Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XXIV

First, the surprising similarity of all animals:

Though big and little creatures look very different, below the surface there is a surprising unity. Biologists have compared the heartbeats of mammals and discovered that on average (this won't apply to any individual, just to groups) elephants and shrews and most of the critters in between have a limit of about a billion and a half heartbeats in a lifetime and then they die.

That is, except for us:

Human beings used to fit into this pattern, but now that we have learned to drink safe water, wash and bathe and create medicines, we last longer than our size would predict.

You can hear the details at NPR's Krulwich Wonders.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XXIII

Dirty dancing edition:

Before I break your heart with a magnificent demonstration of naked, forlorn, magnificent passion, I should tell you a thing or two about the male jumping spider.

These spiders dance when they woo. Here's a quick, silent introduction showing their basic moves: We start with a flourish of side-to-side quicksteps, then two front legs are fully (and repeatedly) extended like a referee signaling "touchdown!"...

Here's the video evidence (background music added):



Like a human dance club, this dance has high stakes:

This, apparently, is what spider ladies like. The more the male spider shakes, vibrates and extends, the more the female will consent to copulate. I don't know if that "leg snap" thing is the move that gets them over the top, but males who have been "muted" (waxed so they can't dance) frequently get eaten by their intendeds. So if you're a male jumping spider, it's best to dance your heart out.

Here's a more detailed description of the entire research and experiment and here's an article from The Guardian teaching you how to improve your own lady-getting dance moves.

The Dogs of War

U.S. soldier and his dog leap off the ramp of a helicopter

Who would have guessed one of the most interesting stories I came across after the death of Osama bin Laden (great summary) would be about the role of canines in the military:

Dogs have been fighting alongside U.S. soldiers for more than 100 years, seeing combat in the Civil War and World War I. But their service was informal; only in 1942 were canines officially inducted into the U.S. Army. Today, they're a central part of U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- as of early 2010 the U.S. Army had 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed (the largest canine contingent in the world). And these numbers will continue to grow as these dogs become an ever-more-vital military asset.

So it should come as no surprise that among the 79 commandos involved in Operation Neptune Spear that resulted in Osama bin Laden's killing, there was one dog -- the elite of the four-legged variety.

I recommended the who article quoted. It's short, full of great links and more wonderful photographs of humans and their animals.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XXII

Here's one shared by my friend-moving-to-Miami-tomorrow Jeff Brenman (goodbye Jeff). Apparently, whales have hit songs just like we do:

the team had to listen to 745 songs in total from six whale populations across the South Pacific over the 11-year period. The researchers identified 11 distinctly different styles (audio). Sometimes the "hit song" contained snippets from previous seasons, sometimes it was entirely revolutionary. But at any given time and place, there was only one song.

And like us, hits come and go:

What's more, the popular song switched incredibly rapidly; it took only 2 to 3 months for whales in a given region to entirely change their tune, the team reports online today in Current Biology.

Also like us, it's all about the ladies and all about the remix (earlier):

For male whales, singing is known to be a mating behavior, and Garland calls the results a "weird interaction of constrained novelty" where each whale wants to one-up the whale next to it but still feels pressure to conform enough that it doesn't stand out as an oddball.

But unlike us, their stars are too big to be studied:

his is extremely difficult to do, as humpbacks are too large to be put in captivity for study, and no good methods for tracking individual mating patterns exist.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XXI

Here's another example of how humans and animals are different. Instead of focusing on our differing strengths, here's a TED talk on our weakness (like how we are bad at risk and bad at investing). The difference is at the end, but I'll spoil it for you. The difference between irrational humans and irrational animals, is that we can know it and can create structures to overcome it.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XX

It's always fun when two of your thought hobbies cross paths. If you've read this blog for any length of time you know I'm continually fascinated with the differences (and similarities) between humans and animals. Also, recently I did a short series on issues I was wrong about to remind myself of the self-verification bias. Here's an interesting study using macaques and a computer game covering both topics:

The animals were trained to judge the density of a pixel box that appeared at the top of the screen as either sparse or dense. To give their answer, the monkeys simply moved a cursor towards a letter S or a letter D. 

