David Stipp’s “Why Rats Laugh & Jellyfish Sleep” is a breezy ode to nature’s long game. The respected science expert’s beautifully written book celebrates the adaptive ingenuity of animals whose ...

Rats have what appears to be a “laugh centre” in their midbrain that is activated when the animals are tickled or when they engage in play behaviours. Researchers first discovered that rats could ...

Now that we know octopi like to play with cameras, it’s time to investigate other forms of animal play. Did you know that rats laugh when you tickle them? This ...

One study found that rats emitted ultrasonic vocalizations when they were subjected to manual somatosensory stimulation, i.e., tickling. The results of this controversial research were published in ...

If you tickle a rat's belly, it squeals with laughter. However, we are unable to perceive this laughter as its frequency, around 50 kHz, exceeds the range of human hearing. Neuroscientist Jaak ...

If you think laughter and comedy are reserved strictly for humans, you’d be wrong. A study in the late 1990s showed that creatures like rats emit ultrasonic vocalizations while playing with or ...

If you think laughter and comedy are reserved strictly for humans, you’d be wrong. A study in the late 1990s showed that creatures like rats emit ultrasonic vocalizations while playing with or ...