DailyDirt: Are You Smarter Than A Dolphin?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We may think we're pretty smart, but animals like dolphins are pretty smart too. For over 30 years, scientists have been trying to determine how smart dolphins really are. Bottlenose dolphins have a brain-to-body-weight ratio that is only second to humans, and they also have a very complex neocortex, the part of the brain that is responsible for traits typically associated with human intelligence, such as problem-solving and self-awareness. Researchers have even found that dolphins have von Economo neurons, which are associated with emotions, social cognition, and the ability to sense what others are thinking. Besides dolphins, people may be underestimating the intelligence of animals in general. Here are just a few links related to animal smarts.

• Recently, divers off the coast of Kona in Hawaii caught video footage of a bottlenose dolphin asking a human for help to get out of a tangle of fishing lines. The dolphin swam up to one diver as he gestured with his hand for it to come closer. The diver removed a fishing hook out of the dolphin's left pectoral fin, and at one point the dolphin had to surface for air, but it went back so that the diver could finish untangling it. [url]
• Dog owners can now figure out just how smart their dogs are with Dognition. It's a web app that lets dog owners record the results of their experiments, which involve playing games with their dogs designed to assess five dimensions of intelligence (empathy, communication, cunning, memory, and reasoning). The data collected from the Dognition project could help scientists better understand the way dogs think and behave. [url]
• Dogs are able to subtly alter the timing, pitch, and amplitude of their barks to produce a variety of sounds that could have different meanings. While humans may have trouble distinguishing between a "food growl" and a "stranger growl," studies have shown that dogs can recognize the meaning of particular barks and growls of other dogs. [url]
• Here are eight other animals that show notable signs of intelligence: Chimpanzees have DNA that is more than 98% identical to human DNA; elephants exhibit self-awareness; cephalopods are curious and have the ability to learn and use tools; crows are crafty; squirrels can be deceptive; dogs can understand people's intentions; cats are extremely adaptable; and pigs can distinguish between familiar scribbles on a screen and ones that they have never seen before. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: animal intelligence, animals, brains, cat, cephalopod, chimpanzee, crow, dog, dognition, dolphin, elephant, intelligence, pig, smart animals, squirrel

DailyDirt: Talking Animals Are Real

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Parrots are well-known as non-human animals that can speak our language with some degree of intelligence, but there are a few other examples of animals that can perform similar feats. So far, the vocalizations of these animals are a bit difficult to understand, but it's clear that there are some non-human species that want to imitate us. Before anyone else says it... I, for one, welcome our new _____ overlords.

• An Asian elephant named Koshik can say five Korean words -- "annyong" ("hello"), "anja" ("sit down"), "aniya" ("no"), "nuo" ("lie down") and "choah" ("good"). This 22-year-old male elephant was born in captivity, and this may be the first time researchers have heard an elephant use its trunk to modify its vocalizations. [url]
• Some dog owners have trained their dogs to speak short English words and phrases. In a few more (hundred) generations of human-directed breeding, maybe we'll have dogs that are fluent in human languages. [url]
• Hoover the seal was famous for being the first non-human mammal to speak recognizable English words. He lived at the New England Aquarium and spoke with a thick Bostonian accent.... [url]
• Beluga whales are sometimes referred to as "sea canaries" because they're so vocal, but now there's recorded evidence that at least one of these creatures can mimic human speech. A beluga whale in captivity didn't actually say anything recognizable, but it made sounds in an audible range of normal human speech -- which is much lower than usual whale noises. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: beluga whale, biology, dog, elephant, intelligence, parrot, seal, smart animals, talking animals, vocalization

Copyright Fight Over GoDaddy CEO Shooting An Elephant?

from the are-you-serious? dept

You may have heard all of the hubbub about GoDaddy's CEO Bob Parsons killing an elephant and putting the video online. Honestly, given the timing (right before April 1st), I had wondered if the whole thing wasn't an April Fools joke. Parsons is known for crazy media stunts -- the more controversial the better -- so I didn't pay that much attention to the whole thing. But now it's getting into areas that we regularly discuss around here: copyright infringement. The video is being reproduced and shown in a bunch of places... and apparently Parsons is threatening people with copyright infringement claims. He's hired BayTSP, one of the companies known for tracking infringement online and sending out legal nastygrams on behalf of clients. The thing is, in most of these cases, people reposting the video almost certainly have a strong fair use claim to using the video for commentary purposes, and the video itself is newsworthy. Part of me actually wonders if these copyright claims are just Parsons trying to stretch the longevity of the controversy a bit more.

Filed Under: bob parsons, copyright, elephant

RNC To Sue CafePress For Helping People Promote Republican Candidates

from the seriously? dept

Apparently, a few years back, the Republican National Committee trademarked its elephant logo, along with "GOP", "Grand Old Party", and "Republican National Committee." And, here we are in an election year, and they're out trying to enforce those trademarks... against people who are trying to support the GOP and its candidates. Paul Alan Levy, from Public Citizen, who is representing CafePress in this case, writes in to let us know that the RNC has threatened to sue CafePress because some users of CafePress have created shirts that include the RNC elephant and the term GOP. You could almost (almost) understand this, if the shirts were negative. But, no, most of them were actually created by people who are Republicans or support Republican candidates. There's also the question of why its threatening CafePress, rather than the individuals who actually used the logo and the term. But, still, in an election year when the candidates seem to be shoving each other aside to try to embrace the online community and its ethic of "user generated content" perhaps someone should let the RNC know that suing the folks enabling your supporters to promote your candidates might not be the smartest move.

Filed Under: elephant, gop, republican national committee, trademark
Companies: cafepress