Exploring the evolution and architecture of the mind
If we wish to make an argument that some animals possess at least some sort of proto-gratitude, or the cognitive building blocks required for them to feel and express gratitude, we first have to decide what gratitude really means.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve no doubt noticed that things have been a little quiet around here. While this blog isn’t dead, per se, it’s on an extended hibernation.
Earlier this week I sat down with my friend Cara Santa Maria to chat on her excellent podcast, Talk Nerdy. The conversation was wide-ranging: we talked about the discovery of a new group of insects in which the females have what many are calling a “penis-like structure” (but which the researchers have labeled a gynosome), [...]
People overwhelmingly believe that having pets is overall a good thing for children. Indeed, a 2003 paper by developmental psychologist Gail F.
March was a busy month! Here’s everything I wrote last month. Here on The Thoughtful Animal: Oil Pollution is Making Gulf Dolphins Sick Studying Contagious Yawning Might Help Us Build Better Societies The Turtle with Human Eyes When Animals Act Like People in Stories, Kids Can't Learn At Conservation Magazine’s Conservation This Week blog: Move [...]
In October, two oarfish mysteriously washed up dead on beaches in Southern California. It’s unusual to find one intact oarfish carcass, so the fact that there were two within days of each other had scientists scratching their heads.
"Yum, these grass and plants are delicious!" Mother cavy thinks as she eats her breakfast. "I will feed some to my baby cavies too!" she says.
At first glance, most eyes look the same. There’s a small opening through which light passes. That light goes through the transparent liquid behind the lens and strikes the retina, a thin film of light-sensitive nerve cells that line the back of the eye.
We often turn to dogs and to chimpanzees to understand our species. Chimpanzees are our closest relatives (with bonobos), while centuries of selective breeding have turned dogs into a species uniquely suited to comprehend our own social cues.
For eighty-seven days in 2010, 210 million gallons of oil from wells below the Deepwater Horizon poured into the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers announced recently that as a result, Bottlenose dolphins in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay are suffering from a host of maladies, including lung disease and adrenal problems.
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