Happy Birthday Fluffy!

Max's gal and my gal turns seven today!

Thanks for coming into my life and teaching me the joy of living 

Happy Birthday Sweetheart !

Understanding Animal Subjectivity Through Their Languages

Review of the book Animal Languages: The secret conversations of the living world by Eva Meijer.  

Damn, I didn't know most of what Eva covers in this book! Thank you 

Several years ago, there was big news: Dolphins call one another by name. Like humans, they all have a unique sound that they use to introduce themselves to new dolphins and to call one another. Dolphins are far from the only animals that have names. Parrots receive a name from their parents. Squirrel monkeys have a special “chuck” sound for each individual. Bats have names that they use to call one another so that they can stay together in the darkness. This can be particularly useful in a big group. A name is handy because it allows you to call someone else and to indicate that it is you who is coming.

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Like cats, snakes have a Jacobson’s organ. Located in the roof of the mouth, this is an organ of chemoreception that is part of the olfactory system, which these animals use to smell. Their tongues capture scent particles that they place in the Jacobson’s organ, which has two openings, allowing them to smell the world in stereo. Snakes use this to find both predators and prey, and to communicate with other snakes. The trail that their body leaves behind and the air that they pass through contain pheromones with information about their gender and age, and whether they are pregnant. Young snakes follow this trail to find the location of the shared hibernation space. Puff adders, venomous snakes found mainly in southern Africa, not only leave behind scents for others to follow but also camouflage their own scent in order to deceive predators. Snakes also communicate by touch, and some cobras make low growls.

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There are problems with the mirror test though: First, there are some animals who do not mind having a sticker on their skin. Second, in some cultures looking at yourself in the mirror is not good form. Third, it is not that suitable for animals whose other senses are more important than sight.

To start with the first point: Elephants use mud to keep cool and to prevent itching, so they often do not object to a little thing like a sticker on their skin and therefore score badly in the mirror test, in spite of their intelligence and socially minded attitude. We find the second, cultural aspect in gorillas, who are social animals and assumed to be self-aware, but they are naturally shy and long eye contact is not common among their kind, so they too score badly on the mirror test. The same applies, incidentally, to children from some non-Western cultures. Out of 82 children from Kenya, only two passed the test, whereas Western children pass the test almost without exception — clearly the difference here is cultural, not cognitive. Thirdly, the test is also not very suitable for animals whose sight is not good. Dogs are more focused on scent than on sight, so animal ethologist Marc Bekoff came up with the yellow snow test, a variation on the mirror test. Dogs live in a universe of scents, which inspired Bekoff to carry out an experiment in which he collected pee from the snow and investigated how his dog reacted. The dog in question, Jethro, spent considerably less time sniffing his own pee than that of other dogs, so he was clearly reacting differently to the scent profile of other dogs than to his own.

These examples show us that there is more going on in the social lives of animals than we may think. Looking at their languages can help us to better understand their inner lives. However, as the mirror test demonstrates, there are also problems with research methods that are based on human capacities: Human bias distorts how we view other animals. Similarly, if we only study the languages of other animals on the basis of how much they resemble human language, many animals will not fare well. In order to move beyond anthropocentrism, power relations in research need to be taken into account, and we need to develop new research practices together with other animals. In this process, existing concepts such as language can be a starting point.

Oppenheimer

I love Christopher Nolan movies; even during the pandemic I went to see Tenant and was disappointed. 

Inception is still my all time favorite Nolan movie. 

Oppenheimer's biopic should have limited Nolan style jumping back and forth the time every 30 seconds. This will lose most people's interest since most don't know Oppenheimer's story. 

I did love the movie. 

Hat's off Oppenheimer for managing some of the brilliant minds of our times in a small space and time and delivering for humanity. No small feat and as far I know - no one before or since has pulled this feat. 

Oppenheimer life can teach us few lessons; nothing new but age old wisdom.

1. Watch out for enemies amongst your friends. Pick your friends wisely and don't get disappointed if they disappoint.

2. Choose your spouse and who you have sex with wisely. Nothing more in life is more important than this. 

3. Eschew ideology. Never even flirt with one else you will face consequences sooner or later. 

4. Understand people don't have gratitude. Learn to accept that as a daily status quo. 

5. People have short term memory outside of their "personal" life (which one of the reasons for # 4).

6. Do the right thing always (the atom bomb was the right thing) and pass on to the next generation.  There are some unique cases where one cannot be responsible for second or third order effects.

