Among the fish populations that could be harmed by the Xayaburi dam in Laos is the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish, considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the world’s largest freshwater fish. The fish, which grows to 650 pounds and about 10 feet long, is only found in the Mekong River. It is migratory, moving between downstream habitats in Cambodia upstream to northern Thailand and Laos each year to spawn. Some experts fear the Xayaburi dam could block the migration and drive the giant catfish to extinction. (Photo by Courtesy of Zeb Hogan/University of Nevada, Reno)

Once upon a time a myth was born that insects, unlike animals, are just a machines that not capable of learning and survive only based on their instincts. That myth has become the widespread opinion. Of course, this opinion is indeed erroneous, like many other widespread opinions. Let us try to find out which part is a myth and which part is true.

A member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) pose for a picture at a camp in the Colombian mountains on February 2005. (Photo by Frank Piasecki Poulsen)

A cat walks past a Soyuz space ship installed at a museum, at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Tuesday, November 15, 2016. The start of the new Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled on early Friday, Nov. 18 local time. The Russian rocket will carry French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and U.S. astronaut Peggy Annette Whitson. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A man cools off under a pipe of flowing water on a hot summer day in New Delhi, India, May 11, 2022. (Photo by Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters)

View of the work “Divided” (2016), within the visual artist's exhibition “Urs Fischer: Lovers”, exhibited at the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, Mexico 31 March 2022. The sensations and emotions of love and life, as well as the energy and forces that create and wear it down, inhabit “Urs Fischer: Lovers”, the first solo exhibition in Mexico by Swiss plastics artist Urs Fischer. (Photo by Alex Cruz/EPA/EFE)

Visitors watch a California sea lion at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park on Thursday May 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

A Palestinian clown on stilts walks on a street amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Gaza City on November 20, 2020. (Photo by Suhaib Salem/Reuters)