Today in Science: Parrots are taking over the world

Science meets inbox July 10, 2023: Smart dinosaurs and their clever descendants, and chemists determine how to roll the perfect joint. Read it all below! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor TOP STORIES Dino Smarts How smart were the dinosaurs? Using fossil CT scans and a database of reptilian and bird brain masses, scientists calculated the likely number of neurons in dinosaurs' pallium, a brain structure that is responsible for advanced cognitive functions and corresponds to the cortex in mammals. They concluded that the brain of a large dinosaur such as Tyrannosaurus rex could have housed two billion to three billion neurons in its pallium, a number similar to that of a baboon. Why this is cool: "It's awesome, quite frankly, to be able to get these numbers for these amazing creatures that don't exist anymore and to be able to add something to the puzzle of what were their lives like … before the asteroid," Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroanatomist at Vanderbilt University and lead author of the new study, told Science magazine. What the experts say: Basing intelligence on the number of neurons may not be enough. Brain architecture–how different parts of the brain are organized and communicate with each other–matters too, says Anton Reiner, of the department of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.   Parrots Everywhere At least 60 of the world's 380 or so parrot species have a breeding population in a country outside their natural geographical range. Monk Parakeets and other species of parrots are in Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and Houston. Red-masked Parakeets live on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. Rosy-faced Lovebirds decorate the palm trees of Phoenix. Parrots are found in Mexico and across Europe and Asia. Some are benign neighbors, others a threat to the local wildlife; some are abundant in their home ranges, whereas others rely on cities as refuges from extinction. How this happened: The pet trade and animal trafficking spread parrots around the world. Because they are smart and adaptable, they thrive in nearly every place they find themselves (Hmm, smart like their dino ancestors?).  What the experts say: "Their presence is not good," says Emiliano Mori, a researcher at the Italian National Research Council. "We can't tell the complete scope of their impacts, but every time we look, there's something new to be discovered." Monk Parakeets nest atop the entryway to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, N.Y. Credit: Ali Cherkis TODAY'S NEWS • The vagus nerve is the key information expressway between the brain and most internal organs. Researchers are now studying how stimulating it might improve mental and physical health. | 4 min read • Sleep deprivation sometimes relieves depression, a new study shows. Bizarre!| 4 min read • The Biden administration has approved a third big offshore wind project, this one 15 miles off the coast of New Jersey, expanding power capacity and jobs.| 3 min read • Important science: How much THC gets from a joint to your mouth depends largely on how the joint is engineered. | 6 min read More News EXPERT PERSPECTIVES • The scientific community is struggling with a "replication crisis" in recent decades, where scientists in fields from economics to physics find it hard to reproduce results from published studies. A new replication agreement system that enables researchers to share their data safely and privately could mitigate this crisis, writes Or Cohen-Sasson, a law and technology scholar at Stanford University. | 5 min read More Opinion If you've been keeping up with this newsletter over the last week, you've learned that an elephant's hot testicles likely protect it from getting cancer, and that there's a chemically ideal way to roll a joint. Who says that not every story is a science story?? Welcome to a new week! Thanks for sending me your ChatGPT stories--some great, some scary! Email me anytime at: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters here. Scientific American One New York Plaza, New York, NY, 10004   Support our mission, subscribe to Scientific American here   Unsubscribe Email Preferences