TODAY'S NEWS

Moscow Cats Theatre: Yuri Kuklachev and one of his 26 trained feline friends. (By Seth Wenig -- Reuters)

A Little Help

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· When do people learn to help others?

A new study shows that toddlers as young as 18 months are altruistic, being helpful just to be nice.

The experiment conducted for this study was pretty simple: Researcher Felix Warneken hung towels using clothespins while young children watched. Oops, he dropped a clothespin. Video shows a baby glancing at Warneken and the dropped pin before quickly crawling over, grabbing the pin and eagerly handing it to him.

Warneken never asked for the help and didn't even say "thank you." After all, altruism means helping with no expectation of anything in return.

Over and over, whether Warneken dropped clothespins or knocked over a stack of books or lost a marker he was going to write with, each of 24 toddlers in the study repeatedly helped within seconds.

The desire to help is a uniquely human trait. We donate to charity, recycle for the environment, give up a prime subway seat to an older person. None of those things gives us much benefit beyond feeling good about helping others.

Other animals are skilled at cooperating, too, but most often do so for a goal, such as banding together to chase down food or protect against predators.

So, whom have you helped today?

New Cats, Old Tricks

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· Can you imagine cats doing handstands or balancing balls on their noses? Well, Russian clown Yuri Kuklachev has 26 cats doing those and other tricks as part of Moscow Cats Theatre, being performed in New York City.

Kuklachev started working with cats 30 years ago when he adopted a stray kitten. The trick to training cats is understanding that they will do only what they want to do.

"If the cat likes to sit, you can't force her to do anything else," he said.