[{"totalItems":"32,403","totalPages":10801,"currentPage":0,"items":[{"id":"phhg4e\/node\/235422","site":"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/","hash":"phhg4e","entity_id":235422,"entity_type":"node","bundle":"basic_content","bundle_name":"Basic content","ss_language":"und","path":"node\/235422","url":"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/prehistoric-astronomy-stonehenge-pyramids","path_alias":"prehistoric-astronomy-stonehenge-pyramids","label":"Why we still haven\u2019t figured out what Stonehenge was for","content":" What do we actually know about ancient astronomy? How did Egyptians know how to build the pyramids? Ricardo Liberato\/wikimedia, CC BY-ND E ver since humans could look up to see the sky, we have been amazed by its beauty and untold mysteries. Naturally then, astronomy is often described as the oldest of the sciences, inspiring people for thousands of years. Celestial phenomena are featured in prehistoric cave paintings. And monuments such as the Great Pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge seem to be aligned with precision to cardinal points or the positions where the moon, sun, or stars rise and set on the horizon. Today, we seem to struggle to imagine how ancient people could build and orient such structures. This has led to many assumptions. Some suggest prehistoric people must have had some knowledge of mathematics and sciences to do this, whereas others go so far as to speculate that alien visitors showed them how to do it. But what do we actually know about how people of the past understood the sky and developed a cosmology? A scientific discipline called \u201carchaeoastronomy\u201d or \u201ccultural astronomy," developed in the 1970s, is starting to provide insights. This subject combines various specialist areas, such as astronomy, archaeology, anthropology, and ethno-astronomy. Simplistic methods The pyramids of Egypt are some of the most impressive ancient monuments, and several are oriented with high precision. Egyptologist Flinder Petrie carried out the first high-precision survey of the Giza pyramids in the 19th century. He found that each of the four edges of the pyramids\u2019 bases point towards a cardinal direction to within a quarter of a degree. But how did the Egyptians know that? Just recently, Glen Dash, an engineer who studies the Giza pyramids, proposed a theory. He draws upon the ancient method of the \u201cIndian circle\u201d, which only requires a shadow casting stick and string to construct an east-west direction. He outlined how this method could have been used for the pyramids based on its simplicity alone. So could this have been the case? It\u2019s not impossible, but at this point we are in danger of falling into a popular trap of reflecting our current world views, methods, and ideas into the past. Insight into mythology and relevant methods known and used at the time are likely to provide a more reliable answer. Stonehenge sun. simonwakefield\/Flickr, CC BY-SA This is not the first time scientists have jumped to conclusions about a scientific approach applied to the past. A similar thing happened with Stonehenge. In 1964, the late astronomer Gerald Hawkins developed an intricate method to use pit holes and markers to predict eclipses at the mysterious monument. However, this does not mean that this is how Stonehenge was intended to be used. Way forward To start understanding the past we need to include various approaches from other disciplines to support an idea. We also have to understand that there will never be only one explanation or answer to how a monument might have been aligned or used. So how can cultural astronomy explain the pyramids\u2019 alignment? A study from 2001 proposed that two stars, Megrez and Phad, in the stellar constellation known as Ursa Major may have been the key. These stars are visible through the entire night. Their lowest position in the sky during a night can mark north using the merkhet\u2014an ancient timekeeping instrument composing a bar with a plumb line attached to a wooden handle to track stars\u2019 alignment. The benefit of this interpretation is that it links to star mythology drawn from inscriptions in the temple of Horus in Edfu. These elaborate on using the merkhet as a surveying tool\u2014a technique that can also explain the orientation of other Egyptian sites. The inscription includes the hieroglyph \u201c the Bull\u2019s Foreleg \u201d which represents the Big Dipper star constellation and its possible position in the sky. The use of the two stars Megrez and Phad of Ursa Major to line up with the cardinal north direction (meridian indicated in orange) as simulated for 2562BC. Daniel Brown Similarly, better ideas for Stonehenge have been offered. One study identified strange circles of wood near the monument, and suggested these may have represented the living while the rocks at Stonehenge represented the dead. Similar practices are seen in monuments found in Madagascar, suggesting it may have been a common way for prehistoric people to think about the living and the dead. It also offers an exciting new way of understanding Stonehenge in its wider landscape. Others have interpreted Stonehenge and especially its avenue as marking the ritual passage through the underworld with views of the moon on the horizon. Cultural astronomy has also helped shed light on 6,000-year-old passage graves \u2014a type of tomb consisting of a chamber of connected stones and a long narrow entrance\u2014in Portugal. Archaeologist Fabio Silva has shown how views from inside the tombs frame the horizon where the star Aldebaran rises above a mountain range. This might mean it was built to give a view of the star from the inside either for the dead or the living, possibly as an initiation ritual. Fieldwork at one of the passage graves in Portugal, Dolmen da Orca. Next to the stone structure is a replica tent to simulate the view from inside of the passage grave. Daniel Brown But Silva also drew upon wider supporting evidence. The framed mountain range is where the builders of the graves would have migrated with their livestock over summer. The star Aldebaran rises for the first time here in the year\u2014known as a helical rising\u2014during the beginning of this migration. Interestingly, ancient folklore also talks about a shepherd in this area who spotted a star so bright that it lit up the mountain range. Arriving there he decided to name both the mountain range and his dog after the star\u2014both names still exist today. Current work carried out by myself in collaboration with Silva has also shown how a view from within the long, narrow entrance passages to the tombs could enhance the star\u2019s visibility by restricting the view through an aperture. But while it is easy to assume that prehistoric people were analytic astronomers with great knowledge of science, it\u2019s important to remember that this only reflects our modern views of astronomy. Findings from cultural astronomy show that people of the past were indeed sky watchers and incorporated what they saw in many aspects of their lives. While there are still many mysteries surrounding the meaning and origins of ancient structures, an approach drawing on as many areas as possible, including experiences and engaging in meaning is likely our best bet to work out just what they were once used for. Daniel Brown is a Lecturer in Astronomy at Nottingham Trent University. This article was originally featured on The Conversation. ","teaser":" What do we actually know about ancient astronomy? How did Egyptians know how to build the pyramids? Ricardo Liberato\/wikimedia, CC BY-ND E ver since humans could look up to see the sky, we have been amazed by its beauty and untold mysteries. 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What do we actually know about how people of the past understood the sky and developed a cosmology? When it comes to studying ancient astronomy, we must be careful not…<\/div>","ts_bonnier_summary_long":"
