Now I am really embarassed at my bad grammar! - GGL
Monkeys Recognize Poor GrammarMatt Kaplan
for National Geographic News
July 8, 2009
Monkeys can form sentences and speak in accents—and now a new study shows that our genetic relatives can also recognize poor grammar.
"We were really curious whether monkeys could even detect the common trend found in human language to add sounds to word edges, like adding 'ed' in English to create the past tense," said lead study author Ansgar Endress, a linguist at Harvard University.
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Previous research in cotton-top tamarins had shown that the animals can understand basic grammar, for instance, identifying which words logically follow other words in a sentence.
But that same study, published in the journal Science in 2004, found that monkeys did not understand complex grammar, such as when words in a sentence depend on each other but are separated.
While that study suggested monkeys were deaf to complex communication, the new research shows that tamarins can grasp at least one advanced concept: prefixes and suffixes.
Wordplay
For their study, Endress and colleagues played recordings of made-up English words to a population of captive cotton-top tamarins for roughly 30 minutes a day.
Half of the tamarins were exposed to words with a varied stem but a constant suffix (such as bi-shoy, mo-shoy, and lu-shoy). The other half were exposed to a constant prefix followed by a varied stem (such as shoy-bi, shoy-mo, and shoy-lu).
The following day, individual tamarins were brought into an observation enclosure equipped with an audio speaker and video-recording equipment to capture their behavior. These tamarins were then exposed to more words.
Many of the words followed the same language rules that the tamarins had heard the day before, with half hearing "shoy" as a suffix and half hearing it as a prefix.
However, every once in a while, the researchers would play a recording of an "incorrect" word. For instance, the speaker would broadcast "shoy" as a suffix when it had previously been presented as a prefix, or vice versa.
Mental Machinery
Other biologists who were not aware of the research question were asked to watch and note every time the small mammals turned their heads toward the speaker.
When tamarins were exposed to words that "broke" the rules they had learned, they looked toward the speaker in a startled manner, observers noted.
(Related: "Monkeys Can Subtract, Study Finds.")
The finding is dramatic, Endress explained, because it reveals that our distant cousins seem to have the mental machinery to identify verbal structures like suffixes and prefixes.
The research will appear this week in the journal Biology Letters
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Oldest Bible and Newest Tech
Oldest known Bible goes onlineStory
By Richard Allen Greene
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The world's oldest known Christian Bible goes online Monday -- but the 1,600-year-old text doesn't match the one you'll find in churches today.
The British government bought most of the pages of the ancient manuscript in 1933.
1 of 2 Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.
The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections -- some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.
And some familiar -- very important -- passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said.
Juan Garces, the British Library project curator, said it should be no surprise that the ancient text is not quite the same as the modern one, since the Bible has developed and changed over the years.
"The Bible as an inspirational text has a history," he told CNN.
"There are certainly theological questions linked to this," he said. "Everybody should be encouraged to investigate for themselves."
That is part of the reason for putting the Bible online, said Garces, who is both a Biblical scholar and a computer scientist.
"Scholars will want to look very closely at it, and some of the Web site functionality is specifically for them -- the ability to search the text, the ability to highlight a word, the degree of detail is particularly interesting for scholars interested in the text," he said.
But, he added, "It's for everyone, really a wide audience, because of curiosity, because they appreciate the value of it."
By the middle of the fourth century, when the Codex Sinaiticus was written, there was wide but not complete agreement on which books should be considered authoritative for Christian communities, according to the Web site where the Codex is posted.
The Bible comes from the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert, where a scholar named Constantine Tischendorf recognized its significance in 1844 -- and promptly took part of it, Garces explained.
"Constantine Tischendorf was in search for ancient manuscripts, so he appreciated the age and value of it," Garces said.
He took a handful of pages to Germany to publish them, then returned in 1853 and in 1859 for more. On that last trip, he took 694 pages, which ended up in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The Soviet government decided to sell them in 1933 -- to raise money to buy tractors and other agricultural equipment.
The British government bought the pages for £100,000, raising half the money from the public. Garces called that event one of the first fundraising campaigns in British history.
Film footage from the time shows crowds of people turning out to see the manuscript, which was considered a national treasure, he said.
Though the Bible has been reassembled online, in the real world it remains scattered.