When the animals chose the correct letter, they were rewarded with an edible treat. There was no punishment for choosing the wrong answer, but the game briefly paused, taking away - for a few seconds - the opportunity for the animals to win another treat. 

But the monkeys had a third option - choosing a question mark - which skipped the trial and moved on to the next one. This meant no treat, but it also meant no pause in the game.
The scientists saw that the macaques used this option in exactly the same way as human participants who reported that they found a trial too tricky to answer; they chose to "pass" and move on.

So monkeys know when they might be wrong, do you? Even weirder, chimpanzees know that other chimpanzees make assumptions:

If chimpanzees are faced with two opaque boards on a table, in the context of searching for a single piece of food, they do not choose the board lying flat (because if food was under there it would not be lying flat) but, rather, they choose the slanted one— presumably inferring that some unperceived food underneath is causing the slant. Here we demonstrate that chimpanzees know that other chimpanzees in the same situation will make a similar inference. In a back-and-forth foraging game, when their competitor had chosen before them, chimpanzees tended to avoid the slanted board on the assumption that the competitor had already chosen it. Chimpanzees can determine the inferences that a conspecific is likely to make and then adjust their competitive strategies accordingly.

When you assume it makes an ass out of u and me.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XIX

Valentines relationship edition:

Female wild Bechstein's bats prefer to literally hang out with certain friends while they also keep loose ties to the rest of their colony. Lead author Gerald Kerth told Discovery News that these bat buddies mirror human ones. Despite all of their "daily chaos, the bats are able to maintain long-term relationships," he said.

Okay, so that's a similarity, what about this:

Male bats of this species are solitary, but females roost together in bat boxes and tree cavities. They preferred certain companions over the years.

Yikes. Surely they just appreciate the familiarity and that's it:

consultant for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, pointed out that female bats even sometimes serve as midwives.

In one documented case, a pregnant fruit bat in Florida was attended by an unrelated female fruit bat, according to Balcombe, who is author of the book "Second Nature." The helper bat repeatedly groomed and hugged the pregnant bat during the birthing process.

"Following birth, the helper groomed the pup, and she and a third female fanned the mother with her wings," added Balcombe.

Dang that's surprising. So what can we do for Valentines Day that animals can't? Justin Beiber.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XVIII

I've always been amazed by the sometimes eerie ability of gorillas or chimpanzees (and sometimes whales) to learn how to use of language. However, it's important to remember what their limitations are:

During one of his journeys, Cohen met two of the stars of the ape-language world: the bonobo Kanzi and his half-sister, Panbanisha. He writes: ‘If they have language, I did not witness it. If a three-year-old human showed as little response to what I said, I would think the child had a hearing problem or was psychologically impaired.’

The 1960s and 70s were the heyday of ape-language research, but the field imploded in the 1980s after Columbia University researcher, Herbert Terrace, published the findings of his attempts to teach the chimp Nim Chimpsky American Sign Language (ASL). Not only did Terrace conclude that Nim was incapable of creating sentences; his team also analysed films of other high-profile ASL-using apes, including Washoe the chimp and Koko the gorilla, and decided that apes had a ‘severely restricted’ ability to learn more than ‘isolated symbols.’ There was no evidence of them being able to create sentences.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XVII

First, a similarity:

Chimpanzees sometimes smile from pleasure, as when baby chimps play with each other. But chimpanzees also smile when they’re trying to strengthen a social bond with another chimpanzee.

Dr. Niedenthal thinks that some human smiles fall into these categories as well. What’s more, they may be distinguished by certain expressions. An embarrassed smile is often accompanied by a lowered chin, for example, while a smile of greeting often comes with raised eyebrows.

