
Researcher decodes prairie dog language - alecdibble
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/researcher-decodes-praire-dog-language-discovers-theyve-been-calling-people-fat.html
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wavefunction
The more we learn about animals, the more I wonder about our casual treatment
of them.

It's led me to the conclusion that there are certainly species at least on our
level of cognitive development, they just might have different value systems
such that our pursuit of technology seems very foreign and strange.

It's also why I'm transitioning into vegetarianism (though still eating
chicken eggs, which I can't find an ethical issue with).

~~~
eltondegeneres
Despite the commonly-held belief that eating eggs is an ethical alternative to
meat, nothing could be farther from the truth. The stress of being treated as
egg-laying machines causes hens to peck at themselves and others, ripping out
feathers and eyes, a behavior that is unheard of in chickens raised outside of
captivity. To prevent injury, most hens have their beaks are sliced off by a
hot blade and without anesthetic. After laying about 300 eggs, her bones
leached of calcium and often unable to walk, an egg-laying hen is killed for
her flesh just a year after she is born.

For the more than 100 million male chicks every year, the day they hatch will
be the last day of their lives. Unable to lay eggs and too small be sold as
broiler chickens, male chicks have no commercial value and are gassed or
ground alive at just one day old. Tragically this is a reality across all egg
production; cage free or “humane” eggs are no different. The killing of male
chicks and eventual slaughter of “spent” hens are standard industry practice
and can only be avoided by rejecting eggs entirely.

~~~
grey-area
There are plenty of free-range farms with good conditions (at least in the
country I live in), and you're exaggerating in an attempt to equate all eggs
with factory production (the conditions of which truly are appalling).

 _The stress of being treated as egg-laying machines causes hens to peck at
themselves and others, ripping out feathers and eyes, a behavior that is
unheard of in chickens raised outside of captivity._

Hens peck at each other to establish primacy in the wild, or in non-factory
conditions very like the wild, losing feathers etc. Animal violence is not
down to the conditions humans hold them in. Hence the phrase 'pecking order'
which originated far before factory farming of chickens. Violence is probably
worse in factory conditions and I'm sure some hens will simply go insane given
the conditions you describe, but they do naturally peck at each other to
establish dominance.

 _The killing of male chicks and eventual slaughter of “spent” hens are
standard industry practice and can only be avoided by rejecting eggs
entirely._

They are only standard industry practice in factory farms. On small free range
farms or private holdings of chickens, these practices often don't hold. Note
that most chickens won't survive in the wild though, so if they are released,
they quickly die from predation.

Whether a vegetarian should eat the young of another species harvested before
birth is another question (I can see arguments either way), but factory
farming is not the only way to harvest eggs and not all eggs are produced that
way.

~~~
eru
> Whether a vegetarian should eat the young of another species harvested
> before birth is another question [...]

Unless you are talking about Balut
(<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg)>), the eggs we are eating are
usually not fertilized. So it's not `eating the young'.

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Falling3
I've always found this very interesting, especially their seemingly built-in
vocabulary. It's definitely not news though as the blog suggests. I remember
having heard about this for years. Here's a reference from 2005:
[http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/lds/meridian/2005/prairi...](http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/lds/meridian/2005/prairie_dog.html).

~~~
alecdibble
I really didn't expect to read a conclusion like this in an article about
prairie dog linguistic research:

    
    
        This article has summarized groundbreaking research that reveals sophisticated language use by the prairie dog. Their ability to coin new words has thus far defied reasonable explanation. To us it indicates that a divine Creator was required to endow these rodents with this language gift. Surely, even a higher level of design and intelligence would be required to enable the incredibly more complex linguistic abilities of mankind as spiritual children of the Living God.

~~~
lolcraft
Well, to be fair, there's a fair amount of goofy Biblical quoting at the
beginning. Really, that article is hilarious, you should read it. Complete
with pseudo-information theory bullshit -- it's INCREDIBLY COMPLEX, says the
title of one section--, artificial intelligence from the sixties (I guess if
SHRDLU couldn't do it, then GOD must have done it), and just general
obtuseness from a pair of pompous fundamentalists. Come on, the conclusion of
this religious tract disguised as scientific paper is, _literally_ , "we don't
know why this happens, so GODDIDIT"! Got to laugh at that :)

Were the authors catholics, they'd be either hypothesizing the existence of a
Prairie Dog Jesus, or contemplating whether to send missionaries. I can't
decide on what would be funnier.

