Rats exploring a new environment do better with a buddy. Scientists measured rats second exploration of a novel space either alone or with another rat. Rats who had a buddy on that second trial were more exploratory, and the effect lasted through a third solo trial. Read more!
One of my fave blogs, GrrlScientist, proposes a squirrel maze as a lovely alternative to the chemistry set as a family science project. I couldn't agree more!
Leave it to two of my science-blogging faves, DogSpies and BuzzHootRoar to bring us the top reasons that dogs hump, complete with animated GIFs. We can all just go home now, science journalism is done.
"Babbling" is the first stage of language development in humans in which infants make sounds that are considered pre-linguistic and practice for future chatting. Babbling has been found in several other animal species (including bats, monkeys and parrots), and now maybe in fish? Turns out that baby snapper (larvae) make "knocking" sounds that adults also use, which function to keep fish together in their schools. Read more here.
I was lucky to attend this year's fantastic Animal Behavior Society Meeting in Princeton NJ. So many amazing talks and ideas and people! Among my favorites were Iain Couzin, James Serpell, Tim Clutton-Brock, Dorothy Cheney and David Whyte-MacDonald.
I storified my live tweets of the talks so you could get a taste of the awesome stuff that was presented:
Day 1: August 10
Day 2: August 11
Day 3: August 12
Day 4: August 13
I also hung with a few fellow science bloggers/twitter peops, like DogSpies, PrancingPapio and @RiceisReal
As a bonus, Princeton is a lovely campus with lots of eastern gray squirrels and rabbits! And somehow I got lucky, two weeks on the East Coast and the weather was pretty fantastic.
Next week: we return to regular programming with cats and squirrels and Friday Faves. Stay tuned!
One academic conference is enough to exhaust your brain. Two might fry it. I'm currently at the Animal Behavior Society Meeting in Princeton, NJ (more on that later). Last week I was at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology meeting in NYC.
For your reading pleasure, I have storified my tweets from the presentations that I attended - Now you can see what kind of cool, amazing science got reported there!
Day 1: August 1
Day 2: August 2
Day 3: August 4
Day 4: August 5
I also spent a few lovely days in Brooklyn, where I got to hang out with DogSpies. I also checked out the Ai Weiwei exhibit at the Brooklyn museum, ate some serious pizza, met with a fellow cat behavior consultant and hung with some friends. I have to love a place that has THIS mural!!
There's an exciting conference happening RIGHT NOW in the UK, the Canine Science Forum (which for the first time, this year, had a Feline Science Forum). Mia Cobb and Julie Hecht (of Do You Believe in Dog & DogSpies fame) are reporting live and storifying their tweets for our reading pleasure!
Guide dogs may be good at their jobs, but maybe they don't exactly know why they are doing them? Dogs are very sensitive to human gaze, and will look at their owners to help them solve a problem, or when they want food. Turns out that guide dogs for the blind still look to their human's eyes when they want a snack.
I love the idea of public contributions to scientific data collection! Recent publications that utilized citizen science include observations of gulls, foxes, geese, lady beetles and beach garbage. Read more about it here!
Turns out that plants are sensitive to noise - but not all noises are treated equally. They are particularly sensitive to the chomping sounds of caterpillars.
DogSpies, one of my favorite blogs, had a busy week! Finding a roaming, unneutered cat, reporting back on the canine science conference and updating us on recent dog-related readings!
One of my favorite blogs out there, Dog Spies, comes through just in time for Friday Faves. How people react when you tell them you study...dogs??????? Is that a science?
YES! Animal behavior/cognition is science!
Image via Dog Spies!
Anthropomorphism impedes our understanding of animal behavior
This fascinating study had 4 and 5 year old children read one of two versions of a story about animals - one with anthropomorphism, and one that used factual language. Results suggested that children who read the story where animals were depicted with human-like traits were more likely to assign human psychological, but not physical, traits to animals later. The Thoughtful Animal at Scientific American tells us more about it here.