Some humans might prefer to read the entirety of this study, rather than see any summary that we or anyone else would provide: “Monkeys Prefer Reality Television,” Eliza Bliss-Moreau [pictured below], Anthony C. Santistevan, and Christopher J. Machad, PsyAxXiv, DOI 10.31234/osf.io/7drpt, 2021. The authors are at the University of California Davis; Flatiron Health, Inc., New […]
Tag: monkey
Monkeys and the Uncanny Valley [study]
“The concept of the uncanny valley suggests that humanoid objects which imperfectly resemble actual human beings provoke uncanny or strangely familiar feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers.” Source: Wikipedia Since its discovery in 1970, many follow-up studies have confirmed the effect in human observers. But what about other animals, say, monkeys? Are they also […]
When a monkey loved a deer…
Love has always been difficult to define exactly. A newly published study adds nuance, or at least data, to the concept. The study is: “Interspecies sexual behaviour between a male Japanese macaque and female sika deer,” Marie Pelé, Alexandre Bonnefoy, Masaki Shimada, and Cédric Sueur, Primates, epub January 2017. The authors, in Strasbourg, France and […]
The classic shoot-the-monkey demonstration, anew
Daniel Rosenberg (whom you will see in the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony next month) and his colleagues at the Harvard Science Center staged and shot (anew!) this brief video of a classic physics demo: This is a demonstration of the independence of the horizontal and vertical components of the velocity of a projectile. Often referred […]
Tracking down the Getulian dog
In 1551 the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner published his meisterwerk “Historia Animalium” ,[*1]. The book featured dozens of illustrations of curious animals – including the so-called Getulian dog (Canis getulus). Many of the other dogs which the book described and pictured (e.g. the Greyhound and the Spaniel) are still very much around nearly half a […]
Monkey flossing
Monkey flossing became a formal practice, at least experimentally, in the late 1970s, thanks to a dentist named Jack Caton. Twenty years later, a physician, David C Sokal, inspired by the monkey flossing, patented a top/bottom flossing-reminder and floss-dispensing device for humans. Monkeys themselves apparently began unassistedly flossing not long afterwards. But in all probability […]
Rube Goldbergian species discovery
An intriguing headline and sub-headline in The Guardian: Snake spits out new species of chameleon at scientist’s feet Latest find in natural world was result of reptile coughing up lizard as conservationist studied monkeys in the jungle