As he works, the calls of hornbills echo through the forest and colonies of fruit bats flap among the banyans and teak trees.

BBC: The perfect trip: Thailand��s islands

Dusk falls and he shuts up shop, swings a leg over his battered bicycle and pedals away down the road, as reggae music drifts out from an open doorway, and a troupe of fruit bats traces lazy circles in the twilight.

BBC: The perfect trip: The Seychelles

Among the rental items: a two-meter-long snake, an orangutan and some lizards and tarantulas. (The island is home to such creatures as pythons, macaques and fruit bats.) While the castaways need to be mentally and physically fit, wilderness experience isn't a must.

CNN: Have Footage, Will Travel

In his new book Mr Gazzaniga uses animal studies to argue that the brain is shaped by the tasks before it, pointing out that the brains of New World carnivorous bats are more similar to those of Old World carnivorous bats than they are to New World fruit bats, despite these being their closer cousins.

ECONOMIST: Where there��s a will there��s a way