Most of it is in London. Eighty-six pages are held at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, parts of 12 pages are held at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, and 24 pages and 40 fragments remain at St. Catherine's Monastery, recovered by the monks from the northern wall of the structure in June 1975.
The manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. (A copy held at the Vatican dates from about the same period.) Older copies of individual portions of the Christian Bible exist, but not as part of a complete text.
The Codex also includes much of the Old Testament that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians.
That portion includes books not found in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant tradition as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach.
The New Testament portion includes the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas.
As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of parchment -- prepared animal skin -- each of which measures 15 inches by 13.6 inches (380 mm by 345 mm).
By Richard Allen Greene
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The world's oldest known Christian Bible goes online Monday -- but the 1,600-year-old text doesn't match the one you'll find in churches today.
The British government bought most of the pages of the ancient manuscript in 1933.
1 of 2 Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.
The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections -- some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.
And some familiar -- very important -- passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said.
Juan Garces, the British Library project curator, said it should be no surprise that the ancient text is not quite the same as the modern one, since the Bible has developed and changed over the years.
"The Bible as an inspirational text has a history," he told CNN.
"There are certainly theological questions linked to this," he said. "Everybody should be encouraged to investigate for themselves."
That is part of the reason for putting the Bible online, said Garces, who is both a Biblical scholar and a computer scientist.
"Scholars will want to look very closely at it, and some of the Web site functionality is specifically for them -- the ability to search the text, the ability to highlight a word, the degree of detail is particularly interesting for scholars interested in the text," he said.
But, he added, "It's for everyone, really a wide audience, because of curiosity, because they appreciate the value of it."
By the middle of the fourth century, when the Codex Sinaiticus was written, there was wide but not complete agreement on which books should be considered authoritative for Christian communities, according to the Web site where the Codex is posted.
The Bible comes from the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert, where a scholar named Constantine Tischendorf recognized its significance in 1844 -- and promptly took part of it, Garces explained.
"Constantine Tischendorf was in search for ancient manuscripts, so he appreciated the age and value of it," Garces said.
He took a handful of pages to Germany to publish them, then returned in 1853 and in 1859 for more. On that last trip, he took 694 pages, which ended up in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The Soviet government decided to sell them in 1933 -- to raise money to buy tractors and other agricultural equipment.
The British government bought the pages for £100,000, raising half the money from the public. Garces called that event one of the first fundraising campaigns in British history.
Film footage from the time shows crowds of people turning out to see the manuscript, which was considered a national treasure, he said.
Though the Bible has been reassembled online, in the real world it remains scattered.
Most of it is in London. Eighty-six pages are held at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, parts of 12 pages are held at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, and 24 pages and 40 fragments remain at St. Catherine's Monastery, recovered by the monks from the northern wall of the structure in June 1975.
The manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. (A copy held at the Vatican dates from about the same period.) Older copies of individual portions of the Christian Bible exist, but not as part of a complete text.
The Codex also includes much of the Old Testament that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians.
That portion includes books not found in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant tradition as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach.
The New Testament portion includes the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas.
As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of parchment -- prepared animal skin -- each of which measures 15 inches by 13.6 inches (380 mm by 345 mm).
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Falling into a black hole
It took 100,000 lines of computer code to creat this video! Some people have too much time (and government funding!) on their hands! - GGL
Mississippi Fatties!
Mississippi's Still Fattest but Alabama Closing In
By LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON July 1, 2009 (AP)
Obesity report shows adults continue to pack on pounds in the U.S.Mississippi's still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers. It's time for the nation's annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there's little good news. In 31 states, more than one in four adults are obese, says a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
And obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year, and no state experienced a significant decline.
"The obesity epidemic clearly goes beyond being an individual problem," said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust, a nonprofit public health group.
It's a national crisis that "calls for a national strategy to combat obesity," added Robert Wood Johnson vice president Dr. James Marks. "The crest of the wave of obesity is still to crash."
Related
WATCH: Fat Town, Fit TownWeighing the Fattest and Fittest U.S. CitiesTop American Cities for Spring AllergiesWhile the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds — the oldest boomers — than among today's 65-and-beyond.
The report provides one of the first in-depth looks at obese boomers, and its implications are sobering. This first wave of aging boomers will mean a jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese.
By LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON July 1, 2009 (AP)
Obesity report shows adults continue to pack on pounds in the U.S.Mississippi's still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers. It's time for the nation's annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there's little good news. In 31 states, more than one in four adults are obese, says a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
And obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year, and no state experienced a significant decline.
"The obesity epidemic clearly goes beyond being an individual problem," said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust, a nonprofit public health group.
It's a national crisis that "calls for a national strategy to combat obesity," added Robert Wood Johnson vice president Dr. James Marks. "The crest of the wave of obesity is still to crash."
Related
WATCH: Fat Town, Fit TownWeighing the Fattest and Fittest U.S. CitiesTop American Cities for Spring AllergiesWhile the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds — the oldest boomers — than among today's 65-and-beyond.
The report provides one of the first in-depth looks at obese boomers, and its implications are sobering. This first wave of aging boomers will mean a jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese.
Bikini Clad Babes Control Men's Minds
Like who DIDN'T know that! (But ladies, it isn't our fault, it is our genes!)
Men see bikini-clad women as objects, psychologists say
By Elizabeth Landau
CNN
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- It may seem obvious that men perceive women in sexy bathing suits as objects, but now there's science to back it up.
Images of women in bikinis prompted brain responses in men associated with using tools.
New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.
The research was presented this week by Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses," she told CNN.
Although consistent with conventional wisdom, the way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it's a byproduct of human evolution, experts say. The first male humans had an incentive to seek fertile women as the means of spreading their genes.
"They're not fully conscious responses, and so people don't know the extent to which they're being influenced," Fiske said. "It's important to recognize the effects."
The participants, 21 heterosexual male undergraduates at Princeton, took questionnaires to determine whether they harbor "benevolent" sexism, which includes the belief that a woman's place is in the home, or hostile sexism, a more adversarial viewpoint which includes the belief that women attempt to dominate men.
In the men who scored highest on hostile sexism, the part of the brain associated with analyzing another person's thoughts, feelings and intentions was inactive while viewing scantily clad women, Fiske said. Visit CNNHealth.com, your connection for better living
Men also remember these women's bodies better than those of fully-clothed women, Fiske said. Each image was shown for only a fraction of a second.
This study looked specifically at men, and did not test women's responses to similar images.
A supplementary study on both male and female undergraduates found that men tend to associate bikini-clad women with first-person action verbs such as I "push," "handle" and "grab" instead of the third-person forms such as she "pushes," "handles" and "grabs." They associated fully clothed women, on the other hand, with the third-person forms, indicating these women were perceived as in control of their own actions. The females who took the test did not show this effect, Fiske said.
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That goes along with the idea that the man looking at a woman in a bikini sees her as the object of action, Fiske said.
The findings are consistent with previous work in the field, and resonate, for example, with the abundance of female strip clubs in comparison to male strip clubs, said Dr. Charles Raison, psychiatrist and director of the Mind/Body Institute at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Raison was not involved in the study.
Previous research found that people tend to similarly dehumanize those who are homeless or drug addicts, although the phenomenon in this case is somewhat different, Fiske said. People have reactions of avoidance toward the homeless and drug addicts, and the opposite for scantily clad women.
The broader purpose of the research was to explore circumstances under which people treat one another as the means to an end, Fiske said.
Past studies have also shown that when men view images of highly sexualized women, and then interact with a woman in a separate setting, they are more likely to have sexual words on their minds, she said. They are also more likely to remember the woman's physical appearance, and sit closer to her -- for instance, at a job interview.
Taken together, the research suggests that viewing certain images is not appropriate in the workplace, Fiske said.
"I'm not advocating censorship, but I do think people need to know what settings should discourage the display and possession of these kinds of things," she said.
Both women and men have something to learn from this line of research, Raison said. Women should be aware of how they are perceived when wearing provocative clothing, and men shouldn't let feelings of impersonal sexual longing interfere with their more personal relationships with other women, including female friends. "Many men make foolish choices because of sexual attraction," he said.
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"The suggestion might be that there's some hard-wiring there that can interfere with the average man's ability to interact on deeper levels with really hot looking stranger women in bikinis," he said.
