jgoldman | May 10, 2010...and what can word-learning in dogs teach us about the evolution of language in humans?
What is involved in the learning of a single new word? Consider the word "tiger", being learned by a child with already a modest vocabulary, at least for animal words. First the child must make a new entry in the mental lexicon - that "tiger" is a word in the first place. He has to categorize it as a noun. It has to be categorized under "animal" (a supernym) and related to its hyponyms, like "Sumatran tiger." Then, of course, the child has to learn what actual *thing* the word "tiger" refers to. Now,…
jgoldman | May 8, 2010Figure 1: Reggie the Alligator, in 2007. (source)
Reggie is getting a girlfriend.
Reggie the Alligator has quite a long history. He was illegally raised in captivity near Long Beach, CA by two men (who were later arrested) who were involved in the illegal trade of exotic animals, but then was released into a lake in August 2005.
According to wikipedia:
City officials immediately set efforts in motion to apprehend him. The entire 53-acre lake was cordoned off and several professional "gator wranglers" were hired. But despite a nearly three month-long effort, Reggie managed to elude capture and…
jgoldman | May 7, 2010[Data collection fortnight ends today. And then we shall return to our regularly scheduled programming. Until then, here's Rule #1, from the archives.]
If you are giving a talk, or teaching a class, or are otherwise responsible for transmitting content from your brain to other peoples' brains, you should be able to give that talk - even if somewhat modified - without any visual aids. You should be perfectly capable of giving that talk, in the dark, if the power goes out. Because your science is so awesome that your words alone will make people revere you like the science god or goddess that…
jgoldman | May 6, 2010[It's a really busy week over here at blog headquarters, because it is data collection week. Data collection week is awesome, but it means less time for blogging. So here's a piece from the archives. I picked this one especially for Drugmonkey, because he liked it so much.]
The Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) is a nasty scary-looking muppethugging monster of a carnivorous bird. Female harpies weigh 14-20 pounds, and males weigh 8.5-12 pounds. They stand between 2.9 and 3.5 feet tall. The wingspan of the harpy eagle can reach 6 feet, 7 inches. The talons - sharp claws to grasp onto its prey -…
jgoldman | May 5, 2010Lately, my lovely nerdy scibling Christie has been collecting examples of genius and almost-genius inventions, contraptions, and ideas.
I humbly offer the following, to be included under "absolutely freaking genius".
jgoldman | May 5, 2010I just read this article from the LA Times. Emphasis added:
For months, the rafts that ferry Disneyland guests across the waterway to Tom Sawyer Island have been idle. No children have explored the island's caves, scaled its climbing rocks or run across its bridges.
But the island won't be lonely much longer. Park employees will refill the Rivers of America, drained in January for maintenance, this week. The draining took almost a week, at the end of which this question was answered: What do you find at the bottom of an amusement park basin after seven years?
The answer: a computer tower,…
jgoldman | May 5, 2010Each month, Bora Zivkovic, in his day-time role as PLoS ONE Community Manager, picks one post that covered a PLoS ONE paper that was published that month for recognition.
There were 34 blog posts covering PLoS ONE articles aggregated on ResearchBlogging.org in April.
This month, he chose my post, Elephants Say 'Bee-ware!' which describes the work in the PLoS ONE article Bee Threat Elicits Alarm Call in African Elephants by Lucy E. King, Joseph Soltis, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Anne Savage and Fritz Vollrath.
Now I get a nifty PLoS ONE t-shirt, and so do the authors! Thanks, Bora! And thanks to…
jgoldman | May 4, 2010
Carnival of the Blue 36 is up at Observations of a Nerd!
Carnival of the Blue includes all things wet and salty, and there are some interesting offerings this month, so go check it out!
Two pieces of my own are included:
Of course, nothing is bigger than the biggest mammals on Earth: the whales. We often think about how important they are to the ecosystem in terms of what they eat, but of course, what goes in must come out. Who would have thought whale poop would be so important? Thanks, Jason, for enlightening us.
And speaking of confused, what happens when you move things around in an…
jgoldman | May 4, 2010Here's are my ResearchBlogging Editor's Selections for this week.
Topics covered this week are: chocolate, sex, the female touch, and cigarettes. Good times.
First, Bill Yates of the Brain Posts blog examines the relationship between eating chocolate and depression. I like his prescription: "If you like chocolate, depressed or not, enjoy in moderation."
Are male and female brains "wired" differently? Kevin Mitchell of Wiring the Brain suggests that "the behaviours that show the most robust and innate differences between the sexes are involved in mating, reproduction, parental behaviour,…
jgoldman | May 3, 2010Let me tell you a little story. When I was born my parents had two cats. One was named Garfield. The other...well, I don't remember what the other one was called. Not long after I was born, and little Jason was coughing up furballs, the doctors informed the parents that their little bundle of skin and hair was allergic to cats. It was then that teams were picked and lines were drawn. It was me or the cats. Luckily, the parents decided to keep me, and lose the cats. Imagine how much it would have sucked if they decided to keep the cats and lose me. I imagine if my younger brother had actually…
jgoldman | May 2, 2010I've got some pretty talented sciblings. Sure, they're all talented scientists or writers, or both. But, did you know there are some additional talents around here?
