Aug 30, 2018 04:17 PM
Goats 'drawn to happy human faces'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45336330
EXCERPT: Scientists have found that goats are drawn to humans with happy facial expressions. The result suggests a wider range of animals can read people's moods than was previously thought. The researchers showed goats pairs of photos of the same person, one of them featuring an angry expression, and the other a happy demeanour. The goats made a beeline for the happy faces, the team reports in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The result implies that the ability of animals to perceive human facial cues is not limited to those with a long history of working as human companions, such as dogs and horses. Instead, it seems, animals domesticated for food production, such as goats, can also decipher human facial cues....
MORE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45336330
A dolphin in Scotland's Firth of Clyde may be exchanging messages with porpoises
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45348036
EXCERPT: The dolphin, named Kylie, usually makes clicking sounds with a frequency of around 100KHz. But after interacting with a group of local porpoises he changed his tune. Research from the University of Strathclyde found that Kylie's clicking became higher than normal, and closer to that of his new found friends, who generally make sounds at 130KHz. [...] Ms Cosentino should know soon whether Kylie really is communicating or merely imitating. She said that if further analysis showed the latter to be the case, it would be the first time a common dolphin has demonstrated an ability for "production learning" - where it has learned to imitate another species....
MORE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45348036
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45336330
EXCERPT: Scientists have found that goats are drawn to humans with happy facial expressions. The result suggests a wider range of animals can read people's moods than was previously thought. The researchers showed goats pairs of photos of the same person, one of them featuring an angry expression, and the other a happy demeanour. The goats made a beeline for the happy faces, the team reports in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The result implies that the ability of animals to perceive human facial cues is not limited to those with a long history of working as human companions, such as dogs and horses. Instead, it seems, animals domesticated for food production, such as goats, can also decipher human facial cues....
MORE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45336330
A dolphin in Scotland's Firth of Clyde may be exchanging messages with porpoises
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45348036
EXCERPT: The dolphin, named Kylie, usually makes clicking sounds with a frequency of around 100KHz. But after interacting with a group of local porpoises he changed his tune. Research from the University of Strathclyde found that Kylie's clicking became higher than normal, and closer to that of his new found friends, who generally make sounds at 130KHz. [...] Ms Cosentino should know soon whether Kylie really is communicating or merely imitating. She said that if further analysis showed the latter to be the case, it would be the first time a common dolphin has demonstrated an ability for "production learning" - where it has learned to imitate another species....
MORE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45348036