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Crows make monkeys out of chimps in mental test

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:25:09 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: To investigate further, the team presented the crows with a wooden table, divided into two compartments. A treat was at the end of each compartment, but in one, it was positioned behind a rectangular trap hole. To get the snack, the crow had to consistently choose to retrieve food from the compartment without the hole.

A recent study of great apes found they could not transfer success at the trap-tube to success at the trap-table. The three crows could, however.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Crows seem to be able to use causal reasoning to solve a problem, a feat previously undocumented in any other non-human animal, including chimps.

Corvus moneduloides (Image: Pawel Ryszawa/Wikimedia Commons)" />

A choice morsel of food was placed in a horizontal Perspex tube, which also featured two round holes in the underside, with Perspex traps below.

For most of the tests, one of the holes was sealed, so the food could be dragged across it with a stick and out of the tube to be eaten. The other hole was left open, trapping the food if the crows moved it the wrong way.

Three of the crows solved the task consistently, even after the team modified the appearance of the equipment. This suggested that these crows weren't using arbitrary features – such as the colour of the rim of a hole – to guide their behaviour. Instead they seemed to understand that if they dragged food across a hole, they would lose it.

Tags: crow, animals, intelligence

"French Prints Show the Year 2000 (1910)

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:45:14 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly

Clip Source: www.paleofuture.com

French Prints Show the Year 2000 (1910)

Flying Firemen

The National Library of France (BnF) has an amazing collection of prints from 1910 which depict life in the year 2000. They are credited to Villemard.

Car Shoes

The Barber

The Avenue of the Opera

A Curiosity

The Electric Train From Paris to Beijing

A Rescue

Speak to the Caretaker

Sentinel Advanced in the Helicopter

Cyclist Scouts

Phonographic Message

One For the Road

Lady In Her Bathroom

Heating With Radium

Hearing The Newspaper

Correspondence Cinema

Cars of War

Building Site

At School

A Festival of Flowers

A Chemical Dinner

Airship On The Long Course

The Tailor

Flying Police

Born Or Made?

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:43:52 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Die-hard liberals and conservatives aren't made; they're born. It's literally in their DNA.

The key is the differing levels of fear that people naturally feel.

People with strongly conservative views were three times more fearful than staunch liberals after the effects of gender, age, income and education were factored out.

Fowler said the study added to the growing research suggesting that over millions of years, humans have developed two cognitive styles -- conservative and liberal. Cautious conservatives prevented societies from taking undue risks, while more flexible liberals fostered cooperation.

"For the species to survive, you need both," he said.

Last year, researchers reported that the brains of conservatives and liberals process information differently.

The latest study "does not mean that people can't sit down and think about the issues and come to some logical compromise," Smith said. "What it does mean is that it is going to be hard work."

15 Unfortunately Placed Ads

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:57:51 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Some are not for the faint hearted

Clip Source: www.oddee.com

Ad on the bus reads: "If you don't have GIO Third Party Property Insurance, we suggest you don't hit this bus"

Tags: advertisement, nonesense

When Money and Profit are Gods

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:50:43 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.opednews.com

It is now clear that the unfettered capitalism is supported only to maximize the extraction of wealth (from people and nations) and that any losses will be "socialized" back onto those same victims.

Meanwhile, those mega-financiers who remain standing when the economic tsunami has ultimately passed will definitely be even more concentrated than the current elites are.

The results of that is the unfettered expropriation of wealth and resources. When money and profit are the only consideration, then life (individual's and the planet's) is not even on the radar screen. This was indirectly reinforced by McCain's recent repetition of "the fundamental of the economy are strong." When he tried to elaborate on that, he said that the "fundamentals" he was referring to were the hard work and ingenuity of the U.S. workforce. What that translates into is that the workforce is still there for exploitation.

Tags: economics

Chianti may be the secret to long life

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:24:16 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: From a pharmacy recipe written in 1715, It contains any number of chemicals thaccan rebuild cell damage, and it tastes nice to. Not that I've had personal experience with this Particular Brew .
Two words crossed my mind as I was reading. Of course Mead, the Wine made from Honey, then there is The 'Royal Jelly' that can be fed to a worker be so they can become a queen if the queen is ever Lost. That is bound to have more Kick,

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Rossella Lorenzi

The elixir of life may be a concoction of honey, cherries and secret herbs infused in a full Chianti wine, according to a centuries-old recipe discovered in one of Italy's oldest pharmacies.

The 18th century-old recipe was discovered in an old manuscript found among the shelves of a pharmacy in Asciano near Sienna dating back to 1715.

"My ancestors left several manuscripts with formulas for digestive drinks, but this one struck me because of its ingredients. I knew it had strong scientific basis," says pharmacist Giovanni De Munari, who found the old recipe from behind a small shelf in his Tuscany pharmacy.

Upon finding the recipe, De Munari brewed the beverage, and came up with a "low-calorie, highly digestive alcoholic infusion which tasted delicious."

The main ingredient in the elixir is the Sangiovese grape, which is the soul of Chianti wine. Until the middle of the 19th century, Chianti was based uniquely on Sangiovese grapes.

Fermilab Looks for Visitors from Another Dimension

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:23:50 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The prospect of extra dimensions is fascinating. ET might already be here in a neighbour dimension.

Estimated to cost about $15 million, the MicroBooNE tank would be located near the MiniBooNE detector at Fermilab so that it could observe the same beam of neutrinos. This past June the lab’s physics advisory committee approved the design phase for the project; if all goes well, the detector could begin operating as soon as 2011.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

The detection of extra dimensions beyond the familiar four—the three dimensions of space and one of time—would be among the most earth-shattering discoveries in the history of physics.

Now scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., are designing a new experiment that would investigate tantalizing hints that extra dimensions may indeed exist.

Last year researchers involved in Fermilab’s MiniBooNE study, which detects elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos, announced that they had found a surprising anomaly.

The mystery has focused attention on an intriguing and very unconventional hypothesis: a fourth kind of neutrino may be bouncing in and out of extra dimensions.

String theorists, who seek to unify the laws of gravity with those of quantum mechanics, have long predicted the existence of extra dimensions.

Tags: physics, extra dimensions, neutrinos

It's Time for Science and Reason

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:42:59 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

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