World’s strongest and fastest animal!

Copepod is the world’s strongest and fastest animal. Copepods usually travel in groups, they are small crustaceans found in the ocean. They are about 1-mm long. They can jump at a rate of half a meter per second. They are over ten times stronger than any other known species on the planet. They are also stronger than any mechanical motor produced to date. If you were to have the skill sets of this animal, you would be able to jump about a half a mile in one second. 

The Honey Bee Dance

Honey Bees dance when they are directing their fellow bees to a certain location, for example locations where food can be found or a new home. This is known as the waggle dance. There was a study done where the only source of food for a colony was placed on the far side of a mountain. The bees could not fly over the mountain. But, when they communicated where the food was to be found, they used the angle across the mountain relative to themselves to get to the food. More studies have shown that bees have the ability to take into account the roundness of the earth and they include this information is their waggle dances. 

Body language originates from animal communication

The origin of body language comes from animals. The relation of body language to animal communication has often been discussed because body language is a product of both genetic and environmental influences. For example the genetic makeup of humans causes blind people to smile and laugh in a funny situation even though they have never seen a smile. Animals’ ideal way of communication compared to humans is completely different. But animals do have perks, for example when participating in a group conversation there is only one person speaking whereas when humans are in a group conversation they may be multiple interruptions because it’s verbal.

Are we taking animals for granted!?

I found this posted at the college ten bus stop. It quotes “The animals of this world are not here for human purposes any more than women are here for men, or blacks for whites.” The first part of the quote illustrates that us humans take animals for granted. We use them as resources and make materialistic items out of scavenging them. This quote in a way reinforces the unspoken act of using animals in order to acquire a better lifestyle. This issue is still concurrent in this day and age. The second and final part of the quote relates this issue to similar issues that are mainly subjected to humans. This as a result provokes the thought and awareness of not taking anything for granted.

Orcas hunting a crab-eater seal.

Orcas are really amazing animals. This video shows them working together to hunt a crab eater seal. It is hypothesized that they do this to teach younger calves to hunt. They are working together to dislodge a crab-eater seal (which is a pretty cool animal).

Crab-eater seals don't actually eat crabs. They mainly feed on krill. They have these awesome teeth that allow them to filter out the water when they are feeding.

Dolphins can't breath automatically!

My friend was telling me some interesting facts about animals. He shared an interesting fact about dolphins; I thought I would share it. Dolphins don't breathe automatically, it's always consciously done. This is fascinating because they have to be conscious to control their breathing. This means they can never truly be unconscious, so when they sleep they must still have some level of consciousness. Being mammals their brains do need to enter a type of unconsciousness every so often in order to function properly. Dolphins have evolved and learned how to put one half of their brains to sleep while the other half is still conscious and active. They enter and stay in this state roughly about eight hours a day. As a result they are still conscious to control their breathing and go to the surface of the water to breathe.   

Shark Files

A Southern California beach just recently started utilizing a drone to spot if there are any sharks near the area. Usually when they assume a shark is nearby they send a lifeguard out on a jetski to see what's going on, but now they have been trying out this drone and the results are much faster. Normally when a lifeguard goes out on a jetski the time it takes for all the procedures to go through is often hours long. With the drone it only takes about 20 minutes and they are able to take motion pictures and even determine the size of the sharks. Technology these days is so incredible in the things it allows us to do.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/sharks/shark-files-drone-spots-great-whites-off-calif-beach-150610.htm

Domesticity and Mindfullness

There has been a majority of the course material which I feel has diverted away from focusing on domestic animals and the ways we may interact with them in our homes. Upon arriving home, I am more aware of the anthropocentrism many owners go through. The course has led me to be mindful of our interaction with animals. It is said that human interaction with infants and toddlers can have a significant impact as they grow into adulthood. Domestic animals could carry the same standard of emotional response. Animals brought up in class such as bonobos, wolves, crows, etc. -- a multitude of animals we do not regularly interact with or see in the home space -- don't experience the same level of human interaction than dogs or cats. I've reinforced the idea (by taking this lecture that we are more distinct from animals than the obvious language differences). But perhaps domestic animals can share similar spectrums of emotions as human beings.

