Animals

The hog industry is changing, but, as Hurricane Florence hits, history may be doomed to repeat itself.

• By Emily Moon

A new study lends insight into how domestication of our four-legged companions was steered by interactions with humans and their cultural practices.

• By Lea Surugue

To help animals navigate our fast-paced highway systems nature conservationists have started building infrastructure designed specifically for critters.

• By Sarah Holder

Veterinarians have become an integral part of the humanitarian response to malnutrition in the war-torn country.

• By Andrew Green

Arsenic was long a preservative in the taxidermic process, despite criticism of the method as unnecessarily dangerous. But at least one contemporary scholar has suggested that metabolized arsenic extended the lives of late 19th-century taxidermists by decades.

• By Jack Denton

A giraffe eats on May 3rd, 2018, at the Zoom Torino zoo in Cumiana, Italy, near Turin.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

Lessons in how small gestures can create a safe space for a yes—and for a no.

• By Kitty Stryker

At least one sea creature—the purple sea urchin—appears to pass on the ability to rapidly adapt to a harsh environment.

• By Kate Wheeling

PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.

• By Francie Diep
• Member Exclusive

The California sea lion population in the United States has steadily increased since the early 1970s.

• By Candace Butera

A fox walks through a cemetery at dusk on January 10th, 2018, in Bath, England.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

Chimpanzees and children as young as six will pay to see offenders punished, suggesting justice-seeking behavior in humans has deep evolutionary roots.

• By Kate Wheeling

What chimpanzees on the hunt can tell us about human behavior.

• By James McWilliams

New research suggests canine companions are good for your health, particularly if you're single.

• By Tom Jacobs

Five examples of what some researchers have observed and recorded in the past few decades.

• By Shreya Dasgupta

A new study finds that the populations of thousands of vertebrates, many of which have yet to raise concern, are decreasing.

• By John C. Cannon

New research suggests that the mass extinction event that occurred 66 million years ago spurred something of an explosion of new frog species.

• By Mike Gaworecki

The Kabul Zoo is an oasis of green in a dusty city still lying in rubble. It’s also challenging the international community’s perception of what carrying on with life looks like in a war zone.

• By Ruchi Kumar

Losing breed labels in shelters may benefit the oft-stigmatized dogs.

• By Kate Wheeling

Rats can smell tuberculosis. Dogs can smell cancer. And now they're being trained to save your life.

• By Emma Young

Basically, by scaring the crap out of raccoons (but really we should let the bears do that).

• By Nathan Collins

It can lead men to buy organic carrots.

• By Tom Jacobs

One of his peers calls him a curmudgeon, but human-animal interaction expert Harold Herzog believes the perceived consensus that pets are good for you is overhyped.

• By Rick Paulas

Hey, Wilbur! New research from the U.K. finds horses are aware when a facial expression signals anger.

• By Tom Jacobs