What do we actually know about how people of the past understood the sky and developed a cosmology? When it comes to studying ancient astronomy, we must be careful not to assume too much.<\/div>","ts_bonnier_eyebrow":"
Science<\/a><\/div>","timestamp":"2018-03-19T15:02:52.6Z","bm_field_display_off_ramp":[true],"sm_field_image":["https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/325_4x3\/public\/images\/2018\/03\/stonehenge.jpg?itok=_LbunuUy"],"bm_field_sponsored":[false],"bm_use_sir_trevor_custom_page":[true],"bm_field_flag_gallery":[true],"bm_field_custom_page":[false],"bm_field_flag_video":[false],"sm_field_credit":["Daniel Brown\/The Conversation"],"bm_field_display_bottom_recirc":[true],"bm_use_sir_trevor_body":[true],"bm_field_x90_hide":[false],"tid":[208998,201319,208849,62],"sm_field_primary_channel":["science"],"sm_field_layout_standard":["right-sidebar"],"tm_vid_1_names":["pyramids astronomy prehistoric Science"],"spell":["Why we still haven\u2019t figured out what Stonehenge was for"," What do we actually know about ancient astronomy? How did Egyptians know how to build the pyramids? Ricardo Liberato\/wikimedia, CC BY-ND E ver since humans could look up to see the sky, we have been amazed by its beauty and untold mysteries. Naturally then, astronomy is often described as the oldest of the sciences, inspiring people for thousands of years. Celestial phenomena are featured in prehistoric cave paintings. And monuments such as the Great Pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge seem to be aligned with precision to cardinal points or the positions where the moon, sun, or stars rise and set on the horizon. Today, we seem to struggle to imagine how ancient people could build and orient such structures. This has led to many assumptions. Some suggest prehistoric people must have had some knowledge of mathematics and sciences to do this, whereas others go so far as to speculate that alien visitors showed them how to do it. But what do we actually know about how people of the past understood the sky and developed a cosmology? A scientific discipline called \u201carchaeoastronomy\u201d or \u201ccultural astronomy," developed in the 1970s, is starting to provide insights. This subject combines various specialist areas, such as astronomy, archaeology, anthropology, and ethno-astronomy. Simplistic methods The pyramids of Egypt are some of the most impressive ancient monuments, and several are oriented with high precision. Egyptologist Flinder Petrie carried out the first high-precision survey of the Giza pyramids in the 19th century. He found that each of the four edges of the pyramids\u2019 bases point towards a cardinal direction to within a quarter of a degree. But how did the Egyptians know that? Just recently, Glen Dash, an engineer who studies the Giza pyramids, proposed a theory. He draws upon the ancient method of the \u201cIndian circle\u201d, which only requires a shadow casting stick and string to construct an east-west direction. He outlined how this method could have been used for the pyramids based on its simplicity alone. So could this have been the case? It\u2019s not impossible, but at this point we are in danger of falling into a popular trap of reflecting our current world views, methods, and ideas into the past. Insight into mythology and relevant methods known and used at the time are likely to provide a more reliable answer. Stonehenge sun. simonwakefield\/Flickr, CC BY-SA This is not the first time scientists have jumped to conclusions about a scientific approach applied to the past. A similar thing happened with Stonehenge. In 1964, the late astronomer Gerald Hawkins developed an intricate method to use pit holes and markers to predict eclipses at the mysterious monument. However, this does not mean that this is how Stonehenge was intended to be used. Way forward To start understanding the past we need to include various approaches from other disciplines to support an idea. We also have to understand that there will never be only one explanation or answer to how a monument might have been aligned or used. So how can cultural astronomy explain the pyramids\u2019 alignment? A study from 2001 proposed that two stars, Megrez and Phad, in the stellar constellation known as Ursa Major may have been the key. These stars are visible through the entire night. Their lowest position in the sky during a night can mark north using the merkhet\u2014an ancient timekeeping instrument composing a bar with a plumb line attached to a wooden handle to track stars\u2019 alignment. The benefit of this interpretation is that it links to star mythology drawn from inscriptions in the temple of Horus in Edfu. These elaborate on using the merkhet as a surveying tool\u2014a technique that can also explain the orientation of other Egyptian sites. The inscription includes the hieroglyph \u201c the Bull\u2019s Foreleg \u201d which represents the Big Dipper star constellation and its possible position in the sky. The use of the two stars Megrez and Phad of Ursa Major to line up with the cardinal north direction (meridian indicated in orange) as simulated for 2562BC. Daniel Brown Similarly, better ideas for Stonehenge have been offered. One study identified strange circles of wood near the monument, and suggested these may have represented the living while the rocks at Stonehenge represented the dead. Similar practices are seen in monuments found in Madagascar, suggesting it may have been a common way for prehistoric people to think about the living and the dead. It also offers an exciting new way of understanding Stonehenge in its wider landscape. Others have interpreted Stonehenge and especially its avenue as marking the ritual passage through the underworld with views of the moon on the horizon. Cultural astronomy has also helped shed light on 6,000-year-old passage graves \u2014a type of tomb consisting of a chamber of connected stones and a long narrow entrance\u2014in Portugal. Archaeologist Fabio Silva has shown how views from inside the tombs frame the horizon where the star