Albeit within this video, YouTube comments may claim a scientific explanation for the noises the dog is making. It is a more likely claim for me to believe that the dog is mourning over the loss of its owner. It's important to realize that many of the domestic relationships we carry with pets are (as all of our other relationships are) an extension of ourselves.

Animals seeing themselves in the mirror

My friend sent me this video randomly on Facebook and I thought it was cool enough to share. What stood out to me the most was how all the animals (except the elephant?) had a reaction to seeing themselves in the mirror. However, I don't think they understood that they were seeing reflections of themselves. The gorilla's reaction was the most entertaining, he saw his reflection as a threat more so than the other animals did. Also what I find interesting is that my pet cat doesn't have any reaction when she sees herself in the mirror, and she doesn't like other cats. I don't know how to explain that though. Do your pets notice themselves in the mirror?

Here's the video, I encourage you to watch it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaMylwohL14

Eating Animals

At the beginning of the summer, I always like to think about what books to read for fun between June and September, when I'm not swamped with assigned readings for class. After having taken this class, I'd like to read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I've read and really enjoyed two of his other books, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything Is Illuminated, so I think it'll be interesting to see what Foer thinks about eating animals and vegetarianism. The summary on the book's website says Foer swung between omnivore and vegetarian until his son was born, at which point he became more concerned with issues of animal welfare/rights since he was now responsible for making food choices for another person. It looks like a fun read!

Bees!

Bees are one of the most important parts of our ecosystem. We rely on them to pollinate plants, and of course to produce honey. Sadly, in recent years, we've seen the worldwide bee population drastically decrease. Environmentalists and lawmakers have taken steps to address this issue, but many critics argue the steps taken thus far have not been enough. An article from NPR.org called "Pollinator Politics: Environmentalists Criticize Obama Plan To Save Bees" (http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/20/408017267/pollinator-politics-environmentalists-criticize-obama-plan-to-save-bees) reports on this problem. The Obama administration plans to "restore 7 million acres of bee-friendly habitat that have been lost to urbanization, development, and farming," but critics say this isn't enough. Environmentalists are calling for increased limits on pesticides to save bee lives. Hopefully the two sides will come to an agreement and take steps to effectively restore the bee population!

Baby Goats

Here's a link to a really cute video of baby goats wearing sweaters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyL7L4J-M4s

After the stress of finals week, it's great to watch some videos of adorable animals--or better yet, to interact with them in person! It's incredible what a therapeutic effect animals can have on us. I know whenever I hang out with pets or other animals I feel so much more relaxed. I wonder what the psychological reason behind this might be? There must be studies done on this topic, it would be interesting to read about them!

Chimps Go Bananas For Booze

I read a really interesting article on NPR.org today called "Like Us, Chimps Go Bananas For Booze," by Nadia Whitehead. Here's the link: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/10/413169586/like-us-chimps-go-bananas-for-booze

The article discusses how chimpanzees in the village of Bossou, Guinea, drink a special kind of wine found in the wild. This wine is created naturally when tree sap from the raffia plant ferments. Villagers noticed this occurrence, and started leaving out open containers of this special wine, which the chimpanzees would grab when they thought the coast was clear.

Researchers aren't sure whether the chimps drink this wine for its sweet taste, or to get a little drunk. They think it's probably some combination of the two. I thought this story showed an interesting link between animals and humans. Chimpanzees are so similar to us that they even like to drink alcohol too!

Blackfish

Blackfish is a power documentary that exposes the condition of orcas in SeaWorld. Orca were once hunted and captured by humans. Being separated from its family and natural habitat the orcas got lonely, frustrated, confused as they were kept in confined isolated tanks. They are forced to swim and perform tricks for tourists enjoyment. Even though they are  treated well by their trainers, living in a confined space physically and mentally affected them as they got bully by other orca, became sad, lonely and even killed humans. These orca should not be living in tanks of water, they should be the ocean where they can freely roam around and be with their family. I recommend you guys watch this documentary. You should be able to watch it on Netflix.

