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Pigs observed using tools for 1st time + Memories implanted into bird brains

#1
C C Offline
Pigs are observed using tools for the first time as researcher records one digging in the ground with a stick
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...stick.html

SUMMARY: Endangered species [Visayan warty pig] used sticks to dog out nests for piglets. Ecologist observed the behavior repeatedly over three years. Pigs even tried using kitchen spatulas researchers gave them.



Implanted memories teach birds a song
https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/...-song.html

VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/205292139/7d6254e962

EXCERPT: . . . The study published in Science outlines how scientists activated a circuit of neurons through optogenetics – a relatively new tool that uses light to monitor and control brain activity. The researchers used zebra finches because they share many of the human stages of vocal development: Early in life the birds hear their fathers sing, eventually memorizing the notes. They learn to replicate the behavior after practicing tens of thousands of times.

By controlling the interaction between two regions of the brain, Dr. Roberts’ team encoded memories in zebra finches that had no tutoring experience from their fathers. The birds used these memories to learn syllables of their song, with the duration of each note corresponding to the amount of time the light kept the neurons active. The shorter the light exposure, the shorter the note.

“We’re not teaching the bird everything it needs to know – just the duration of syllables in its song,” Dr. Roberts said.  “The two brain regions we tested in this study represent just one piece of the puzzle.”

Nevertheless, the discovery is notable because it opens new avenues of research to identify more brain circuits that influence other aspects of vocalization, such as pitch and the order of each sound. “If we figure out those other pathways, we could hypothetically teach a bird to sing its song without any interaction from its father,” Dr. Roberts said. “But we’re a long way from being able to do that.” (MORE - details)
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
I remember having started a thread called 'Things that Will Never be Invented' on a few forums. Couple of the answers are always a Mind Control or Mind Reading machine. I have my doubts now about those devices never being invented. Are we on the cusp of something so incredible? Sci-fi authors, should we take them seriously? The levels of human ingenuity amaze me.
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#3
C C Offline
(Oct 5, 2019 03:09 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: I remember having started a thread called 'Things that Will Never be Invented' on a few forums. Couple of the answers are always a Mind Control or Mind Reading machine. I have my doubts now about those devices never being invented. Are we on the cusp of something so incredible? Sci-fi authors, should we take them seriously? The levels of human ingenuity amaze me.


Thing is, the detection instruments will probably always have to be calibrated to the individual beforehand. There could be a few very general principles slash neural configurations that are universal to human thought and what they correlate to. But the more specific things get the more the uniqueness of how each brain developed to implement _X_ comes into play.

Brain reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-reading

"Professor of neuropsychology Barbara Sahakian qualifies, "A lot of neuroscientists in the field are very cautious and say we can't talk about reading individuals' minds, and right now that is very true, but we're moving ahead so rapidly, it's not going to be that long before we will be able to tell whether someone's making up a story, or whether someone intended to do a crime with a certain degree of certainty."

With the below, there's no guarantee that the other brain will decode or interpret the transmission correctly, or even become aware of it at all. Perhaps vaguely akin to synesthesia -- where, say, information intended to be manifested as visual instead gets exhibited as sound or odor. However, by again calibrating to the two brains involved and matching up the right processing areas, they did eventually have some success. Movement signals also did cause the other person to move as well (even when being unaware of the signal), so that's a bit of the mind-control angle to that.

Brain-brain interface
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%8..._interface

"A brain–brain interface is a direct communication pathway between the brain of one animal and the brain of another animal. "
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#4
Zinjanthropos Offline
Quote:Pigs even tried using kitchen spatulas 


Flipping bacon? I like mine crunchy.
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#5
Zinjanthropos Offline
Wait a minute....CC....you devil....the thread title says it all. Pigs and spatulas is one thing but using the non possessive form of bird is kind of anthro.......good stuff.
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