Women may also depersonalize men in certain situations, but published research on the subject has not been done, experts say. Evolutionary psychology would theorize that men view women as objects in terms of their youth and apparent fertility, while women might view men as instrumental in terms of their status and resources, Fiske said.
Another avenue to explore would be showing images of men's wives and girlfriends in bikinis, Raison said. He predicts the objectifying effect would not happen in this context
Men see bikini-clad women as objects, psychologists say
By Elizabeth Landau
CNN
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- It may seem obvious that men perceive women in sexy bathing suits as objects, but now there's science to back it up.
Images of women in bikinis prompted brain responses in men associated with using tools.
New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.
The research was presented this week by Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses," she told CNN.
Although consistent with conventional wisdom, the way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it's a byproduct of human evolution, experts say. The first male humans had an incentive to seek fertile women as the means of spreading their genes.
"They're not fully conscious responses, and so people don't know the extent to which they're being influenced," Fiske said. "It's important to recognize the effects."
The participants, 21 heterosexual male undergraduates at Princeton, took questionnaires to determine whether they harbor "benevolent" sexism, which includes the belief that a woman's place is in the home, or hostile sexism, a more adversarial viewpoint which includes the belief that women attempt to dominate men.
In the men who scored highest on hostile sexism, the part of the brain associated with analyzing another person's thoughts, feelings and intentions was inactive while viewing scantily clad women, Fiske said. Visit CNNHealth.com, your connection for better living
Men also remember these women's bodies better than those of fully-clothed women, Fiske said. Each image was shown for only a fraction of a second.
This study looked specifically at men, and did not test women's responses to similar images.
A supplementary study on both male and female undergraduates found that men tend to associate bikini-clad women with first-person action verbs such as I "push," "handle" and "grab" instead of the third-person forms such as she "pushes," "handles" and "grabs." They associated fully clothed women, on the other hand, with the third-person forms, indicating these women were perceived as in control of their own actions. The females who took the test did not show this effect, Fiske said.
Don't Miss
Study: Experiences make us happier than possessions
Seeing color in sounds has genetic link
That goes along with the idea that the man looking at a woman in a bikini sees her as the object of action, Fiske said.
The findings are consistent with previous work in the field, and resonate, for example, with the abundance of female strip clubs in comparison to male strip clubs, said Dr. Charles Raison, psychiatrist and director of the Mind/Body Institute at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Raison was not involved in the study.
Previous research found that people tend to similarly dehumanize those who are homeless or drug addicts, although the phenomenon in this case is somewhat different, Fiske said. People have reactions of avoidance toward the homeless and drug addicts, and the opposite for scantily clad women.
The broader purpose of the research was to explore circumstances under which people treat one another as the means to an end, Fiske said.
Past studies have also shown that when men view images of highly sexualized women, and then interact with a woman in a separate setting, they are more likely to have sexual words on their minds, she said. They are also more likely to remember the woman's physical appearance, and sit closer to her -- for instance, at a job interview.
Taken together, the research suggests that viewing certain images is not appropriate in the workplace, Fiske said.
"I'm not advocating censorship, but I do think people need to know what settings should discourage the display and possession of these kinds of things," she said.
Both women and men have something to learn from this line of research, Raison said. Women should be aware of how they are perceived when wearing provocative clothing, and men shouldn't let feelings of impersonal sexual longing interfere with their more personal relationships with other women, including female friends. "Many men make foolish choices because of sexual attraction," he said.
Health Library
MayoClinic.com: Friendships: Enrich your life and improve your health
"The suggestion might be that there's some hard-wiring there that can interfere with the average man's ability to interact on deeper levels with really hot looking stranger women in bikinis," he said.
Women may also depersonalize men in certain situations, but published research on the subject has not been done, experts say. Evolutionary psychology would theorize that men view women as objects in terms of their youth and apparent fertility, while women might view men as instrumental in terms of their status and resources, Fiske said.
Another avenue to explore would be showing images of men's wives and girlfriends in bikinis, Raison said. He predicts the objectifying effect would not happen in this context
Thursday, December 11, 2008
I knew that I always liked dogs
Most of them at least. The rest of them know who they are! (the yappy little ones, and the crazy junk-yard ones)
Dogs Have Innate Sense of Fairness, Study Finds
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
E-Mail Print Share:
WASHINGTON — No fair!
What parent hasn't heard that from a child who thinks another youngster got more of something? Well, it turns out dogs can react the same way.
Ask them to do a trick and they'll give it a try. For a reward, sausage say, they'll happily keep at it.
But if one dog gets no reward, and then sees another get sausage for doing the same trick, just try to get the first one to do it again.
Indeed, he may even turn away and refuse to look at you.
Dogs, like people and monkeys, seem to have a sense of fairness.
"Animals react to inequity," said Friederike Range of the University of Vienna, Austria, who lead a team of researchers testing animals at the school's Clever Dog Lab. "To avoid stress, we should try to avoid treating them differently."
Similar responses have been seen in monkeys.
Range said she wasn't surprised at the dogs' reaction, since wolves are known to cooperate with one another and appear to be sensitive to each other. Modern dogs are descended from wolves.
Next, she said, will be experiments to test how dogs and wolves work together.
"Among other questions, we will investigate how differences in emotions influence cooperative abilities," she said via e-mail.
In the reward experiments reported in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Range and colleagues experimented with dogs that understood the command "paw" to place their paw in the hand of a researcher.
It's the same game as teaching a dog to "shake hands."
Those that refused at the start — and one border collie that insisted on trying to herd other dogs — were removed. That left 29 dogs to be tested in varying pairs.
The dogs sat side-by-side with an experimenter in front of them. In front of the experimenter was a divided food bowl with pieces of sausage on one side and brown bread on the other.
The dogs were asked to shake hands and each could see what reward the other received.
When one dog got a reward and the other didn't, the unrewarded animal stopped playing.
When both got a reward all was well.
One thing that did surprise the researchers was that — unlike primates — the dogs didn't seem to care whether the reward was sausage or bread.
Possibly, they suggested, the presence of a reward was so important it obscured any preference.
Other possibilities, they said, are that daily training with their owners overrides a preference, or that the social condition of working next to a partner increased their motivation regardless of which reward they got.
And the dogs never rejected the food, something that primates had done when they thought the reward was unfair.
The dogs, the researchers said, "were not willing to pay a cost by rejecting unfair offers."
Clive Wynne, an associate professor in the psychology department of the University of Florida, isn't so sure the experiment measures the animals reaction to fairness.
"What it means is individuals are responding negatively to being treated less well," he said in a telephone interview.
But the researchers didn't do a control test that had been done in monkey studies, Wynne said, in which a preferred reward was visible but not given to anyone.
In that case the monkeys went on strike because they could see the better reward but got something lesser.
In dogs, he noted, the quality of reward didn't seem to matter, so the test only worked when they got no reward at all, he said.
However, Wynne added, there is "no doubt in my mind that dogs are very, very sensitive to what people are doing and are very smart."
-GSL
Dogs Have Innate Sense of Fairness, Study Finds
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
E-Mail Print Share:
WASHINGTON — No fair!
What parent hasn't heard that from a child who thinks another youngster got more of something? Well, it turns out dogs can react the same way.
Ask them to do a trick and they'll give it a try. For a reward, sausage say, they'll happily keep at it.
But if one dog gets no reward, and then sees another get sausage for doing the same trick, just try to get the first one to do it again.
Indeed, he may even turn away and refuse to look at you.
Dogs, like people and monkeys, seem to have a sense of fairness.
"Animals react to inequity," said Friederike Range of the University of Vienna, Austria, who lead a team of researchers testing animals at the school's Clever Dog Lab. "To avoid stress, we should try to avoid treating them differently."
Similar responses have been seen in monkeys.
Range said she wasn't surprised at the dogs' reaction, since wolves are known to cooperate with one another and appear to be sensitive to each other. Modern dogs are descended from wolves.
Next, she said, will be experiments to test how dogs and wolves work together.
"Among other questions, we will investigate how differences in emotions influence cooperative abilities," she said via e-mail.
In the reward experiments reported in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Range and colleagues experimented with dogs that understood the command "paw" to place their paw in the hand of a researcher.
It's the same game as teaching a dog to "shake hands."
Those that refused at the start — and one border collie that insisted on trying to herd other dogs — were removed. That left 29 dogs to be tested in varying pairs.
The dogs sat side-by-side with an experimenter in front of them. In front of the experimenter was a divided food bowl with pieces of sausage on one side and brown bread on the other.