The Bizarre Truth About Purebred Dogs

While surfing through youtube, I found a funny video call The Bizarre Truth About Purebred Dogs created by CollegeHumor. The video talks about how purebred dogs even though cute and good looking they have a very high chance of have a genetic disease due the why they are breed. This is caused by humans forcing dogs to inbreed because of popular demand from people who would pay good money to own one. By do so most of dog that are inbred are not healthy and have genetic disorders or disease. Unfortunately these dog don't have any say on who they want to mate with as the choice is made by the animal breeder/owner. To me creating purebred dogs is some what like animal cruelty or abuse.

Animal Intelligence

Today while scrolling through tumblr, I found a blog post that really made me think about this class. The post stated "It bothers me that the intelligence of animals is measured by how willing they are to obey the commands of a human." Though this is only an opinion, I thought it really highlighted the way humans determine if an animal is intelligent. For example, animals such Koko the gorilla are highly intelligent and are able to communicate using human language and symbols. However, researchers looked poorly on her intelligence because she was not able to hold a conversation that made sense. Here, the researchers are basing Koko's intelligence on her ability to communicate with humans and respond the way they want her to. However, no matter her ability to communicate with us, Koko is still highly intelligent compared to other gorillas. I believe that when we measure an animal's intelligence, we should base it on how smart they are compared to their own species instead of comparing them to humans. Humans believe they have a superiority over animals, so when we measure their intelligence compared to us we are always going to believe that we are the smartest.

"My Bionic Pet"

Hello Everyone!

Not too long ago, PBS premiered this special called My Bionic Pet.  It's a truly cute and heartfelt mini-documentary about animals left disabled without fins, flippers, beaks, or tails due to disease, accidents, or even human cruelty, and how they get a second-chance at life thanks to amazing advancements in engineering and technology to create prosthetics for these animals.

This PBS special exemplifies the sort of human and nonhuman-animal relationship that we have discussed this quarter.  This shows how the science that is helping benefit humans is also helping benefit animals; whereas most of the time humans use science to exploit and conduct scientific experimentation on animals.

I hope you take a glimpse at it while taking that study break; it will help destress!  But it also might melt your heart!

Best,
Cosme

Pegasus the Rescue Dog

A South African filmmaker rescued a Great Dane puppy, but the people he was rescuing her from told him that she would not live for very long. Her siblings were either deformed or died nearly after being born. Her owner took a chance on her because everyone including animals deserves a chance. Who are we to judge when someone or something's life should come to an end?

Her owner, Dave Meinert, made a timelapse video of Pegasus. We are able to see the transformation of the beautiful pup within a period of 6 months, and she is growing strong. The breeders said she would not live very long, and if he did take her in she would go deaf and blind. The video is called "The Pegasus Project," and it is pretty incredible transformation to watch. Meinert said, "I still don't know how long she is going to live, but right now it's going pretty great."

http://abc7.com/pets/video-watch-as-this-puppy-grows-up-before-your-eyes-/716731/

This news story was posted Tuesday, May 12, 2015.

Prof. Williams

I wanted to show an example of a positive relationship between scientists/researchers and animals. In our class we focused more on  how animals were exploited and harmed for scientific purposes. Professor Williams is very passionate about her work, animals, and conservation. She is a great example of a scientists who values the lives of animals and wants to work with them, instead of exploiting them. This a great video and you also get to see several adorable animals (that are housed in the long marine labs)!

How Animals Eat Their Food

If you haven't seen this video yet, you're welcome.  We've discussed in section human's conceptualizing what the perspective of an animal based purely off of our interpretation of them.
(Black Beauty, Temple Grandin, Axolotl, etc.)  This video is a slightly exaggerated version of that topic in how these guys say animals indeed eat their food.  One of the exercises we did in section was to imagine we were an animal and what would be do with the knowledge of that animal.  I think an interesting concept in reverse to this video would be how animals think people eat their food.  Of course its not possible for non human animals to create a video like that alone but how do you think it would be constructed?  Also if animals were to understand this video do you think they would agree with the ways that these men interpret how animals eat their food?  Not only is this video hilarious but after talking about animal perspectives in class I view this video in a different way and it makes me think.