Archives: Primates

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Brawn over brains?

There’s no question that broadly speaking, big brains are smart. Take humans, for instance: our brains weigh in at about 3 pounds on average, nearly four times the size of the brains of chimpanzees (whose brains weigh in at less than a pound apiece). What’s less clear is why. There are a number of... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Monkeys draw from memory

We’re a little bit closer to understanding what it’s like to be a monkey, and it’s thanks to the same technology that powers your smartphone: the touchscreen. The latest victory for touchscreens is in the field of memory research. Scientists have been studying this ability in animals for decades – some birds, for example,... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

To kill bias, gather good data

I hate myself for this: I have the worst sense of direction. For the entire year when I was living in my first apartment in Kingston, I would take a circuitous route along King Street and then up Princess on my way home from the Kingston Yacht Club. Nearly two kilometers, when walking up... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Groupthink

Which animal would use Facebook most, if it could? My poll in class last week was a popular one – a fact that I couldn’t properly enjoy, since Charlie came up with it for me in a fit of brain-dead incapacity. Charlie’s Facebook question elicited chirps of excitement, compliments and even a few drawings... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Language Instincts: Grammar in nature

From November 18, 2006 Many linguists would claim that grammar is what sets human language apart from anything else in the animal world. Some would disagree – bird song, for example, can be quite complex and it is thought that there might be some rules involved in its underlying structure. The question is, at... More

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Language Instincts: Do animals lie?

From November 11, 2006 In my last few posts you may have noticed a theme: signals that are used to advertise sex in the animal world are generally thought to be honest ones. In fact, animal communication in general is pretty truthful. There may be different reasons for this: some signals may be impossible... More

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