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Dog Trained on 200-Word Vocabulary

Posted by michael on from the what's-that-lassie?-timmy-fell-down-the-well? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany is reporting in Science Magazine today on an example of successful human to non-human communication: Rico, a collie trained on a vocabulary of 200 words. Their conclusion is that 'brain structures that support this kind of learning are not unique to humans...[Rico has a] retrieval rate comparable to the performance of three-year-old toddlers'. In case you ever wondered if your dog understands what you are saying, Rico 'can learn the names of unfamiliar toys after just one exposure to the new word-toy combination.'"

3 of 532 comments (clear)

  1. Re:how about... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Guess you never heard this saying...

    Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

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  2. Daniel Radcliffe looking forward to kissing Cho by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    [from Contact Music]

    Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is eager to recreate the raunchy scenes of the latest book in the series Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

    The pubescent actor has been reading the book's saucy sequences and hoping that he will be allowed to enact them in the fifth Harry Potter film - which he has not yet signed up for.

    Radcliffe says, "The kissing bit would be really nice. I look at them thinking, 'I wonder if I'll be doing that in a couple of years?'

    "Before, when I visualised them as cartoons and now I'm reading them I can't fail to think of me doing it. It's weird."

  3. Better Toyota ads on the way... by Julz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Bugger! downloadable video available here. Be nice to that link as I just googled for it.

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    When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE