Slashdot Mirror
Cockatoo Manufactures, Uses Tools
grrlscientist writes with news of a cockatoo named Figaro, who was observed to construct and use his own tools to retrieve objects that were outside of his cage. Quoting:
"One day, a student caregiver noticed Figaro pushing a stone pebble through the aviary wire mesh, where it fell on a wood structural beam. Unable to retrieve the stone with his foot, Figaro then fetched a piece of bamboo and again attempted to retrieve the stone using the bamboo stick. ... During the next three days, the researchers ran trials of the original scenario, which was repeated ten times but substituting a cashew nut for the pebble. All trials were captured on video and the process of tool manufacture and use was documented photographically. ... 'Figaro made a new tool for every nut we placed there and each time the bird was successful in obtaining it,' reports cognitive biologist Alice Auersperg of the University of Vienna, who led the study (PDF). During these trials, Figaro used 10 tools, nine of which he manufactured and one of which was ready-made."
I remember reading an article about how dragonflies were using stones to tap down their nests making it harder for predators to find. The result was a reclassification on what constituted a tool removing the dragonflies from being classified as tool users.
Many animals use tools. So, I don't really see how this is news worthy other than that the bird learned to build them on its own without help from other birds.
grrlscientist writes with news of a cockatoo named Figaro, who was observed to construct and use his own tools
That's just epic. When the economy doesn't support the First World manufacturing industry, you can rely on parrots take over. I think I'll sleep much better now. :-)
Ezekiel 23:20
Did it spell out 'please dont eat me"? That's the one we have to take notice of...
Just uh... keep it away from the cows and chickens. don't want them getting any ideas...
ANY submission with even the most tenuous of Aussie connections is accepted.
With the names of some recent start-ups, I at first thought there was a new company named Cockatoo that was getting into the manufacturing biz and they use the open-source app called "tools".
Hey, there are lots of weird names out there.
The New Caledonian raven has already been documented as creating and using tools.
Of course, this is how science is done - repetition!
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
A smart bird would have made a tool that could do the job ten times, and not a new tool each time. I have seen docos showing mainly birds using tools to get grubs out of holes or use stones to crack nuts, I think that we under- estimate how smart animals can be.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
avian rabid parrototyping overlords!
Doesn't "manufactured" imply that the final product is made using other tools or machinery, which wasn't the case here? Shouldn't it be "a parrot made tools" or rather "a parrot uses slivers of wood to poke at a nut in an attempt to retrieve it"? Not as catchy of a title, but also not as misleading as the current one...
Stupid Humans...
If they could be trained to assemble ipads you can bet Foxconn would do it. Depends only on the price of bird food whether or not they would be cheaper than their existing work force.
This "Quick-Programmable NPC" is what a lot of spiritualists would term "a soul".
There's a particular line of thought (and scientific study! See: Eric Pepin) that hypothesizes that what pratically every awake, Quick-Programmable NPC people generally reference as their "soul" is really an evolutionary epiphenomenon / emergent property that just started emerging in the species in the last 10,000-50,000 years ago, at least in the genius class.
It further states that while it has a very real biological component (certain gene combinations are apparently *required* to be *born* with this "soul state" (or quick-programmable, as you put it), it is mostly a psychological / noetic characteristic, a sort of linguistically-programmable memetic virus.
The more Quick NPCs such as ourselves interact with other animals (especially humans), the more those other entities develop their own "soulness". The effect is that even completely biologically-unique adopted children and pets will seem to develop "soulness" based upon their age (younger the better) and duration and intensity of their enmeshment with "soulful" entities.
This spread of "humanizing characteristics" has been quite dramatically and very frequently observed in most domesticated species of all types, including a wide range of mammals and birds (esp. primates, canines, and felines). The critical point where the process cements in the entity is with their neurolinguistic recognition of their own "name" (or arbitrary identity reference).
There is a serious and ongoing research into this field, mainly by cutting edge linguists and neurologists. Most keep it under wraps for fear of ridicule from the mainstream scientific society, but that's how cutting edge stuff has always gone for millennia now.
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
Ok, so Cockatoo's, Apes, Elephants and Dragonflies all use tools too. We're still the only species that hangs them on shadowboards.
You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle.
Hope the bird has a good lawyer, I'm sure Apple thinks it invented the stick, so watch out birdy, the black turtleneck of the law is on your tail.
Indeed, now for a challenge, teach a machine to do the same.
welcome our tool using cockatoo overlords.
A good TED talk in itself, but around 2:55 the speaker shows a video of a crow creating a tool: Joshua Klein: The intelligence of crows. I like his conclusion: instead of killing crows (and other non-human species which have adapted to live in cities), we should think how we can use their adaptive skills to train them to do some work for us, i.e. to try to cooperate with them.
This could be the solution to our economic troubles; we need to breed an army of Cockatoo's as cheap labour, to lure multinationals and manufacturing outlets back to our country, and bring the economy back up to speed.
Once we breed enough Cockatoo's, we'll have enough cheap labour so that nobody will ever have to work again, with our lives being spent lavishing ourselves in a luxury Cockatoo-based economy (so long as the Cockatoo's don't revolt).
...we'll have a problem on our hands. Imagine a new breed of intelligent flying creatures. They'd swoop down, grab our food and just fly away. They'd fly to some remote mountain top to breed, then create their own civilization and eventually.. they'll come for us :)
Was this the clip you were thinking of? http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/ravens/video-raven-intelligence/1549/