The dogs were asked to shake hands and each could see what reward the other received.
When one dog got a reward and the other didn't, the unrewarded animal stopped playing.
When both got a reward all was well.
One thing that did surprise the researchers was that — unlike primates — the dogs didn't seem to care whether the reward was sausage or bread.
Possibly, they suggested, the presence of a reward was so important it obscured any preference.
Other possibilities, they said, are that daily training with their owners overrides a preference, or that the social condition of working next to a partner increased their motivation regardless of which reward they got.
And the dogs never rejected the food, something that primates had done when they thought the reward was unfair.
The dogs, the researchers said, "were not willing to pay a cost by rejecting unfair offers."
Clive Wynne, an associate professor in the psychology department of the University of Florida, isn't so sure the experiment measures the animals reaction to fairness.
"What it means is individuals are responding negatively to being treated less well," he said in a telephone interview.
But the researchers didn't do a control test that had been done in monkey studies, Wynne said, in which a preferred reward was visible but not given to anyone.
In that case the monkeys went on strike because they could see the better reward but got something lesser.
In dogs, he noted, the quality of reward didn't seem to matter, so the test only worked when they got no reward at all, he said.
However, Wynne added, there is "no doubt in my mind that dogs are very, very sensitive to what people are doing and are very smart."
-GSL
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Oops!
Zoo solves mystery of celibate polar bears
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Puzzled zookeepers in northern Japan have discovered the reason why their attempts to mate two polar bears kept failing: Both are female.
A 4-year-old polar bear sent to impregnate a female polar bear at a zoo in Kushiro was found to be female as well.
The municipal zoo in the city of Kushiro in Hokkaido brought in a polar bear cub three years ago. They named it Tsuyoshi, after the popular baseball outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, and waited until it reached reproductive age.
In June, the zoo introduced Tsuyoshi to its resident bear, an 11-year-old female named Kurumi, and waited for sparks to fly.
But much to the disappointment of zookeepers, Tsuyoshi never made any amorous advances toward Kurumi.
Earlier this month, zookeepers put Tsuyoshi under anesthesia to get to the bottom of the matter. That's when they made their discovery: Tsuyoshi is a female.
Still, the Kushiro zoo plans to keep Tsuyoshi because he -- or rather, she -- has become immensely popular with visitors.
"I have rather mixed feelings, given the need for breeding, but Tsuyoshi is an idol for Kushiro," Yoshio Yamaguchi, head of the Kushiro zoo, told Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Tsuyoshi will even keep her name.
"We will not be changing it to 'Tsuyoko' since it is loved by citizens (by the current name)," Yamaguchi said.
"Ko" is a common suffix for a Japanese female name.
Meanwhile, Tsuyoshi's "brother," who was adopted by another zoo, has also turned out to be female, Kyodo reported
You think they woulda checked! = GSL
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Puzzled zookeepers in northern Japan have discovered the reason why their attempts to mate two polar bears kept failing: Both are female.
A 4-year-old polar bear sent to impregnate a female polar bear at a zoo in Kushiro was found to be female as well.
The municipal zoo in the city of Kushiro in Hokkaido brought in a polar bear cub three years ago. They named it Tsuyoshi, after the popular baseball outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, and waited until it reached reproductive age.
In June, the zoo introduced Tsuyoshi to its resident bear, an 11-year-old female named Kurumi, and waited for sparks to fly.
But much to the disappointment of zookeepers, Tsuyoshi never made any amorous advances toward Kurumi.
Earlier this month, zookeepers put Tsuyoshi under anesthesia to get to the bottom of the matter. That's when they made their discovery: Tsuyoshi is a female.
Still, the Kushiro zoo plans to keep Tsuyoshi because he -- or rather, she -- has become immensely popular with visitors.
"I have rather mixed feelings, given the need for breeding, but Tsuyoshi is an idol for Kushiro," Yoshio Yamaguchi, head of the Kushiro zoo, told Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Tsuyoshi will even keep her name.
"We will not be changing it to 'Tsuyoko' since it is loved by citizens (by the current name)," Yamaguchi said.
"Ko" is a common suffix for a Japanese female name.
Meanwhile, Tsuyoshi's "brother," who was adopted by another zoo, has also turned out to be female, Kyodo reported
You think they woulda checked! = GSL
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