, Columnist
Science You Might Have Missed in 2017
Birds barter shrewdly, jellyfish sleep brainlessly, and researchers raise their statistical standards.
The strategist.
Photograph: Arterra/UIG via Getty ImagesThis year it was easy for any story about science or nature to get, quite literally, eclipsed. When the world wasn’t fixated on the total solar eclipse that traversed the continental U.S., scientists were making headlines by marching through major U.S. cities.
But there were many other important if less publicized events, ideas, trends, problems and discoveries in 2017. Take, for one, an announcement in July that strongly suggested ravens were capable of cause-and-effect reasoning, planning ahead and skilled bartering.