Chimpanzees sometimes smile not for pleasure or for a social bond, but for power. A dominant chimpanzee will grin and show its teeth. Dr. Niedenthal argues that humans flash a power grin as well — often raising their chin so as to look down at others.

“ ‘You’re an idiot, I’m better than you’—that’s what we mean by a dominant smile,”

Now here's something we're better at:

But most importantly, Dr. Niedenthal argues, people recognize smiles by mimicking them. When a smiling person locks eyes with another person, the viewer unknowingly mimics a smile as well. In their new paper, Dr. Niedenthal and her colleagues point to a number of studies indicating that this imitation activates many of the same regions of the brain that are active in the smiler.

A happy smile, for example, is accompanied by activity in the brain’s reward circuits, and looking at a happy smile can excite those circuits as well. Mimicking a friendly smile produces a different pattern of brain activity. It activates a region of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex, which distinguishes feelings for people with whom we have a close relationship from others. The orbitofrontal cortex becomes active when parents see their own babies smile, for example, but not other babies.

If Dr. Niedenthal’s model is correct, then studies of dominant smiles should reveal different patterns of brain activity. Certain regions associated with negative emotions should become active.

Embodying smiles not only lets people recognize smiles, Dr. Niedenthal argues. It also lets them recognize false smiles. When they unconsciously mimic a false smile, they don’t experience the same brain activity as an authentic one. The mismatch lets them know something’s wrong.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XVI

Yesterday I mentioned that giving cash to panhandlers is more harmful than helpful. Here's a biological explanation of the drug addiction that often leads to real homelessness. From Physician Dr. Gabor Maté:

Well, the human brain, unlike any other mammal, for the most part develops under the influence of the environment. And that’s because, from the evolutionary point of view, we developed these large heads, large fore-brains, and to walk on two legs we have a narrow pelvis. That means—large head, narrow pelvis—we have to be born prematurely. Otherwise, we would never get born. The head already is the biggest part of the body. Now, the horse can run on the first day of life. Human beings aren’t that developed for two years. That means much of our brain development, that in other animals occurs safely in the uterus, for us has to occur out there in the environment. And which circuits develop and which don’t depend very much on environmental input. When people are mistreated, stressed or abused, their brains don’t develop the way they ought to.

That's a small portion of a fantastic interview with Democracy Now! about drug addiction and decriminalization. It seems to balance out my earlier post on letting parents relax about their responsibility and my earlier posts on the legalization of drugs. I recommended the whole video.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XV

In the second installment of this series, I embedded a lecture from Robert Sapolsky, a Professor of Biology, Neurology and Neurosurgery at Stanford University. In it he gives a wonderful explanation of the similarities and differences between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Recently, he wrote an article for the New York Times about how understanding metaphors are one of the unique things to humans:

We understand that a captain wants more than just hands when he orders all of them on deck. We understand that Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” isn’t really about a cockroach. If we are of a certain theological ilk, we see bread and wine intertwined with body and blood. We grasp that the right piece of cloth can represent a nation and its values, and that setting fire to such a flag is a highly charged act. We can learn that a certain combination of sounds put together by Tchaikovsky represents Napoleon getting his butt kicked just outside Moscow. And that the name “Napoleon,” in this case, represents thousands and thousands of soldiers dying cold and hungry, far from home.

Another thing he mentions is why we can. It's our bigger and denser frontal cortex. It allows us to not only understand complex metaphors, but also gives us:

Emotional regulation, gratification postponement, executive decision-making, long-term planning. We study hard in high school to get admitted to a top college to get into grad school to get a good job to get into the nursing home of our choice. Gophers don’t do that.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XIV

Perhaps the difference between humans and animals is human interaction with animals:

Traditionally, the big three traits of humans have been sophisticated communication, tool use, and domestication of animals. Shipman argues that the fact that people take domestication one step further and adopt pets as family members is a fourth distinguishing trait of human beings.

