A while ago, I searched for a beard trimmer in my bedroom. I spent probably forty-five minutes looking in every likely location at least twice, and every unlikely location at least once. I swore up a storm; the trimmer never turned up. I've played similar games with pants. Our poor memories can seem mystifying, especially when you consider animals.

For the first time, researchers have shown that there is a genetic component underlying the amazing spatial memories of mountain chickadees. These energetic half-ounce birds hide thousands of food items every fall and rely on these hidden stores to get through harsh winters in the mountains of the West. To find these caches, chickadees use highly specialized spatial memory abilities. Although the genetic basis for spatial memory has been shown for humans and other mammals, direct evidence of that connection has never before been identified in birds. Their research, "The Genetic Basis of Spatial Cognitive Variation in a Food-Caching Bird," published Nov. 3 in the journal Current Biology.