...recent studies of crows and parrots have revealed that birds think and learn using an entirely different part of their brains, a kind of avian neocortex...In both parrots and crows, in fact, the ratio of brain to body size is similar to that of the higher primates, an encephalization quotient that yields in both species not only the usual indications of cognitive sophistication like problem-solving and tool use but also two aspects of intelligence long thought to be exclusively human: episodic memory and theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states, like intention, desire and awareness, to yourself and to others.

For some reason this gives me a shiver.  It makes me wonder how sophisticated the dinosaurs might have been...Might they have made tools?  Built cities?  After tens of millions of years there'd be no remnants left of such things; even if there were, we might not recognize them.
Also, going forward I shall try to be more respectful of the crows.

George Orr wrote:

It makes me wonder how sophisticated the dinosaurs might have been...Might they have made tools?  Built cities?  After tens of millions of years there'd be no remnants left of such things; even if there were, we might not recognize them.

I majored in geology with a paleontology specialization.

Undergrad science majors, weed, and beer, and the idea that some dinosaur group evolved intelligence, created a civilization, developed nukes, and wiped themselves out is easy. 60 million years is a long time. 60 million years from now, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo? Buried miles deep in the earth's crust. Evidence of dinosaur civilization? If, like it seems with us, that the era of tech that produces large artifacts lasted only a few thousand years, there'd likely be nothing left after that much time.

So.

The first news I heard of the Alvarez Hypothesis mentioned simply a layer of "heavy metals" around the globe, not the meteor impact stuff.  Heavy metal residue of the nuke apocalypse? Shivers? Damn yes.

Last edited by sigmoid freud (2016-01-29 22:48:04)

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

Bird brains: size doesn't matter

The researchers tested groups of ravens, jackdaws, and New Caledonian crows using the cylinder task and found that they performed just as well as apes when presented with the same task. These birds' brains may be smaller and structured very differently from mammal brains, but they seem to think like us in many ways.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ … -1.3923403

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Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

Last edited by choad (2018-12-16 13:08:10)