~~~
nknighthb
Were the authors Roman Catholic, they would not be citing this or anything
else as evidence for intelligent design.

~~~
Terretta
Book of Mormon mention suggests not Catholic. :-)

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jcoder
Off-topic, but if you manage a content site, and you cannot say with a
straight face that your mobile site is objectively better for mobile devices
in some way, GET RID OF THE MOBILE SITE.

~~~
RBerenguel
As an iPad 1 user, agree. Most mobile sites kill Safari on iPad 1s

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js2
Non-swipe: [http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/researcher-
decode...](http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/researcher-decodes-
praire-dog-language-discovers-theyve-been-calling-people-
fat.html?onswipe_redirect=never)

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ilamont
Some years ago, I read about chickadees (small birds found in parts of the
U.S. and Canada) having a similar alarm system (1) -- certain types of calls
for certain types of predators (e.g., hawks, cats, or owls) and additional
modifications based on the perceived threat (including lengthening the call
for more dangerous animals).

One of the most interesting aspects of these calls is the "mobbing" signal,
which is used to call other chickadees and even other bird species.

The birds are quite endearing; they have a small black cap on a white head and
two easily recognizable calls -- the "chicka-dee-dee-dee" alarm call and a
sad-sounding, two- or three-note call (2). If you live in the northeast U.S.
and set up a bird feeder during the winter, you'll probably get them to visit.

1) [http://www.washington.edu/news/2005/06/23/chickadees-
alarm-c...](http://www.washington.edu/news/2005/06/23/chickadees-alarm-calls-
carry-information-about-size-threat-of-predator/)

2) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l41nXK4ZdUA>

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LowKarmaAccount
Animals do not have language in the same way that humans do. Yes, the may have
a way to communicate with each other by sounding their voices in different
pitches, and yes, some apes can learn sign language, but that does not mean
that they understand language in the way humans do. Human language has
grammar, syntax, and recursion in a way that animals do not.

~~~
zecho
Watch the video in the post. The prairie dogs appear to have a basic syntax
and grammar ( [threat] [shape] [color] ), according to the researchers.

~~~
wildwood
That sounds like it could be generalized to [noun] [adjective] [adjective].
Notice the lack of verbs, prepositions, or markers for subordinate clauses.

This seems much closer to a code than an actual language.

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jryce
It would be very funny to watch older documentaries about prairie dogs and see
what they were saying about the crew members filming them.

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n0mad01
funny, a friend of mine has been just a few days ago to the vienna zoo and
told me she spent 40 mins in front of the prairie dogs claiming they're
talking to humans and also posing for photos and laughing at some people.

i didn't know what to say, so i just laughed, now i have to tell her that link
...

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3rd3
It would be super fun to have a real-time translator and then approach them
wearing costumes.

~~~
szopa
A prairie dog shaped robot could work better.

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jerryhuang100
I knew Timon could talk! (OK, I know meerkat and prairie dogs are in different
orders.)

By the way, similar vocal studies have been done with zebra finch:
<http://ofer.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/>

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charlieflowers
What a beautiful, inspiring surprise, that prairie dogs would have such a
powerful language.

Just showed it to some kids, who were as fascinated as I was and peppered me
with a million questions. Science is awesome.

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solomatov
Incredible. I owe several degu which are very similar to praire dogs (both
rodents, both are highly social, both live in prairies etc). They produce a
large number of sounds, and I always thought that their sounds are just are a
bunch of noise. Now, I understand, after heard prairie dog's sound that it's
not so simple.

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raverbashing
Yes, last time I saw one (in a video), it kept going about trying to find
someone called Helen!

~~~
bennyg
If I think I know what you're talking about, the person in question is Alan.

~~~
phy6
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=f-Kt_kuYVtU#t=22s)

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mhartl
Does this use an academic meaning of the term "language" I don't know about?
It sounds like prairie dogs effectively have _words_ , but there's no
indication that they use grammar, syntax, etc., so describing their
vocalizations as "language" seems misleading.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_communication>

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coin
F'in onswipe on an iPad, time to change the use agent

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cLeEOGPw
What if human ancestors were like these back in dinosaur era.

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ksikka
I wonder if they ever do things like...

"Who's on first! Who? Yes!"