Aldebaran rises above a mountain range. This might mean it was built to give a view of the star from the inside either for the dead or the living, possibly as an initiation ritual. Fieldwork at one of the passage graves in Portugal, Dolmen da Orca. Next to the stone structure is a replica tent to simulate the view from inside of the passage grave. Daniel Brown But Silva also drew upon wider supporting evidence. The framed mountain range is where the builders of the graves would have migrated with their livestock over summer. The star Aldebaran rises for the first time here in the year\u2014known as a helical rising\u2014during the beginning of this migration. Interestingly, ancient folklore also talks about a shepherd in this area who spotted a star so bright that it lit up the mountain range. Arriving there he decided to name both the mountain range and his dog after the star\u2014both names still exist today. Current work carried out by myself in collaboration with Silva has also shown how a view from within the long, narrow entrance passages to the tombs could enhance the star\u2019s visibility by restricting the view through an aperture. But while it is easy to assume that prehistoric people were analytic astronomers with great knowledge of science, it\u2019s important to remember that this only reflects our modern views of astronomy. Findings from cultural astronomy show that people of the past were indeed sky watchers and incorporated what they saw in many aspects of their lives. While there are still many mysteries surrounding the meaning and origins of ancient structures, an approach drawing on as many areas as possible, including experiences and engaging in meaning is likely our best bet to work out just what they were once used for. Daniel Brown is a Lecturer in Astronomy at Nottingham Trent University. This article was originally featured on The Conversation. ","pyramids astronomy prehistoric Science","Daniel Brown\/The Conversation\n","
What do we actually know about how people of the past understood the sky and developed a cosmology? When it comes to studying ancient astronomy, we must be careful not…<\/div>","
What do we actually know about how people of the past understood the sky and developed a cosmology? When it comes to studying ancient astronomy, we must be careful not to assume too much.<\/div>","
Science<\/a><\/div>"],"bm_field_feed_builder_exclusion":[false],"bm_field_display_social":[true],"bm_field_exclude_from_cl":[false],"bm_field_last_updated":[false],"sm_field_sponsor_label":[""],"bm_in_nps":[false],"sm_field_subtitle":["What do we actually know about ancient astronomy?\n"],"bm_field_display_author_bio":[true],"im_field_tags":[208998,201319,208849,62],"im_vid_1":[208998,201319,208849,62],"sm_vid_Tags":["pyramids","astronomy","prehistoric","Science"]},{"id":"phhg4e\/node\/235406","site":"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/","hash":"phhg4e","entity_id":235406,"entity_type":"node","bundle":"basic_content","bundle_name":"Basic content","ss_language":"und","path":"node\/235406","url":"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/smart-animals","path_alias":"smart-animals","label":"Seven creatures with skills that easily beat humans","content":" What scientists learn about animal cognition helps unravel the mysteries of intelligence. Y ou think you\u2019re so smart. Well, a wave of research into animal cognition reveals that just about anything you do, other creatures can do too. Sometimes, they can do it far better. To probe the nature of intelligence, scientists test animal skills and compare how different species think. A chimpanzee and a crow both understand cause and effect, but one\u2019s got a big wrinkly brain like a human, and the other possesses a smooth ball of cells that could fit into a tablespoon. Examining how two critters with radically different wiring solve the same problem might illuminate brain science\u2019s murkiest mystery: how a glob of neurons generates smarts. The timing couldn\u2019t be better. With AI poised to enter everyday life, we are anxious about what will happen when we\u2019re outflanked by machines. Animal-cognition research suggests that maybe we shouldn\u2019t be too worried: It turns out we\u2019ve been sharing the planet with superior alien intelligence all along. The intelligent crow. Britt Spencer Crow logic Bird brains are so tiny and seemingly simple that people long assumed the creatures were stupid. (That some fly directly into windows might have something to do with it.) But Nicky Clayton, professor of comparative cognition at the University of Cambridge, has uncovered hidden powers in the minds of corvids, the avian family of crows, jays, and ravens. In one study, she pitted corvids against kids in a puzzle \u00adrequiring cause-and-effect reasoning: A treat or toy floats on water in a tall narrow tube, below where beaks or small fingers can reach. A jay quickly realizes that dropping pebbles into the tube raises the water level and floats the food into reach. But children \u00adyounger than 8 have a hard time \u00adfiguring that out, if at all. The point isn\u2019t that a jay or crow is like an 8-year-old. \u201cIt\u2019s not,\u201d Clayton says. \u201cA crow doesn\u2019t go to school; it doesn\u2019t have hands; it doesn\u2019t speak.\u201d It\u2019s that somehow this bird brain, separated from us by 300 million years of evolution, makes the same computations we do. Our two species\u2019 brains are like Mac and PC: different architecture, similar functions. Figuring out how such different programming can arrive at the same results will reveal what\u2019s common to both of us. And it could reveal something about the nature of intelligence itself. Primate vs. primate They are not simply lesser versions of us. Although chimps struggle to learn language, they have a talent for spatial reasoning. A pioneering 2007 study administered 16 cognitive tests to hundreds of chimps, orangutans, and toddlers, challenging abilities such as understanding how objects move in space, comprehending cause and effect, and communicating cooperatively. Kids trounced the primates in cooperative communication drills, such as pointing at something to draw attention to it. But chimps were better with tools and crushed spatial-relations tests. \u201cThey understand the physical properties of the world in a flexible way,\u201d says Evan MacLean, director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona, who also studies primate cognition. Another study showed chimps could memorize where numbers popped up on a screen faster than humans, suggesting they can comprehend space in ways we cannot. Bee experts. Britt Spencer The secret expertise of bees Knowledgeable \u00adpeople typically judge their \u00adabilities accurately, but the incompetent routinely overestimate their skill. This all-too-familiar glitch in our mental makeup is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. It\u2019s a failure of metacognition: the ability to gauge what you know and what you don\u2019t. Research