Devotees offer prayers during New Year's Day at a Hindu temple in Colombo on January 1, 2025. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

Suat Demir, a 52-year-old parter, smokes a cigarette after finishing his work day in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, October 2, 2025. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

Miniature spring-wound 35-mm film camera in a modified cigarette pack. The Tessina’s small size and quiet operation provided more options for concealment than most commercially available models. (Photo by Central Intelligence Agency)

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.

Elementary school sumo wrestlers compete in the sumo ring during the Wanpaku sumo-wrestling tournament in Tokyo, Japan on October 29, 2022. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

A life-size replica of a Diplodocus dinosaur watches people coming out of the subway in the city center of Bochum, Germany, Monday, August 12, 2019. The exhibition, featuring models of 33 dinosaurs all around the city center, is in Bochum due to the discovery of an 316 million years old dinosaur track found in a stone pit in the city six years ago. (Photo by Martin Meissner/AP Photo)

Shell, which is the replica of the biggest detonated Soviet nuclear bomb AN-602 (Tsar-Bomb), is on display in Moscow, Russia, August 31, 2015. The shell is part of an exhibition organized by the state nuclear corporation Rosatom. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

Two orphaned wallaby joeys enjoy a play date to help them boost their social skills in Australia early July 2023. The rescued joeys are being hand-raised at Aussie Ark in News South Wales. (Photo by Aussie Ark/Cover Images)