Tag: animals
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Cats’ Social Intelligence and Rapid Image-Word Learning
A recent study reveals that cats can learn image-word pairs faster than 14-month-old toddlers. However, it was the study’s introduction that caught my eye. It summarises a number of cat behaviour research findings, showing that cats have a complex social intelligence. For instance, they can differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar human voices, match voices to…
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Size and Complexity: Why Animals Are the Way They Are
From bone strength and oxygen absorption in larger animals, to the perils of surface tension and poor eye design in smaller ones: just some ideas to consider when studying comparative anatomy and why animals are the way they are. A perfect take on the topic is J. B. S. Haldane‘s 1928 On Being the Right Size. In this…
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The Minds of Dogs and How Pointing Evolved
Recent research suggests that domestic dogs seem capable of displaying a rudimentary “theory of mind” — a very human characteristic whereby you are able to attribute mental states to others that do not necessarily coincide with your own (in a nutshell). Stray domestic dogs, meanwhile, do not display this trait, suggesting that such mental attributes…