suggests bees do not have this flaw. In a recent experiment led by Andrew Barron, associate professor in biological sciences at Macquarie University in Australia, researchers trained honeybees to determine which of two horizontal lines was above or below the other. Correct answers triggered a sugar-syrup reward. Mistakes drew a bitter fluid. Barron next placed the lines side by side, making a correct answer impossible. In response, many bees flew away. Shrewdly, they knew they didn\u2019t know enough to get a treat. The mystery is how they do things like this with so little to work with, Barron says. A bee can quickly memorize the locations of the best flowers and the fastest flight paths to reach them, but it has only 1 million neurons. To understand that minimalist brain, Barron\u2019s group is building bee-brain models, one of which will soon be uploaded into what he calls a \u201cvery sweet\u201d little quadcopter drone \u00adunder development at the \u00adUniversity of Sheffield. The idea is to test how well their virtual brain works. Says Barron: \u201cWe\u2019re modeling a bee brain, so we might as well make it fly.\u201d A super smart octopus. Britt Spencer Armed with brains Octopuses and cuttlefish distribute their brain cells throughout their squishy bodies; their arms contain up to three-fifths of their neurons and can carry out some actions on their own. If you disarm an octopus by cutting off some tentacles (please don\u2019t), the disembodied limbs will continue to move for an hour or so. They apparently recognize themselves: They won\u2019t grab each other the way they\u2019d grip a piece of fish. An octopus also uses its brain-body to change its skin color and pattern, and shape-shift to look exactly like a patch of seaweed or some sand-speckled rocks. \u00adResearch on these sensitive, short-lived creatures is skimpy, but this \u00adability seems to be partly under \u00adconscious control: A hunting cuttlefish deploys a pulsating pattern to confuse prey, and a male can impersonate a female to avoid sexual competition. These inquisitive and extremely bendy beasts are more closely related to clams than to birds or monkeys, but they can do puzzles, problem-solve, think flexibly, and even play\u2014\u00adsuggesting that as smart as we are, we\u2019re still mostly clueless about the animal geniuses among us. Mighty multitaskers Pigeons can\u2019t seem to find their way out of a Home Depot, but when it comes to multitasking, they are superhuman. Neuroscientist Sara Letzner of the Ruhr University Bochum, in Germany, pit man against bird in a maddening test last year: Study subjects performed a repetitive typing (or pecking) task that was randomly interrupted with a signal to stop and start doing something else, either immediately or after 300 milliseconds. When the test had no delay, people and pigeons were on par. But with the built-in pause, pigeons were 200 milliseconds faster than humans. \u201cHonestly, it was unexpected,\u201d Letzner says. Her group theorizes that neural signals travel such short distances between the densely packed cells in the birds\u2019 itty-bitty skulls that instructions arrive more quickly. Man's best friend. Britt Spencer Dogs' human side Chaser, the famous border collie, has learned more than 1,000 words and even some basic grammar, such as the difference between taking a ball to a Frisbee, and taking a Frisbee to a ball. Is she a very, very good dog? Undoubtedly. But all \u00adcanines have \u00adexceptional gifts for human social communication, which is the launching point for language. Recently, University of Arizona researcher Evan MacLean put 552 dogs through tests like the ones in the 2007 study of primates and toddlers. Dogs can\u2019t keep track of hidden objects as well as primates can. But they ace social tests such as looking to see where a human is looking, or following, pointing, or cooperating. On these measures, \u201cdogs seem to be more humanlike than nonhuman apes,\u201d MacLean says\u2014and might turn out to be better experimental models for scientists trying to understand our social nature. But how did dogs become more like us in some ways than apes are? Domestication likely bred in these super-social abilities, MacLean says\u2014although it\u2019s notable that closely related wolves also cooperate to hunt and raise their young. Robins on a very nice date. Britt Spencer Robins know how to treat a mate As divorce attorneys know, people aren\u2019t good at figuring out how to make each other happy. But it\u2019s a snap for a New Zealand robin. Like you, these birds appreciate variety. After a few wax-moth grubs, for example, a robin gets a hankering for mealworms. (Who wouldn\u2019t?) And, like you, they sometimes offer their love interest a treat to eat. Unlike you, the birds get it right. In 2017, Cambridge \u00adUniversity professor Nicky \u00adClayton found that when a female ate a few waxworms or mealworms, her partner \u00adanticipated what she\u2019d want next. He would do this even when he couldn\u2019t see her eating. It seems he could read her \u00adbehavior to guess what she wanted. Whether the birds can also write marital advice \u00adcolumns is not currently a \u00adsubject of research. Want more news like this? Sign up to receive our email newsletter and never miss an update! By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Other super-skilled animals Low-status meerkats puzzle out how to open a container for a delicious scorpion, while their social superiors are lazier. Giant anteaters memorize which of eight feeders in a simple star-shaped maze contain hidden avocado treats. Guppies that have large brains can learn the difference between two and four, unlike small-brain brethren. Elephants use their trunks like leaf blowers, blasting jets of air to push leaves or hay into easy reach. Red-footed tortoises remember for more than a year which of two colors signal mango jelly. (Their favorite!) Black bears can recognize real-world objects like a shovel or football from images in photographs. This article was originally published in the Spring 2018 Intelligence issue of Popular Science. ","teaser":" What scientists learn about animal cognition helps unravel the mysteries of intelligence. Y ou think you\u2019re so smart. 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What scientists learn about animal cognition helps unravel the mysteries of intelligence.<\/div>","ts_bonnier_eyebrow":"
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Well, a wave of research into animal cognition reveals that just about anything you do, other creatures can do too. Sometimes, they can do it far better. To probe the nature of intelligence, scientists test animal skills and compare how different species think. A chimpanzee and a crow both understand cause and effect, but one\u2019s got a big wrinkly brain like a human, and the other possesses a smooth ball of cells that could fit into a tablespoon. Examining how two critters with radically different wiring solve the same problem might illuminate brain science\u2019s murkiest mystery: how a glob of neurons generates smarts. The timing couldn\u2019t be better. With AI poised to enter everyday life, we are anxious about what will happen when we\u2019re outflanked by machines. Animal-cognition research suggests that maybe we shouldn\u2019t be too worried: It turns out we\u2019ve been sharing the planet with superior alien intelligence all along. The intelligent crow. Britt Spencer Crow logic Bird brains are so tiny and seemingly simple that people long assumed the creatures were stupid. (That some fly directly into windows might have something to do with it.) But Nicky Clayton, professor of comparative cognition at the University of Cambridge, has uncovered hidden powers in the minds of corvids, the avian family of crows, jays, and ravens. In one study, she pitted corvids against kids in a puzzle \u00adrequiring cause-and-effect reasoning: A treat or toy floats on water in a tall narrow tube, below where beaks or small fingers can reach. A jay quickly realizes that dropping pebbles into the tube raises the water level and floats the food into reach. But children \u00adyounger than 8 have a hard time \u00adfiguring that out, if at all. The point isn\u2019t that a jay or crow is like an 8-year-old. \u201cIt\u2019s not,\u201d Clayton says. \u201cA crow doesn\u2019t go to school; it doesn\u2019t have hands; it doesn\u2019t speak.\u201d It\u2019s that somehow this bird brain, separated from us by 300 million years of evolution, makes the same computations we do. Our two species\u2019 brains are like Mac and PC: different architecture, similar functions. Figuring out how such different programming can arrive at the same results will reveal what\u2019s common to both of us. And it could reveal something about the nature of intelligence itself. Primate vs. primate They are not simply lesser versions of us. Although chimps struggle to learn language, they have a talent for spatial reasoning. A pioneering 2007 study administered 16 cognitive tests to hundreds of chimps, orangutans, and toddlers, challenging abilities such as understanding how objects move in space, comprehending cause and effect, and communicating cooperatively. Kids trounced the primates in cooperative communication drills, such as pointing at something to draw attention to it. But chimps were better with tools and crushed spatial-relations tests. \u201cThey understand the physical properties of the world in a flexible way,\u201d says Evan MacLean, director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona, who also studies primate cognition. Another study showed chimps could memorize where numbers popped up on a screen faster than humans, suggesting they can comprehend space in ways we cannot. Bee experts. Britt Spencer The secret expertise of bees Knowledgeable \u00adpeople typically judge their \u00adabilities accurately, but the incompetent routinely overestimate their skill. This all-too-familiar glitch in our mental makeup is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. It\u2019s a failure of metacognition: the ability to gauge what you know and what you don\u2019t. Research suggests bees do not have this flaw. In a recent experiment led by Andrew Barron, associate professor in biological sciences at Macquarie University in Australia, researchers trained honeybees to determine which of two horizontal lines was above or below the other. Correct answers triggered a sugar-syrup reward. Mistakes drew a bitter fluid. Barron next placed the lines side by side, making a correct answer impossible. In response, many bees flew away. Shrewdly, they knew they didn\u2019t know enough to get a treat. The mystery is how they do things like this with so little to work with, Barron says. A bee can quickly memorize the locations of the best flowers and the fastest flight paths to reach them, but it has only 1 million neurons. To understand that minimalist brain, Barron\u2019s group is building bee-brain models, one of which will soon be uploaded into what he calls a \u201cvery sweet\u201d little quadcopter drone \u00adunder development at the \u00adUniversity of Sheffield. The idea is to test how well their virtual brain works. Says Barron: \u201cWe\u2019re modeling a bee brain, so we might as well make it fly.\u201d A super smart octopus. Britt Spencer Armed with brains Octopuses and cuttlefish distribute their brain cells throughout their squishy bodies; their arms contain up to three-fifths of their neurons and can carry out some actions on their own. If you disarm an octopus by cutting off some tentacles (please don\u2019t), the disembodied limbs will continue to move for an hour or so. They apparently recognize themselves: They won\u2019t grab each other the way they\u2019d grip a piece of fish. An octopus also uses its brain-body to change its skin color and pattern, and shape-shift to look exactly like a patch of seaweed or some sand-speckled rocks. \u00adResearch on these sensitive, short-lived creatures is skimpy, but this \u00adability seems to be partly under \u00adconscious control: A hunting cuttlefish deploys a pulsating pattern to confuse prey, and a male can impersonate a female to avoid sexual competition. These inquisitive and extremely bendy beasts are more closely related to clams than to birds or monkeys, but they can do puzzles, problem-solve, think flexibly, and even play\u2014\u00adsuggesting that as smart as we are, we\u2019re still mostly clueless about the animal geniuses among us. Mighty multitaskers Pigeons can\u2019t seem to find their way out of a Home Depot, but when it comes to multitasking, they are superhuman. Neuroscientist Sara Letzner of the Ruhr University Bochum, in Germany, pit man against bird in a maddening test last year: Study subjects performed a repetitive typing (or pecking) task that was randomly interrupted with a signal to stop and start doing something else, either immediately or after 300 milliseconds. When the test had no delay, people and pigeons were on par. But with the built-in pause, pigeons were 200 milliseconds faster than humans. \u201cHonestly, it was unexpected,\u201d Letzner says. Her group theorizes that neural signals travel such short distances between the densely packed cells in the birds\u2019 itty-bitty skulls that instructions arrive more quickly. Man's best friend. Britt Spencer Dogs' human side Chaser, the famous border collie, has learned more than 1,000 words and even some basic grammar, such as the difference between taking a ball to a Frisbee, and taking a Frisbee to a ball. Is she a very, very good dog? Undoubtedly. But all \u00adcanines have \u00adexceptional gifts for human social communication, which is the launching point for language. Recently, University of Arizona researcher Evan MacLean put 552 dogs through tests like the ones in the 2007 study of primates and toddlers. Dogs can\u2019t keep track of hidden objects as well as primates can. But they ace social tests such as looking to see where a human is looking, or following, pointing, or