The miniature brains of honeybees were able to understand the concepts of odd and even, despite only having 960,000 neurons (compared to 86 billion in humans).
Vera Weisbecker, Flinders University and Jeroen Smaers, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)
Some animals, such as California sea lions, have small brains relative to their body size, but are still impressively intelligent, showing brain evolution is even more complex than it appears.
For the past 50 years, international animal cognition research has focused on how tool use is related to animal intelligence. But new research casts doubt on long-held assumptions.
Kea were able to correctly guess the most probable scenarios, by evaluating various physical and social cues. Previously, only great apes and humans were known to be able to understand probability.
More than 620 million years of evolution separate crows from humans, but the birds show that they can plan three steps ahead.
Romana Gruber
New Caledonian crows are famous for using tools to reach a reward. Now scientists have confirmed they can plan several steps ahead, like a chess player contemplating a series of moves.
As machines get ever more complex as we strive to make them complete more complex tasks, it’s time to ask again: will they ever be able to think? But what is thinking anyway?
All the better for hearing you with.
Boris Roessler/EPA
Sometimes it may seem like your dog doesn’t want to listen. But in our study, however, we’ve found that he may understand more than he lets on. Human speech is complex, communicating not only words but…