DailyDirt: Gee, Brain, What Do You Want To Do Tonight?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, Sep 6th 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Maybe animals are getting smarter. We've covered how some monkeys have figured out how to take pictures of themselves, and we're learning more interesting things about animal behavior all the time. Here are a few more interesting discoveries that could bring us some damn dirty apes.. and fish and bees and lizards.

There's mounting evidence that fish might be able to use tools. So someday a fish might need a bicycle, like a woman needs a man... [url]
Bumblebees tackle the traveling salesman problem all the time and seem to get pretty good solutions -- perhaps using some of the same tricks that humans use to try to find optimal solutions. Hmm. Do educated fleas do this kind of thing, too? [url]
Lizards from Puerto Rico have passed a cognitive test that was designed for birds. Yoda was right about some advanced cognitive skills: "You must unlearn what you have learned." [url]
To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Filed Under: bumblebees, fish, lizards, monkeys, tools, traveling salesman

10 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2011 @ 5:07pm

Really Ho?
"So someday a fish might need a bicycle, like a woman needs a man..."

and mermaids will rule the world
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Michael Ho (profile), 6 Sep 2011 @ 5:49pm

Re: Really Ho?
Yep, really... :)
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2011 @ 6:17pm

Re: Re: Really Ho?
you're such a ho :D
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2011 @ 6:56pm

One day people may find their dog doing advanced math in the sofa trying to figure it out how to best catch the morning newspaper.

What would happen if another species started approaching human intelligence?

Will some people accept that we are not the only ones capable of reasoning? or will we try to erase those other species?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Sep 2011 @ 12:53am

LoLCats can program too.

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
UP VAR!!1
VISIBLE VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHX
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 7 Sep 2011 @ 1:24am

Cephalopods Are Smart ...
... and smartest of them all is the octopus. It can figure out how to undo a screw-top jar.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Sep 2011 @ 3:07am

Re: Cephalopods Are Smart ...
I still think dolphins are smarter(Life Bottlenose dolphins mud-ring feeding), but crows can use vending machines to get food and they learn how to use it by themselves(Joshua Klein on TED), also some gorillas can speak with humans using sign language(Koko the gorilla).

http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html

http://en.wi kipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)

But Jumbo Squids are just so cute.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 7 Sep 2011 @ 4:18am

Re: I still think dolphins are smarter...
Not smart enough to avoid being eaten by killer whales.

Let�s face it, in terms of animal intelligence, cetaceans are the liberal-arts majors of the animal world.
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Richard (profile), 7 Sep 2011 @ 4:48am

Re: Re: I still think dolphins are smarter...
Not smart enough to avoid being eaten by killer whales.

but humans are no smarter - since we occasionally get eaten by polar bears, tigers etc.

and remember the dolphins did escape the Vogons

so long and thanks for all the fish!
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ben, 7 Sep 2011 @ 1:36pm

So apparently, according to some scientists, rocks used to bang shellfish against, by the fish trying to eat it, DO NOT count as tools because the rock is still mounted on the ground.

We have just discovered anvils are not tools by studying fish!!!!! How cool is that?
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