The eye is an amazing instrument, but it does not function alone. Even with visual receptors rapidly sending data along the optic nerve, no mental image will form at all unless the brain is properly equipped to manage the input. One data processing feature of the brain enables what is called perceptual stability.

Portions of a primate’s fossilized face and jaw were recovered near Barcelona in 2004.

In American football, the quarterback can hand off the football to a team member, who then may do a handoff to another player. Exciting plays may be put together that combine several handoffs and even a pass downfield to an awaiting player who, hopefully, carries the ball to the goal.

Snowball is a sulfur-crested cockatoo. He’s also a YouTube sensation, as this bird dances by bobbing his head and lifting his feet to a musical beat.

On the heels of President Barack Obama’s March 9 order to use public monies to support embryonic stem cell research,¹ another source of stem cells has become available—blood. Blood would be an ideal supplier for stem cells because it is a renewable tissue and harvesting blood components does not end life.