Shipman calls this close bond with animals the “animal connection,” and says it unites all the other human traits. Unlike other animals, who can only communicate via a limited set of signals, humans have languages capable of expressing complex concepts—and we share our language with our pets, treating them as if they understand our words (even though in many, if not most cases, they do not!). While some animals such as chimpanzees do make and use tools, no other animal utilizes so many tools in such complex and varied ways as humans do. We even use animals themselves as tools—from rodent bomb-sniffers to carrier pigeons to police dogs. In nearly every case where humans work with animals, they form close bonds.

The article even lists the practical socializing effects of owning pets.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XIII

Last time I highlighted something humans can't do. Well here's awesome stuff from us humans:



Here's earlier parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XII

In this series I've been focusing mostly on the things humans can do that animals can't. Well, here's something we can't do, be other animals:



Here's part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven of this series.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XI

In this continuing series I've mostly been mostly focusing on differences, but every so often I mention interesting similarities. Here's another example of the latter, Butterflies use medicine:

“What we do find is that the monarchs prefer to lay their eggs on the medicinal species when they are infected. However, when they are not infected with the parasite, they do not prefer this species over this one, they lay their eggs equally between these two species. So somehow they know that they’re infected and they know what to do about it.”

And here's another, monkey's wear power ties:

In many non-human primate species, a display of red by a female increases attraction behavior in male conspecifics. In two experiments, we investigate an analogous effect in humans, specifically, whether red on a woman's shirt increases attraction behavior in men. In Experiment 1, men who viewed an ostensible conversation partner in a red versus a green shirt chose to ask her more intimate questions. In Experiment 2, men who viewed an ostensible interaction partner in a red versus a blue shirt chose to sit closer to her. These effects were observed across participants' perceptions of their own attractiveness (Experiment 1) and general activation and mood (Experiment 2). Our findings suggest that red acts as a basic, non-lexical prime, influencing reproduction-relevant behavior in like manner across species.

Here's part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten of this series.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part X

Conservative Wesley Smith claims it is our morality and what that means for our interaction with the rest of the natural world:

Humans, Smith argues, are the only moral creatures: they have innate moral worth and their well-being always takes precedence over the well-being of animals, who are amoral creatures. Humans do indeed have a moral obligation to promote animal welfare, but they are also entitled to use animals, particularly if the use of animals alleviates human suffering.

What's the difference between humans and animals? Perhaps it the fact that we are even asking that question gives us the right to use the animal kingdom for our benefit. My next question is, in value, how many animals make one human?

Here's part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine of this series.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part IX

Here's what chimpanzee researchers in Uganda have been observing:

A band of males, up to 20 or so, will assemble in single file and move to the edge of their territory. They fall into unusual silence as they penetrate deep into the area controlled by the neighboring group. They tensely scan the treetops and startle at every noise. “It’s quite clear that they are looking for individuals of the other community,”

Here's why:

The objective of the 10-year campaign was clearly to capture territory, the researchers concluded. The Ngogo males could control more fruit trees, their females would have more to eat and so would reproduce faster, and the group would grow larger, stronger and more likely to survive.

For a series on the differences between humans and animals, this certainly sounds eerily like human behavior. The article linked above even discusses the similarities between the chimpanzee conflict and warfare among human groups that still live by hunting and gathering. But that similarity actually reveals a huge difference. Most humans don't hunt and gather anymore. Almost all people today live within the collaborative international community. This is not  a result of biological evolution, but cultural evolution. We have established clear property rights enforced by a social contract between billions of people. The last several decades have seen relatively unprecedented peace between groups. Something the animal kingdom cannot imagine.

Here's part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight of this continuing series.

What is the Ultimate Animal?

