Parrots Can Dance

juuri sends in an NPR article about the consensus created among scientists that some birds actually dance to music. "The results of this study are reported in the journal Current Biology, along with another scientific paper inspired by YouTube videos of dancing animals. Adena Schachner is a graduate student in the psychology department of Harvard University. She says she was familiar with the idea that some people had made videos of birds supposedly dancing. ... She and her colleagues eventually analyzed more than 5,000 videos. 'Imagine watching YouTube eight hours a day for a month,' she says. 'That's pretty much what we did. It was amusing for perhaps the first couple of hours.'" juuri adds, "While this makes them somewhat unique in the animal world, as only three animals are now known to dance by verifiable proofs, what struck me more was that this was the first time YouTube had helped forge a new scientific understanding. Given the explosive growth of uploading videos and people watching them, what other new understandings and popular misconceptions will be proven or disproved due to this emerging media?"

Comments

All birds can, actually

[BadAnalogyGuy]

They can dance if they want to.

Re:All birds can, actually

[stonedcat]

They can leave their friends behind.

Re:All birds can, actually

[Bobfrankly1]

You don't say "thanks" when someone infects you with a catchy song, you say "Domo Arigato, Mr Roboto"! Turn-about is fair play.

Re:All birds can, actually

[cplusplus]

...you're no friend of mine.

Damnit!

[Chris Burke]

Another thing parrots can do that I can't! When will this humiliation end?

Re:Damnit!

[linguizic]

You might not be able to dance, but I'm sure you can at least parrot it.

After an exhaustive study of youtube videos.

[pillowcase1]

Otters can feel love.

Re:After an exhaustive study of youtube videos.

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The jury's still out on Boxxy.

Re:The pictured Sun Conure

[Austerity Empowers]

For the love of all that is holy, do not raise that bird on disco.

Otter Porn!

[geekmux]

Otters can feel love.

Wait, what? I can't even find any regular porn on YouTube, but you found Otter porn?!?

Re: Domo Arigato

[TaoPhoenix]

We are the Modern Web (secret secret)
With YRO instead (secret secret)
Housed in FBI DB's (secret secret)
That no one else can see!

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/01/1247258

or, +1 Chuck Finale with mockband Jeffster!

Re:Which 3 animals?

[Bobfrankly1]

Which animals are those? Oregon zoo has concerts close too the elephant pens. Zoo workers their claim the elephants do dance to the music. So are the 3 animals humans, parrots, and elephants, or what?

This is where reading the full article pays off. The answer is in there lazy one.

Re:The pictured Sun Conure

[ratnerstar]

I have a cockatiel and he's about eight years old. He has a little metal band around one of his feet ...

Wow, I thought dancing was impressive, but this guy has a bird that's in a metal band!

Re:My own dancing cockatoo

[Bobfrankly1]

I have a Bare-Eyed Cockatoo, and he dances constantly...I take him in the shower with me about once a week, and encourage him to shake off before I take him out of the shower stall by telling him to "shake your little white booty" and singing a bit of KC and the Sunshine Band.

Bare-Eyed Cockatoos are awesome birds, but bare-assed you was hardly what I wanted an image of this early in the morning.

Re:My own dancing cockatoo

[MRe_nl]

Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.