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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| I was going to mention budgies as having domed heads and therefore large brains as another example of smart birds whose brains have been enhanced by the expedient of teaching them things |
Budgerigars' brains have cannabinoid receptors (chickens do too but they're less 'receptive' apparently). Can't work out all the chemistry but the main thrust is that these receptors aid memory and cognition; they're known to exist in 'higher' mammalian brains since reward and punishment tests are routinely carried out on rats and mice, it seems avian brains aren't as different as previously assumed.
Magpies, another member of the corvid family, have passed the Gallup mark test (this is the one where a mark is made on a part of the body not normally visible and then the animal is shown its reflection; if it tries to remove the mark it's evidently recognised itself in the mirror). So far only primates have shown this degree of self-awareness.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| You think the Romans would have ditched the system? What is the reason and where is your evidence? |
On the contrary, the Romans would've surely kept a system that worked effectively. As far as I know, there were no tolls until the seventeenth century; under the Romans roads had to be maintained by the owners of the land (monarch, monasteries or nobility) through which a road passed which continued to be the case until the mid-sixteenth century.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Budgerigars' brains have cannabinoid receptors... Can't work out all the chemistry but the main thrust is that these receptors aid memory and cognition; |
Don't forget, we too have cannabinoid receptors. It's they (as the name suggests) that are affected by marijuana... Nice to have it confirmed that my pet budgie used to benefit from the effects of passive smoking.
(And don't forget cannabis seeds are found in all the best budgie foods... crafty little buggers!)
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| And don't forget cannabis seeds are found in all the best budgie foods... crafty little buggers! |
Maybe that's the only way they can endure being caged, poor little buggers.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| The bird collected pebbles and put them in a line... collected the stone and put it back in its place every time. |
How autistic is that!
| it seems avian brains aren't as different as previously assumed... So far only primates have shown this degree of self-awareness. |
Well, they are what remains of the dinosaurs...
| Nice to have it confirmed that my pet budgie used to benefit from the effects of passive smoking. |
I know of a budgie that seemed to enjoy having ganja blown in its face one evening...
It was dead next morning... and the little boy's father told him Jesus had taken it. (Next minute, the lad was trying to get out the front door, crying and saying "I'm gonna get that Jesus".)
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| It was dead next morning... |
Are you sure it was dead... and not just very chilled out?
(I... err... somebody I know, once buried several gerbils before realising they were just hibernating.)
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Passing a field of sheep with their lambs near the Wessex ridgeway, someone pointed out a couple of buzzards wheeling above; they didn't seem at all intimidated by the presence of a few walkers but were being chased off by a crow. You wouldn't think a crow would be a match for a couple of buzzards yet they were clearly not going to attempt to pick off a lamb. Perhaps another instance of a mutually beneficial relationship between man and crow.
PS. Also saw a black deer which I've never seen before. The man in front said it just looked black as opposed to being black but the man next to me also insisted it was black.
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Grant
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See BBC article today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8115464.stm
Someone has shown for the first time that creatures in warm environments show faster molecular changes in their DNA than those living where it's colder. This blows "out of Africa" out of the water. Will we see careful ignoral?
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Grant
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| PS. Also saw a black deer which I've never seen before. The man in front said it just looked black as opposed to being black but the man next to me also insisted it was black. |
Perhaps it's like horse racing? A black horse is considered unlucky by breeders, so black horses are nearly always described as brown.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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'Ere, they always say the giraffe grew tall because the longest-necked individuals had a slight advantage... blah blah... but, as above, so below: isn't it at least as likely that they grew longer legs to keep their vital organs away from predators... and therefore needed longer necks so as still to be able to reach the ground to drink?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Chad wrote: | Don't forget, we too have cannabinoid receptors. It's they (as the name suggests) that are affected by marijuana... Nice to have it confirmed that my pet budgie used to benefit from the effects of passive smoking.
(And don't forget cannabis seeds are found in all the best budgie foods... crafty little buggers!) |
Birdseed is a product of hemp, Cannabis sativa (i.e. 'sown' or 'cultivated'). I thought cannabis was a weed in deed as well as name. Seems not. Two main chemical constituents, THC and CBD, the former psychoactive and the latter anti-psychoactive, have been analysed; hemp, although of the Cannabis family, is low in THC, i.e. it has almost no psychoactive properties.
If this is the case and there's no reason to disbelieve the botanists, then it suggests a programme of plant breeding going back to, presumably Asian, prehistory. Perhaps Asian cannabis-growers exported the doctored product, hemp, which was in huge demand (for fibre) in Japan, Russia and the Baltic and eventually Europe, and the narcotic plants for the highest-paying customers.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The latest 'legal high' (which I sampled on your behalves for research purposes recently) is actually a plant fertiliser in real life. It is not an area that either we or they have dealt with but there must be a whole history of people people experimenting with substances that assist with plant and animal growth and which they discover only later assists with personal growth.
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Ishtar
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All this talk of crows reminds me of the book I read as a kid, Wild Animals I Have Known which was written over 100 years ago. In it is a story of the author's observations of a crow and his band.
There is a mention in it of how the crow stored shiny items in the ground.
Who needs to collect tolls when crows can do it for you?
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Ishtar wrote: | | Who needs to collect tolls when crows can do it for you? |
oh my god.
That's brilliant!!!
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Now this reminds me of how I was once dive-bombed repeatedly by the same crow -- every single day it saw me. Do you think perhaps they might have been bred to attack strangers until those strangers yielded up coins?
Oh boy. I think maybe I've gone too far.
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