ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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Chocolate makes snails smarter Posted: 27 Sep 2012 06:19 AM PDT Chocolate isn't usually on the diet for snails, but when researchers became curious about the effects of diet on memory, they decided to try a flavonoid from chocolate, epicatechin (epi) on the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis to see if it improved the animals' memories. After a dose of epi, the pond snails were able to remember a training protocol for longer and the memories were stronger.

Hummingbirds make flying backward look easy Posted: 27 Sep 2012 06:19 AM PDT Animals that move backwards usually require a lot of energy, so a biologist was surprised when he realized that hummingbirds execute this maneuver routinely. Wondering how hummingbirds perform the feat, he analyzed their flight and the amount of oxygen they consume and found that reversing is much cheaper than hovering flight and no more costly than flying forward.

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