As I have always believed.
Hey folks,
Today in the Health and Science Segment, I really want to talk about something different. This is not new here, I've talked about this before. I LOVE Animals. Truth is, I like animals more than I like most people. No offence to anyone in particular. Just a fact. Animals have no alternative agendas. They love you. You love them. They want nothing from you other than the basics. They will love you till death.
I have had many animals over my lifetime. Dogs, Cats, Birds, Fish, Ginnie Pigs, Hamsters, Ferrets, and even a Chinchilla at one point. You know what I have discovered in all these cases? They all have emotions, and they all have personalities. None of the animals I have had the pleasure of living with were the same.
Right now, I have two Cats. "Jumpy" for obvious reasons, and "Winks" because she actually winks at you. Jumpy just wants to play. Run around playing with this or that. The slightest noise and she is out to investigate it. If I leave the Porch door open and a Lizard goes by, she will get it and bring it right back in. She rarely wants to be petted or bothered. She is happy on her own. Winks? Winks is a lover. She will hop on my chair arm when I'm sitting there and raise one paw and make a petting type motion. If I start petting her, she comes onto my lap and enjoys her message. They both know where the food is and will take you right there to get it when they get hungry. They also both beg when you are cooking something. They both show their emotions quite clearly.
So whenever I see something like this, it just fascinates me. According to the AP - Bird experiment shows Aesop's fable may be true By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer – Thu Aug 6, 12:06 pm ET
NEW YORK – From the goose that laid the golden egg to the race between the tortoise and the hare, Aesop's fables are known for teaching moral lessons rather than literally being true. But a new study says at least one such tale might really have happened.
It's the fable about a thirsty crow. The bird comes across a pitcher with the water level too low for him to reach. The crow raises the water level by dropping stones into the pitcher. (Moral: Little by little does the trick, or in other retellings, necessity is the mother of invention.)
Now, scientists report that some relatives of crows called rooks used the same stone-dropping strategy to get at a floating worm. Results of experiments with three birds were published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology.
Rooks, like crows, had already been shown to use tools in previous experiments.
Christopher Bird of Cambridge University and a colleague exposed the rooks to a 6-inch-tall clear plastic tube containing water, with a worm on its surface. The birds used the stone-dropping trick spontaneously and appeared to estimate how many stones they would need. They learned quickly that larger stones work better.
In an accompanying commentary, Alex Taylor and Russell Gray of the University of Auckland in New Zealand noted that in an earlier experiment, the same birds had dropped a single stone into a tube to get food released at the bottom. So maybe they were just following that strategy again when they saw the tube in the new experiment, the scientists suggested.
But Bird's paper argued there's more to it: The rooks dropped multiple stones rather than just one before reaching for the worm, and they reached for it at the top of the tube rather than checking the bottom.
The researchers also said Aesop's crow might have actually been a rook, since both kinds of birds were called crows in the past.
Folks we see this sort of thing all the time. I remember a friend of my, Bill, told me that he was sitting at a park when he heard something moving in the garbage bin. He watched for a second and he saw a big Raccoon come out holding a Fast Food bag. He said, "Pete, I swear this is true. The Coon then looked in the bag, closed it, put in in his mouth and just wonder away into the woods. It was as if he was checking his order."
I remember watching two Raccoons working hard at attempting to figure out how to open my garbage can one night. They worked on it for a good 15 minutes. Then, not wanting to clean the mess, I scared them off.
I know, I know, a lot of people look at animals as nothing more than creatures that have no reasoning abilities, nor problem solving higher intelligence. Some think that they have no memories, nor are they self aware. I beg to differ. I may be wrong. I in no way claim to be an expert in anyway. But from my own personal experience, animals are far more than just mindless, Soulless creatures.
Peter
Sources:
AP - Bird experiment shows Aesop's fable may be true
Hey folks,
Today in the Health and Science Segment, I really want to talk about something different. This is not new here, I've talked about this before. I LOVE Animals. Truth is, I like animals more than I like most people. No offence to anyone in particular. Just a fact. Animals have no alternative agendas. They love you. You love them. They want nothing from you other than the basics. They will love you till death.I have had many animals over my lifetime. Dogs, Cats, Birds, Fish, Ginnie Pigs, Hamsters, Ferrets, and even a Chinchilla at one point. You know what I have discovered in all these cases? They all have emotions, and they all have personalities. None of the animals I have had the pleasure of living with were the same.
Right now, I have two Cats. "Jumpy" for obvious reasons, and "Winks" because she actually winks at you. Jumpy just wants to play. Run around playing with this or that. The slightest noise and she is out to investigate it. If I leave the Porch door open and a Lizard goes by, she will get it and bring it right back in. She rarely wants to be petted or bothered. She is happy on her own. Winks? Winks is a lover. She will hop on my chair arm when I'm sitting there and raise one paw and make a petting type motion. If I start petting her, she comes onto my lap and enjoys her message. They both know where the food is and will take you right there to get it when they get hungry. They also both beg when you are cooking something. They both show their emotions quite clearly.
So whenever I see something like this, it just fascinates me. According to the AP - Bird experiment shows Aesop's fable may be true By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer – Thu Aug 6, 12:06 pm ET
NEW YORK – From the goose that laid the golden egg to the race between the tortoise and the hare, Aesop's fables are known for teaching moral lessons rather than literally being true. But a new study says at least one such tale might really have happened.It's the fable about a thirsty crow. The bird comes across a pitcher with the water level too low for him to reach. The crow raises the water level by dropping stones into the pitcher. (Moral: Little by little does the trick, or in other retellings, necessity is the mother of invention.)
Now, scientists report that some relatives of crows called rooks used the same stone-dropping strategy to get at a floating worm. Results of experiments with three birds were published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology.
Rooks, like crows, had already been shown to use tools in previous experiments.
Christopher Bird of Cambridge University and a colleague exposed the rooks to a 6-inch-tall clear plastic tube containing water, with a worm on its surface. The birds used the stone-dropping trick spontaneously and appeared to estimate how many stones they would need. They learned quickly that larger stones work better.
In an accompanying commentary, Alex Taylor and Russell Gray of the University of Auckland in New Zealand noted that in an earlier experiment, the same birds had dropped a single stone into a tube to get food released at the bottom. So maybe they were just following that strategy again when they saw the tube in the new experiment, the scientists suggested.
But Bird's paper argued there's more to it: The rooks dropped multiple stones rather than just one before reaching for the worm, and they reached for it at the top of the tube rather than checking the bottom.
The researchers also said Aesop's crow might have actually been a rook, since both kinds of birds were called crows in the past.
Folks we see this sort of thing all the time. I remember a friend of my, Bill, told me that he was sitting at a park when he heard something moving in the garbage bin. He watched for a second and he saw a big Raccoon come out holding a Fast Food bag. He said, "Pete, I swear this is true. The Coon then looked in the bag, closed it, put in in his mouth and just wonder away into the woods. It was as if he was checking his order."
I remember watching two Raccoons working hard at attempting to figure out how to open my garbage can one night. They worked on it for a good 15 minutes. Then, not wanting to clean the mess, I scared them off.
I know, I know, a lot of people look at animals as nothing more than creatures that have no reasoning abilities, nor problem solving higher intelligence. Some think that they have no memories, nor are they self aware. I beg to differ. I may be wrong. I in no way claim to be an expert in anyway. But from my own personal experience, animals are far more than just mindless, Soulless creatures.
Peter
Sources:
AP - Bird experiment shows Aesop's fable may be true
No comments:
Post a Comment