smart

"Don't worry about locking your door, Honey. It's just a stupid bear right outside the car that's used to being around humans and getting fed by them. What's there to worry about?"

Think about that for a moment: a flashlight that shines for as long as you hold onto it. No more scrambling for and chucking away AA batteries. It could have an immediate impact on more than 1.2 billion people -- one-fifth of the world's population -- who, according to the World Bank, lack regular access to electricity.

Stunningly, no one on record has thought to use thermoelectric technology to power a flashlight. But for Ann, peltier tiles, which produce an electrical current when opposite sides are heated and cooled at the same time, were a convenient solution to a friend's study problem.

Scientists have long suspected that corvids -- the family of birds including ravens, crows and magpies -- are highly intelligent. Now, Tübingen neurobiologists Lena Veit und Professor Andreas Nieder have demonstrated how the brains of crows produce intelligent behavior when the birds have to make strategic decisions.

Their results are published in the latest edition of Nature Communications. Crows are no bird-brains. Behavioral biologists have even called them "feathered primates" because the birds make and use tools, are able to remember large numbers of feeding sites, and plan their social behavior according to what other members of their group do.

Graham the ginger tomcat didn't originally belong to Pets at Home, a pet store in Boston, Lincolnshire, UK. He wandered in as a stray a while back, and has shown up every day since. He comes in early between 6 and 7 in the morning, hangs around, greets customers, and quality assurance tests the cat toys in the back. Members of the staff report that sales have increased noticeably since Graham joined the team, making him quite the literal sales cat.

Word is that he's quite satisfied with his salary of food and toys too...