cooperating. On these measures, \u201cdogs seem to be more humanlike than nonhuman apes,\u201d MacLean says\u2014and might turn out to be better experimental models for scientists trying to understand our social nature. But how did dogs become more like us in some ways than apes are? Domestication likely bred in these super-social abilities, MacLean says\u2014although it\u2019s notable that closely related wolves also cooperate to hunt and raise their young. Robins on a very nice date. Britt Spencer Robins know how to treat a mate As divorce attorneys know, people aren\u2019t good at figuring out how to make each other happy. But it\u2019s a snap for a New Zealand robin. Like you, these birds appreciate variety. After a few wax-moth grubs, for example, a robin gets a hankering for mealworms. (Who wouldn\u2019t?) And, like you, they sometimes offer their love interest a treat to eat. Unlike you, the birds get it right. In 2017, Cambridge \u00adUniversity professor Nicky \u00adClayton found that when a female ate a few waxworms or mealworms, her partner \u00adanticipated what she\u2019d want next. He would do this even when he couldn\u2019t see her eating. It seems he could read her \u00adbehavior to guess what she wanted. Whether the birds can also write marital advice \u00adcolumns is not currently a \u00adsubject of research. Want more news like this? Sign up to receive our email newsletter and never miss an update! By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Other super-skilled animals Low-status meerkats puzzle out how to open a container for a delicious scorpion, while their social superiors are lazier. Giant anteaters memorize which of eight feeders in a simple star-shaped maze contain hidden avocado treats. Guppies that have large brains can learn the difference between two and four, unlike small-brain brethren. Elephants use their trunks like leaf blowers, blasting jets of air to push leaves or hay into easy reach. Red-footed tortoises remember for more than a year which of two colors signal mango jelly. (Their favorite!) Black bears can recognize real-world objects like a shovel or football from images in photographs. This article was originally published in the Spring 2018 Intelligence issue of Popular Science. ","intelligence Animals Science Spring 2018","Kat McGowan","
What scientists learn about animal cognition helps unravel the mysteries of intelligence.<\/div>","
What scientists learn about animal cognition helps unravel the mysteries of intelligence.<\/div>","
Science<\/a><\/div>"],"bm_field_feed_builder_exclusion":[false],"im_field_author":[224381],"bm_field_display_social":[true],"bm_field_exclude_from_cl":[false],"bm_field_last_updated":[false],"sm_field_sponsor_label":[""],"bm_in_nps":[false],"sm_field_subtitle":["What scientists learn about animal cognition helps unravel the mysteries of intelligence.\n"],"bm_field_display_author_bio":[true],"im_field_tags":[205907,200200,62,224584],"im_vid_2":[224381],"sm_vid_Authors":["Kat McGowan"],"im_vid_1":[205907,200200,62,224584],"sm_vid_Tags":["intelligence","Animals","Science","Spring 2018"]},{"id":"phhg4e\/node\/235436","site":"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/","hash":"phhg4e","entity_id":235436,"entity_type":"node","bundle":"basic_content","bundle_name":"Basic content","ss_language":"und","path":"node\/235436","url":"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/platypus-milk-bacterial-infections","path_alias":"platypus-milk-bacterial-infections","label":"Platypus milk might save us from bacterial infections, and that\u2019s not even the best thing about them","content":" These weird lil\u2019 guys defy everything about how we try to categorize animals. The glorious, blind dive of a platypus Daniel Baker You may have heard that platypuses are going to save us from antibiotic resistance. This may or may not be true. But here\u2019s what we do know: they\u2019re definitely weird enough to pull off a feat like that. Here\u2019s the deal: so far, we know that platypus milk is capable of killing bacteria and other microbes thanks to an antibacterial protein. This protein has a highly unusual structure not seen elsewhere in nature (that we know of). The Australian researchers who found the protein dubbed it the \u2018Shirley Temple,\u2019 because it has ringlets and scientists like giving things funny, cutesy names. They published their results in the wildly popular journal Structural Biology Communications. In that paper they hypothesized that, due to its unique structure, the protein might also function differently from our current antibiotics, and that this difference in functionality might mean it can kill bacteria that other drugs can\u2019t. But let\u2019s keep in mind that no one has actually demonstrated that yet. To do so, scientists would need to somehow introduce the protein to an antibiotic resistant bacteria, then sit back to watch the carnage (hopefully) unfold. But the potential usefulness of this milk protein just seems to jive with everything else that we know about platypuses. Or, as one of the lead scientists on this study said in a press release: \u201cPlatypus are such weird animals that it would make sense for them to have weird biochemistry.\u201d And she\u2019s not wrong. Platypuses defy every category we try to shove them into\u2014and that\u2019s actually the coolest thing about them. BEBES! NSW DPI Bear with me here, because I know that phylogenetics and biological definitions might not seem like the most interesting thing about an animal with venomous spurs that sweats milk. And yet, it is. See, humans have always tried to categorize animals because, well, we like categorizing. But one man took it to a whole new level: Carl Linnaeus. The Swedish botanist and zoologist had a real penchant for naming things, and single-handedly invented the binomial classification system that we have today. He\u2019s why the official name of a platypus isn\u2019t \u2018platypus, but rather \u201c Ornithorhynchus anatinus.\u201d Linnaeus and his disciples divided the entire living world into kingdoms, classes, orders, genera, and species. And for a long time, that was great, because mostly wealthy white guys were doing biology and they loved using nomenclature as a gatekeeping tool. To be a well-respected biologist, you had to memorize thousands of Latin names and understand the complicated family trees of every known animal, and the only people who had time to do that were\u2014you guessed it\u2014other rich dudes. Of course, the Linnaean system wasn\u2019t totally useless. It just wasn\u2019t perfect. It perpetuated the idea that the natural world can be packaged neatly into natural boxes, when really, we humans were shoving organisms into boxes of our own design\u2014often based on flawed understandings of animals. A lot of how we differentiated between genera and species had to do with physical features\u2014are they furry? How many legs to they have? Do they lay eggs? We basically just checked off boxes. But because so much of the way we categorize animals is based on 18th century knowledge, we\u2019ve been forced to reassess some of our prior assumptions. For instance, we used to think bats were closely related to birds because they fly, and flying things seem like they should be related. But bats are mammals, far more closely related to humans than to birds. But no animal seems to defy classification more than the platypus. Truly a magical creature. Brisbane City Council As a mammal, it has to have three things: 1. It has to provide its young with milk. 2. It has to have fur. 3. It has to have three specific ear bones (yeah, you read that right\u2014 ear bones). Technically, it has all of those things... but only barely. And that\u2019s just today\u2019s definition. Linnaeus\u2019 was that it have a four-chambered heart, \u201chot red blood,\u201d \u201clungs that breathe rhythmically,\u201d and \u201cthat the penis is intromittent.