Wednesday feb 17, noon-1
Looking for Smart in all the right places
Premise: A light exploration of “animal intelligence” to provide a curiosity-charged and positive mental health break for all of us. Ultimately, “seeing” intelligence in the non-human world changes our relationship to them and each other, as Aldo Leopold would say, from conqueror to plain member and citizen.

discussion led by Jeri Neal

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87153508947?pwd=UkZXRXZmTHZBb29WaFQ0R2xnNFBTUT09

Meeting ID: 871 5350 8947
Passcode: 750800

more things shared by jeri:
REFERENCES & MORE FUN THINGS TO CHECK OUT:
WATCH documentary: My Octopus Teacher. It’s on NETFLIX, but since it’s a documentary may be able to pick it up elsewhere or request it through APL services, Kanopy or Hoopla. Storyline: After years of swimming every day in the freezing ocean at the tip of Africa, Craig Foster meets an unlikely teacher: a young octopus who displays remarkable curiosity. Visiting her den and tracking her movements for months on end he eventually wins the animal’s trust and they develop a never-before-seen bond between human and wild animal.
LISTEN to TED talks:
The roots of plant intelligence Stefano Mancuso https://www.ted.com/talks/stefano_mancuso_the_roots_of_plant_intelligenc...

How Bacteria “talk” Bonnie Bassler https://www.ted.com/talks/bonnie_bassler_how_bacteria_talk/up-next
Being ‘human’ is only about 10% of what you really are. The oldest living organisms on earth, even as single cell organisms, bacteria can distinguish “self” from “other” – and are multi-lingual: they have “trade language” for interspecies communication; and their own language for their community

Moral Behavior in Animals_frans_de_waal https://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_moral_behavior_in_animals/up-next
Research in his lifetime has moved from a focus on aggression, competition and dominance as a baseline for human and animal behavior to revealing shared moral principles. Reconciliation, repairing a valuable relationship after conflict; Reciprocity (fairness), and Empathy (compassion) are considered ‘pillars’ of human morality and this is shared across the animal kingdom.

Are you Intelligent? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqpUuGIHfx0&feature=emb_title
If you want to get deeper into the ‘academics’, you could start with this fast moving, illustrated, academic overview of “what is intelligence”

READ:
> Online articles:
» Humans as imitator rather than innovator – Rather than making our living as innovators, human beings survive and thrive precisely because we don’t think for ourselves! Instead, people cope with challenging climates and ecological contexts by carefully copying others – especially those we respect. Being copycats might be key to being human By Connor Wood, Boston University

Original research for this piece: Horner, V., Whiten, A. Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens). Anim Cogn 8, 164–181 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0239-6 … Published11 November 2004 ... Issue DateJuly 2005 ... DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0239-6

» About cool tools - from biopsy darts to snotbots for whale (and ocean) research https://ideas.ted.com/how-a-snot-collecting-marine-drone-is-giving-us-an...

» Crab smarts: despite significant “deficit” brain neuron counts compared to other creatures, it’s not just rats and honeybees that are talented at navigating mazes https://sciencespies.com/news/crabs-can-learn-to-navigate-mazes-too/

» Naked mole rats and their learned colony dialects https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/naked-mole-rats-speak-dialects...

» An overview of all kinds of animal intelligence https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/everything-worth-knowing-a... note this link doesn’t seem to work from the pdf, so from your browser, search for discovery everything worth knowing animal intelligence to get to the article
READ:
>Magazines (Jeri’s favorite – New Scientist)
New Scientist/ 2 Nov 2019/ p.12 “Scientists train rats to drive tiny cars around an arena” author Alice Klein
New Scientist/ 9 June 2018/ p. 40 “Buzz Off” author Richard Schiffman
New Scientist Editor's pick: Plants, too, have their own low cunning Published 26 July 2017 From Anthony Trewavas, Edinburgh, UK 

“Erica Tennenhouse describes snails, starfish and slime moulds learning without brains (15 July, p 32). But any judgement that this is surprising is coloured by our limited animal perspective. We equate behaviour with visible movement and elevate nerve cells in reasonable numbers as the only means of learning, remembering and delivering intelligence.
A simple definition of intelligence as behaviour that profits from experience during the life cycle fits immune systems perfectly. In the single-celled Physarum slime mould, intelligent behaviour arises from sophisticated and complex networks of tens of thousands of proteins and thousands of protein-modifying enzymes.
Higher plants, Earth's dominant life form, continue to develop in the face of a variable and usually unpredictable environment. They learn and profit from experience by adjusting their characteristics. It is easy to demonstrate that plants remember former parts of their experience over many months and even years. That, too, is intelligent behaviour.

Books:
The Bird Way: A new look at how birds talk, work, play, parent and think Author: Jennifer Ackerman
When Elephants Weep, the emotional lives of animals Authors: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy (Warning, it left me weeping)