One of my lovely sciblings used to be a circus performer. In a traveling circus. He or she can juggle - but not just balls - try knives or flaming torches. And not just while feet are planted firmly on the ground - try while riding a unicycle. This individual also holds several world records for JOGGLING - juggling while running.
Think you know who it is? Jump under the fold to see the video!
That's right: Travis Saunders of…
jgoldman | May 1, 2010
The 2010 May edition of our beloved Carnival of Evolution is up today on the official blog for Springer Verlag's journal, Evolution: Education and Outreach. And with that, surely getting your post accepted in CoE is now akin to peer-reviews on some level. Thanks to Adam M. Goldstein for hosting.
I have two pieces up:
Jason G. Goldman’s post, “Starting from the Beginning: Evolutionary and Developmental Origins of Human Knowledge” offers a readable, useful overview of some main approaches and problems in the study of how people think and learn, focusing on “core knowledge systems,” which are…
jgoldman | April 30, 2010A few Israeli selections for tonight.
×ר×× ×ª×©× × ×ת ××××× × - Haruach Teshaneh et Kivunah
Lyricist: Astar Shamir
Composer: Uri Zach
Singer: Harel Skaat
×¨×¦× ××××ª× - Ratzah Habayta - She Ran Home
Singer: Keren Peles
סקס ×¢× ××קס - Sex Im Ha-ex - Sex with the Ex
Also Keren Peles.
How awesome is the violinist?!
jgoldman | April 30, 2010
h/t to Dr. Isis for this awesome video.
Did you miss my Psychology and Neuroscience Editor's Selections at ResearchBlogging.org? Here you go again.
Hilarious Things:
Doctor Monkey, Doctor Becca, and (Micro) Doctor O and I (and some others) have been amusing ourselves on twitter.
Ambivalent Academic is battling allergies, but even through her drug-rattled brain, she is still awesome and hilarious.
Dr. Isis continues to be my hero.
Awesome Things, Science and otherwise:
How do chimpanzees deal with death and dying? Do they have a sense of their own mortality, or of that of their closest…
jgoldman | April 29, 2010Yesterday, at our department's end-of-the-year party, I was informed that I was one of two winners this year of the Outstanding Research Poster Award.
Figure 1: And I have a nifty little certificate to prove it!
Figure 2: Here it is.
jgoldman | April 29, 2010What information is contained in the call of a mammal? Some calls might reflect the internal emotional state of the animal, like fear or anxiety, or they can refer to an external object, agent, or event, like the presence of a predator. Rhesus monkeys, lemurs, baboons, and guinea pigs, for example, will produce calls when separated from their conspecifics or in the presence of a stranger. Howler monkeys produce specific alarm calls for avian predators, even when they have never encountered an avian predator for several generations. Vervet monkeys produce different calls in response to…
jgoldman | April 28, 2010Say you're visiting Los Angeles and you have a sudden craving for Chinese food. Since you are only visiting, you might not be aware that nothing is open past, like, 10pm (not even coffee houses), but you get in your rental car and go driving around in search of your Chinese feast anyway. You try hitting up Panda Express, but no such luck. Of course they're closed. You try the neighborhood Chinese restaurant: closed as well. You get back in the car, and think to yourself "maybe the OTHER Panda Express will be open", but alas, it is not. You are ready to return to the hotel and just go to sleep…
jgoldman | April 27, 2010Lots of great Psychology and Neuroscience blogging this week! Here's are my ResearchBlogging Editor's Selections for this week, covering some complex psychological and neurological disorders.
"Faces are special," says Kevin Mitchell, who writes at Wiring the Brain. Read about the acquired and developmental forms of a fascinating disorder, prosopagnosia, characterized by impaired facial recognition.
Faces also figure into a recent post at BPS Research Digest. For the first time, MRI participants socially engaged with another person (via video feed), in a new study from the labs of Rebecca Saxe…
jgoldman | April 26, 2010Editor's note: If you are offended by cholesterol, or are a health and nutrition blogger, or an obesity blogger, avert your eyes. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Earlier today, dear friend of the blog AV Flox conducted an experiment. It went something like this:
Observation: Everyone says the KFC Double-Down is gross.
Figure 1: Experimental stimulus. Bacon and cheese are served betwixt two pieces of original recipe fried chicken, which serve as the bun.
And so it was that in the name of SCIENCE, AV set out to investigate this issue.
Null Hypothesis: The KFC Double-Down really is as gross as it…