\u201d Most importantly of all, because it\u2019s an idea that persists today, is that \u201cthe females are viviparous, and secrete and give milk.\u201d \u201cViviparous\u201d means that the animal gives birth to live young. Platypuses are mammals by our modern definition, but they weren\u2019t by Linnaeus\u2019. And really, Linnaeus didn\u2019t have a reason to think he was wrong\u2014platypuses weren\u2019t discovered until roughly 50 years after he wrote that definition, and around a year after he died. As our definition of \u201cmammal\u201d has evolved, the animals that were included in that group have varied. Platypuses defy Linnaeus\u2019 understanding of mammals in a lot of ways. The most obvious is that they lay eggs. We had to invent a whole other branch of mammals, called the monotremes, for the two animals that are technically mammals but also lay eggs (the other being the echidna). Really, almost everything about platypuses defies how we think about most mammals. They do give milk to their babies, but unlike almost all other mammals they don\u2019t have nipples. Instead, they essentially sweat out their milk from pores along their stomachs. The platypus has a bill kind of like a duck, but it\u2019s really more of a hard snout. Their nostrils are on top of the snout, the mouth on the bottom, and oh yeah, they also sense their prey by detecting electrical fields. They literally close their eyes, ears, and nose when they dive underwater and go mainly on electroreception. It also has some bonus bones in its shoulder not found in any other mammals, and rather than having its legs mounted beneath the body, its appendages spring out from the sides like a reptile. That means they also don\u2019t swim like other mammals, who tend to use all four limbs. Platypuses let their back legs dangle\u2014even though they, too, are webbed\u2014and propel themselves entirely with the front feet, steering with the tail. You can see how their legs stick out from the sides like weird, furry lizards. The zoological miscellany They have venom, but not in the teeth. It's found in little spurs on their feet, and seemingly not to kill prey. Venom is for intimidating other platypuses. Platypus eyes aren\u2019t like those found on any other four-legged creature, either. They more closely resemble those of a hagfish or lamprey, because of course they do. Each female has a pair of ovaries, but only the left actually functions. (This is also true of birds.) Young platypuses have teeth, but when those fall out just before they leave the burrow, they grow keratinized pads instead. Their body temperature hovers around 90\u00b0F, instead of the standard 98-99\u00b0F of most mammals. All of this basically adds up to a living example of how hard it is to categorize an animal based on physical attributes. That might just be great for us\u2014maybe they will help us with antibiotic resistance. We still clearly have so much left to learn from this wonderful beastie. The platypus is the epitome of \u201cthe exception proves the rule.\u201d They make you question everything you thought you knew about what made a mammal a mammal, or a bird a bird. And that\u2019s wonderful. If science is about anything, it\u2019s about confronting the idea that you might be wrong. ","teaser":" These weird lil\u2019 guys defy everything about how we try to categorize animals. The glorious, blind dive of a platypus Daniel Baker You may have heard that platypuses are going to save us from antibiotic resistance. This may or may not be true. But here\u2019s what we do know: they\u2019re definitely weird","ss_name":"Sara Chodosh","tos_name":"Sara Chodosh","ss_name_formatted":"Sara Chodosh","tos_name_formatted":"Sara Chodosh","is_uid":1530,"bs_status":true,"bs_sticky":false,"bs_promote":true,"is_tnid":0,"bs_translate":false,"ds_created":"2018-03-19T12:00:00Z","ds_changed":"2018-03-19T12:00:02Z","ds_last_comment_or_change":"2018-03-19T12:00:02Z","bs_field_sponsored":false,"bs_field_custom_page":false,"bs_field_display_social":true,"bs_field_feed_builder_exclusion":false,"bs_field_display_author_bio":true,"bs_field_display_bottom_recirc":true,"bs_use_sir_trevor_body":true,"bs_field_flag_gallery":false,"bs_field_flag_video":false,"bs_field_display_off_ramp":true,"bs_in_nps":false,"bs_use_sir_trevor_custom_page":true,"bs_field_x90_hide":false,"bs_field_last_updated":false,"bs_field_exclude_from_cl":false,"ts_bonnier_summary":"
You may have heard that platypuses are going to save us from antibiotic resistance. This may or may not be true. But here\u2019s what we do know: they\u2019re definitely weird…<\/div>","ts_bonnier_summary_long":"
You may have heard that platypuses are going to save us from antibiotic resistance. This may or may not be true. But here\u2019s what we do know: they\u2019re definitely weird enough to pull off a feat like that. Platypuses defy every category we try to shove them into\u2014and that\u2019s actually the coolest…<\/div>","ts_bonnier_eyebrow":"
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The glorious, blind dive of a platypus Daniel Baker You may have heard that platypuses are going to save us from antibiotic resistance. This may or may not be true. But here\u2019s what we do know: they\u2019re definitely weird enough to pull off a feat like that. Here\u2019s the deal: so far, we know that platypus milk is capable of killing bacteria and other microbes thanks to an antibacterial protein. This protein has a highly unusual structure not seen elsewhere in nature (that we know of). The Australian researchers who found the protein dubbed it the \u2018Shirley Temple,\u2019 because it has ringlets and scientists like giving things funny, cutesy names. They published their results in the wildly popular journal Structural Biology Communications. In that paper they hypothesized that, due to its unique structure, the protein might also function differently from our current antibiotics, and that this difference in functionality might mean it can kill bacteria that other drugs can\u2019t. But let\u2019s keep in mind that no one has actually demonstrated that yet. To do so, scientists would need to somehow introduce the protein to an antibiotic resistant bacteria, then sit back to watch the carnage (hopefully) unfold. But the potential usefulness of this milk protein just seems to jive with everything else that we know about platypuses. Or, as one of the lead scientists on this study said in a press release: \u201cPlatypus are such weird animals that it would make sense for them to have weird biochemistry.