Driving us over a Cliff

Specificity of learning: why infants fall over a veritable cliff.

Nine-month-old infants were tested at the precipice of safe and risky gaps in the surface of support. Their reaching and avoidance responses were compared in two postures, an experienced sitting posture and a less familiar crawling posture. The babies avoided reaching over risky gaps in the sitting posture but fell into risky gaps while attempting to reach in the crawling posture. This dissocia...

Who Will Lead the Unsuspecting Lemmings Over the Cliff?

A~STRACT THESTUDY AND wpom BY THE BENTONFOUNDATION relies heavily on information supplied by the general public, which has already shown in previous contacts its total inability to select among alternatives, to rank order, and to relate desires to funding options. This information is then compared to recommendations made by representatives of organizations identified as library “leaders.” Howev...

Cliff hangers

The peregrine falcon holds a special place in the minds of environmentalists and conservation biologists. The crash in its population throughout the 1950s and 60s was linked to the rapidly increasing use of agricultural organochlorine pesticides which led to a thinning of the birds’ eggshells and dramatic breeding failure. Since the widespread ban on the use of these chemicals, populations have...

Cliff hanger

The asparagus season has recently ended for northern hemisphere crops. Tradition has it that, at the summer solstice, growers stop cutting spears to allow the plant to grow and produce enough resources to generate spears for the next spring’s crop. The plant is becoming increasingly fashionable and production is increasing to meet demand. But the cultivated asparagus has a wild relative that is...

CLiFF Notes