In my continuing series, Difference Between Humans and Animals, I've been trying to understand what does and what does not make humans unique. I've discussed many surprising animal abilities, but I haven't stopped and considered which is the best survivor? A recent article in the NYT times has convinced the answer may be none other than the common gray squirrel:

behind the squirrel’s success lies a phenomenal elasticity of body, brain and behavior. Squirrels can leap a span 10 times the length of their body, roughly double what the best human long jumper can manage. They can rotate their ankles 180 degrees, and so keep a grip while climbing no matter which way they’re facing. Squirrels can learn by watching others — cross-phyletically, if need be. In their book “Squirrels: The Animal Answer Guide,” Richard W. Thorington Jr. and Katie Ferrell of the Smithsonian Institution described the safe-pedestrian approach of a gray squirrel eager to traverse a busy avenue near the White House. The squirrel waited on the grass near a crosswalk until people began to cross the street, said the authors, “and then it crossed the street behind them.”

Not only are they communal, they are also selfish:

But the squirrels don’t just bury an acorn and come back in winter. They bury the seed, dig it up shortly afterward, rebury it elsewhere, dig it up again. “We’ve seen seeds that were recached as many as five times,” said Dr. Steele. The squirrels recache to deter theft, lest another squirrel spied the burial the first X times. Reporting in the journal Animal Behaviour, the Steele team showed that when squirrels are certain that they are being watched, they will actively seek to deceive the would-be thieves. They’ll dig a hole, pretend to push an acorn in, and then cover it over, all the while keeping the prized seed hidden in their mouth.

But perhaps their greatest strength, is that world's most dangerous predator, man, doesn't consider them a threat.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part VIII

Pointed out by Tyler Cowen, I've come across not another difference, but a similarity. This comes from David Hume, an 18th century Scottish philosopher in his Treatise of Human Nature:

It is plain, that almost in every species of creatures, but especially of the nobler kind, there are many evident marks of pride and humility. The very port and gait of a swan, or turkey, or peacock show the high idea he has entertained of himself, and his contempt of all others. This is the more remarkable, that in the two last species of animals, the pride always attends the beauty, and is discovered in the male only. The vanity and emulation of nightingales in singing have been commonly remarked; as likewise that of horses in swiftness, of hounds in sagacity and smell, of the bull and cock in strength, and of every other animal in his particular excellency. Add to this, that every species of creatures, which approach so often to man, as to familiarize themselves with him, show an evident pride in his approbation, and are pleased with his praises and caresses, independent of every other consideration. Nor are they the caresses of every one without distinction, which give them this vanity, but those principally of the persons they know and love; in the same manner as that passion is excited in mankind. All these are evident proofs, that pride and humility are not merely human passions, but extend themselves over the whole animal creation.

Here's part one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven of this continuing series.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part VII

In the first post of this series I suggested that trade, maybe I was right. From the Economist Magazine:

humans are the only species capable of innovation. Other animals use tools, and some ants, for example, do specialise at certain tasks. But these skills are not cumulative, and the animals in question do not improve their technologies from generation to generation. Only man innovates continuously.

But what makes us unique?

Some have suggested that perhaps it is the chemistry of big brains that leads us to tinker. Others that man’s mastery of language or his capacity for imitation and social learning hold the key. Mr Ridley, a zoologist by training, weighs up these arguments but insists, in the end, that the explanation lies not within man’s brain but outside: innovation is a collective phenomenon. The way man’s collective brain grows, he says cheekily, is by “ideas having sex”.

His own theory is, in a way, the glorious offspring that would result if Charles Darwin’s ideas were mated with those of Adam Smith. Trade, Mr Ridley insists, is the spark that lit the fire of human imagination, as it made possible not only the exchange of goods, but also the exchange of ideas. Trade also encouraged specialisation, since it rewarded individuals and communities who focus on areas of comparative advantage. Such specialists, in contrast with their generalist rivals or ancestors, had the time and the incentive to develop better methods and technologies to do their tasks.

Not only is our ability to hold this new information increasing, but the internet allows the storage and dispersion like never before. Here's part one, two, three, four, five, and six of this continuing series.