\u201d And she\u2019s not wrong. Platypuses defy every category we try to shove them into\u2014and that\u2019s actually the coolest thing about them. BEBES! NSW DPI Bear with me here, because I know that phylogenetics and biological definitions might not seem like the most interesting thing about an animal with venomous spurs that sweats milk. And yet, it is. See, humans have always tried to categorize animals because, well, we like categorizing. But one man took it to a whole new level: Carl Linnaeus. The Swedish botanist and zoologist had a real penchant for naming things, and single-handedly invented the binomial classification system that we have today. He\u2019s why the official name of a platypus isn\u2019t \u2018platypus, but rather \u201c Ornithorhynchus anatinus.\u201d Linnaeus and his disciples divided the entire living world into kingdoms, classes, orders, genera, and species. And for a long time, that was great, because mostly wealthy white guys were doing biology and they loved using nomenclature as a gatekeeping tool. To be a well-respected biologist, you had to memorize thousands of Latin names and understand the complicated family trees of every known animal, and the only people who had time to do that were\u2014you guessed it\u2014other rich dudes. Of course, the Linnaean system wasn\u2019t totally useless. It just wasn\u2019t perfect. It perpetuated the idea that the natural world can be packaged neatly into natural boxes, when really, we humans were shoving organisms into boxes of our own design\u2014often based on flawed understandings of animals. A lot of how we differentiated between genera and species had to do with physical features\u2014are they furry? How many legs to they have? Do they lay eggs? We basically just checked off boxes. But because so much of the way we categorize animals is based on 18th century knowledge, we\u2019ve been forced to reassess some of our prior assumptions. For instance, we used to think bats were closely related to birds because they fly, and flying things seem like they should be related. But bats are mammals, far more closely related to humans than to birds. But no animal seems to defy classification more than the platypus. Truly a magical creature. Brisbane City Council As a mammal, it has to have three things: 1. It has to provide its young with milk. 2. It has to have fur. 3. It has to have three specific ear bones (yeah, you read that right\u2014 ear bones). Technically, it has all of those things... but only barely. And that\u2019s just today\u2019s definition. Linnaeus\u2019 was that it have a four-chambered heart, \u201chot red blood,\u201d \u201clungs that breathe rhythmically,\u201d and \u201cthat the penis is intromittent.\u201d Most importantly of all, because it\u2019s an idea that persists today, is that \u201cthe females are viviparous, and secrete and give milk.\u201d \u201cViviparous\u201d means that the animal gives birth to live young. Platypuses are mammals by our modern definition, but they weren\u2019t by Linnaeus\u2019. And really, Linnaeus didn\u2019t have a reason to think he was wrong\u2014platypuses weren\u2019t discovered until roughly 50 years after he wrote that definition, and around a year after he died. As our definition of \u201cmammal\u201d has evolved, the animals that were included in that group have varied. Platypuses defy Linnaeus\u2019 understanding of mammals in a lot of ways. The most obvious is that they lay eggs. We had to invent a whole other branch of mammals, called the monotremes, for the two animals that are technically mammals but also lay eggs (the other being the echidna). Really, almost everything about platypuses defies how we think about most mammals. They do give milk to their babies, but unlike almost all other mammals they don\u2019t have nipples. Instead, they essentially sweat out their milk from pores along their stomachs. The platypus has a bill kind of like a duck, but it\u2019s really more of a hard snout. Their nostrils are on top of the snout, the mouth on the bottom, and oh yeah, they also sense their prey by detecting electrical fields. They literally close their eyes, ears, and nose when they dive underwater and go mainly on electroreception. It also has some bonus bones in its shoulder not found in any other mammals, and rather than having its legs mounted beneath the body, its appendages spring out from the sides like a reptile. That means they also don\u2019t swim like other mammals, who tend to use all four limbs. Platypuses let their back legs dangle\u2014even though they, too, are webbed\u2014and propel themselves entirely with the front feet, steering with the tail. You can see how their legs stick out from the sides like weird, furry lizards. The zoological miscellany They have venom, but not in the teeth. It's found in little spurs on their feet, and seemingly not to kill prey. Venom is for intimidating other platypuses. Platypus eyes aren\u2019t like those found on any other four-legged creature, either. They more closely resemble those of a hagfish or lamprey, because of course they do. Each female has a pair of ovaries, but only the left actually functions. (This is also true of birds.) Young platypuses have teeth, but when those fall out just before they leave the burrow, they grow keratinized pads instead. Their body temperature hovers around 90\u00b0F, instead of the standard 98-99\u00b0F of most mammals. All of this basically adds up to a living example of how hard it is to categorize an animal based on physical attributes. That might just be great for us\u2014maybe they will help us with antibiotic resistance. We still clearly have so much left to learn from this wonderful beastie. The platypus is the epitome of \u201cthe exception proves the rule.\u201d They make you question everything you thought you knew about what made a mammal a mammal, or a bird a bird. And that\u2019s wonderful. If science is about anything, it\u2019s about confronting the idea that you might be wrong. ","weird science mammals phylogenetics biology EVOLUTION Animals","Sara Chodosh","
You may have heard that platypuses are going to save us from antibiotic resistance. This may or may not be true. But here\u2019s what we do know: they\u2019re definitely weird…<\/div>","
You may have heard that platypuses are going to save us from antibiotic resistance. This may or may not be true. But here\u2019s what we do know: they\u2019re definitely weird enough to pull off a feat like that. Platypuses defy every category we try to shove them into\u2014and that\u2019s actually the coolest…<\/div>","
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