, an archaic human species that dominated Europe until the arrival of modern humans about 45,000 years ago, possessed a critical gene known to underlie speech, according to DNA evidence retrieved from two individuals excavated from El Sidron, a cave in northern Spain. ...more

October 21, 2007

'The Best American Poetry 2007,' edited by Heather McHugh (Scribner, $30) ...more

September 16, 2007