Maybe one day his work might destroy this planet. Maybe not. Maybe his work saved the planet and might save it again. 

I don't know.

An Often Overlooked Truth About Human Nature - John Gray

Human beings crave safety more than they yearn for liberty, and nowhere more so than in Russia. 

- More Here

Happy Birthday Garph!

This little Buddha is turning out to be a naughty Buddha as he turns six today!

Without Max, I would have never met him so another kiss for Max. 

Every night very much like Max, he comes to the bed with me and sleeps on my chest. These simple moments bring heaven on earth! 

The Language Of Wolves

For those who put sapiens on pedestal; be humble,  curious, and embrace awe and wonder. 

Despite their cultural popularity, wolf howls haven’t been the subject of focussed research until recently. Now, following the lead of marine biologists and ornithologists, and with improved sound recording equipment and analysis programs, researchers can study them in depth. The first step in understanding what animals are saying to one another is to figure out what aspects of the voice are functional and what parts are formed by the structure of the throat and mouth, or what is the piano and what is the tune. Studies since the 1960s have shown that the howls that have haunted our dreams for centuries can tell us a lot about the particular wolf vocalising. Like humans, each wolf has its own voice. Each pack also shares howl similarities, making different families sound distinct from each other (wolves respond more favourably to familiar howls). This much we knew. What we didn’t know was whether the differences seen between packs were true of subspecies or of species, and if an Indian wolf howl would be distinct from a Canadian one.

More questions follow. If howls from different subspecies are different, do the howls convey the same message? Is there a shared culture of howl-meanings, where an aggressive howl from a European wolf means the same thing as an aggressive howl of a Himalayan? And can a coyote differentiate between a red wolf howling with aggressive intent and one advertising the desire to mate? Even without grammar or syntax, howls can convey intent, and if the shape of the howl changes enough while the intent remains constant, the foundations of distinctive culture can begin to appear.

To explore this, Kershenbaum brought together a group of researchers to share data and ideas. We compared howls across 13 different subspecies and species of coyotes, dogs, wolves and jackals (collectively known as canids). The howls came from my own recordings on chilly evenings in Poland and Russia; from UK zoos and conservation sites (where I howled at the bemused wolves and listened in awe as they responded); from our co-authors in the US, Spain and India; from historic recordings taken across continents and time; from the public, in the form of hundreds of YouTube videos of howling pets. Our canine voice collection represented was one of the most comprehensive ever.

We then stretched all the howls to the same length, using a process called dynamic time warping, to compare the changes in the tune without including the tempo it was played at. We found that each species had its own favourite howl shape, a preferred set of changes to their howls to raise and drop the pitch, but that they also used howl shapes preferred by other species, and varied the shapes as they pleased. The species were like music bands with preferred styles of playing, whether riff-filled like jazz or the pure tones of classical, but were flexible in what they actually played at any given time. So while they had a favourite style, the tune itself varied.

Like musicians, the wolves were influenced by their forebears in the genre, and species shared traits with other canids that were closer to them geographically and genetically. An Eastern grey wolf, recorded in the US, sounded more like a North Carolinian red wolf than a European wolf, and an African jackal sounded quite different again. Small and delicate compared with their cousins the European wolves, golden jackals have high, rising howls, running up and down the scales in bravura performances of control and speed, but with less variation in overall shape, whereas the European wolves used a slower style of deep and steady long notes ending in falls that seem to drift away into the night. New Guinea singing dogs earned their names with a large vocal repertoire and a wide selection of howl shapes. While sometimes the different species achieved crossovers to other shapes, most had a style that dominated their repertoires.

If these differences across species sound familiar, they should. We’ve known for thousands of years that birdsong is distinct to each species, and sometimes even populations, with a nuthatch’s wha-wha-wha very different to a robin’s whistling call. We’ve seen that birds have adaptable repertoires, literally changing their tunes as new sounds become popular and spread through populations. Humpback whales sing new songs when they hear them, collecting new patterns of song throughout their lives and passing them on to others in their population. Our canid study showed that they had different howls for their species, but we have yet to answer whether they can change their howls with time or exposure to different howl patterns. Now that we’ve seen there are differences, the next question to answer is whether they are innate or learned, and how far a wolf can change its howl.

- The songs of the wolves