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POPSTouching photos of unusual animal friendships I LOVE the last picture. Sooooo cute.... If they can do it, then so can we BTW, There are more pictures http://letsbefriends.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2004-09-09T21%3A12%3A00%2B01%3A00&max-results=20
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POPS'bizarre mix of mammal, bird and reptile, with very complex sexuality' The fact that the animal has five X and five Y chromosomes is "the weirdest thing about a very weird animal," said Ewan Birney, a co-author on the paper, based at the European Bioinformatics Institute, near Cambridge. "In theory it means there are 25 possible sexes, though in practice that doesn't happen."
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POPSOne World, Many Minds: Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom In recent decades scientists have cast aside a linear, sequential view of brain evolution in which the human brain incorporates components resembling the brains of modern fishes, amphibians, reptiles and birds and have adopted a new view of divergently branching brain and mind evolution. Substantial cognitive abilities have evolved multiple times, based on differing neural substrates—including the mental agility that enables us humans to decipher brain evolution and its meaning
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POPSThinking the way animals do
Temple Grandin Ph.D. is an assistant professor of animal behaviour at Colorado State Uni. She suffers from a form of autism, and describes the way she thinks as thinking in pictures. This has helped her understand the way Animals think, with direct association, rather than a logical process. A significant statement which can apply to most people, is the fact that originally as far as she was aware everybody thought the same way. Until she asked people and found this was not the case. She describes a radio station person who said she had no pictures, in her mind, but thought in terms of emotions or words. I'm sure I can understand my dogs. They seem to think in a manner that is simple, and straightforward, it can just be a matter of associating cues with behavior, and remembering Pavlov. I think in Pictures and sounds. There is music I can 'hear' in my mind that not only has the same 'quality' as the original, but there is a remarkable capacity to edit. Perhaps something like Auti
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POPSUnchain your dogs Lots of information at the source. Photos that will break your heart. :( Unchain your dog, please.
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POPSThink Animals Don't Think Like Us? Think Again "By implication, a vast world of animal cognition exists out there, not just in African Grey parrots but in other creatures, too. It is a world largely untapped by science. Clearly, animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know. That, essentially, was what Alex (and a growing number of research projects) taught us. He taught us that our vanity had blinded us to the true nature of minds, animal and human; that so much more is to be learned about animal minds than received doctrine allowed. No wonder Alex and I faced so much flak!" From Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process, by Irene Pepperberg.
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POPSAnimal senses humans don't have You might think you're smart, but none of your senses rival the keenest abilities in the animal world. Animals see in the dark, sniff prey miles away, and detect electrical output from muscle twitches in hidden meals. Read on, so you don't become one of those meals.<<
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POPSBisexual Species: Unorthodox Sex in the Animal Kingdom Nevertheless, the study of homosexual activity in diverse species may elucidate the evolutionary origins of such behavior. Researchers are now revealing, for example, that animals may engage in same-sex couplings to diffuse social tensions, to better protect their young or to maintain fecundity when opposite-sex partners are unavailable—or simply because it is fun. These observations suggest to some that bisexuality is a natural state among animals, perhaps Homo sapiens included, despite the sexual-orientation boundaries most people take for granted. “ the categories of gay and straight are socially constructed,” Anderson says.
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POPSThe Possibility of Impossible cultures Heuser suggests that only humans have evolved four computational capacities, constituting a phylogenetic mind gap between humans and other animals. An important perspective, go read all of it