#Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other and the Birds Loved It

[quotesfromall]

Over the next two months, pet parrots made 147 deliberate video calls to other birds. Their owners took detailed notes about the calls and recorded more than 1,000 hours of video footage that the researchers analyzed. For starters, they found that the parrots took advantage of the opportunity to call one another, and they typically stayed on the call for the maximum time allowed during the experiment. They also seemed to understand that another live bird was on the other side of the screen, not a recorded bird, researchers say. Some of the parrots learned new skills from their virtual companions, including flying, foraging and how to make new sounds.

Sarah Kuta, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other

#birdblr #parrotblr #animal rights #vegan #sarah kuta #kuta #scientists taught pet parrots to video call each other #Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other—and the Birds Loved It #Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other and the Birds Loved It #2023 #kuta 2023 #and the birds loved it #4/23/23

[violetsandshrikes]

Once the birds had learned how to initiate video interactions, the second phase of the experiment could begin. In this “open call” period, the 15 participating birds could make calls freely; they also got to choose which bird to dial up. Over the next two months, pet parrots made 147 deliberate video calls to other birds. Their owners took detailed notes about the calls and recorded more than 1,000 hours of video footage that the researchers analyzed.

#i want a call from a parrot so bad I would drop everything #katie rambles #zoology #parrots

[afeelgoodblog]

🦜 - Why did the parrot learn to video call? Because he wanted to see his tweetheart!

The Best News of Last Week - May 2, 2023

1. Engineers develop water filtration system that permanently removes 'forever chemicals'

Engineers at the University of British Columbia have developed a filtration system that would permanently remove "forever chemicals" from drinking water. This news comes after a recent study revealed nearly 200 million Americans have been exposed to PFAS in their tap water. Dr. Madjid Mohseni, a professor at British Columbia, shares his research.

2. Berkeley diner provides free meals to anyone who's hungry, no questions asked

The Homemade Cafe in Berkeley, California, is giving away free breakfasts to anyone who is hungry, no questions asked. Owner Collin Doran's Everybody Eats Program started when he saw people panhandling outside his diner. Customers can add $5 to their bill to help the program or grab a coupon for a free meal. Doran's act of kindness has resulted in a 15% increase in business, and he hopes that more businesses will follow his lead in making the world a better place.

3. Pope Francis gives women right to vote in bishops’ meeting for first time

Pope Francis has decided to give women the right to vote at an upcoming meeting of bishops, an unprecedented change that reflects his hopes to give women greater decision-making responsibilities.

Francis approved changes to the norms governing the Synod of Bishops, a Vatican body that gathers the world’s bishops together for periodic meetings, following decades of demands by women to have the right to vote.

4. US adult cigarette smoking rate hits new all-time low

U.S. cigarette smoking dropped to another all-time low last year, with 1 in 9 adults saying they were current smokers, according to government survey data released Thursday. Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, and it’s long been considered the leading cause of preventable death. In the mid-1960s, 42% of U.S. adults were smokers. The rate has been gradually dropping for decades, due to cigarette taxes, tobacco product price hikes, smoking bans and changes in the social acceptability of lighting up in public.

Last year, the percentage of adult smokers dropped to about 11%, down from about 12.5% in 2020 and 2021.

5. Scientists taught pet parrots to video call each other - and the birds loved it

When humans are feeling lonely, we can call or video chat with friends and family who live far away. The idea for this study was not random: In the wild, parrots tend to live in large flocks. But when kept in captivity, such as in people’s homes as pets, these social birds are often on their own. Feeling bored and isolated, they may develop psychological issues and can even resort to self-harming tendencies like plucking out their feathers. New research suggests that these chatty creatures may also benefit from virtually connecting with their peers.

Domesticated parrots that learned to initiate video chats with other pet parrots had a variety of positive experiences, such as learning new skills. The parrots that learned to initiate video chats with other pet parrots had a variety of positive experiences, such as learning new skills including flying, foraging and how to make new sounds. Some parrots showed their toys to each other.

I wanted to see this experiment so bad, so here’s a video from the paywalled study. I uploaded it on my youtube channel.

6. World’s First Carbon Import Tax Approved by EU Lawmakers

The European Union’s parliament approved legislation to tax imports based on the greenhouse gases emitted to make them, clearing the final hurdle before the plan becomes law and enshrines climate regulation in the rules of global trade for the first time.

Tuesday’s vote caps nearly two years of negotiations on the import tax, which aims to push economies around the world to put a price on carbon-dioxide emissions while shielding the EU’s manufacturers from countries that aren’t regulating emissions as strictly, or at all. The tax gives credit to countries that put a price on carbon, allowing importers of goods from those countries to deduct payments made for overseas emissions from the amount owed at the EU’s borders.

7. Genetic Driver of Anxiety Discovered

An international team of scientists has identified a gene in the brain responsible for anxiety symptoms and found that modifying the gene can reduce anxiety levels, offering a novel drug target for anxiety disorders. The discovery highlights a new pathway that regulates the brain’s response to stress and provides a potential therapeutic approach for anxiety disorders.

Critically, modification of the gene is shown to reduce anxiety levels, offering an exciting novel drug target for anxiety disorders.

That's a driver I'd like to uninstall.

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That's it for this week :)

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Also don’t forget to reblog

#best news of last week

[typhlonectes]

Domesticated parrots that learned to initiate video chats with other pet parrots had a variety of positive experiences, such as learning new skills, researchers from Northeastern University, the University of Glasgow and MIT report this month in Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems...

#animals #biology #birds #land birds #new research #domestication #pets #parrot #bird #parrots #animal welfare #animal intelligence #animal behavior

[mosticonicbirdcallbracket]

Hey! So, I just discovered your account and I LOVE it!! I want to learn more about birds as they seem so interesting, which bird should I first learn about?

this is a wonderful question! there's a few different places to start.

for me, my favorite birds & the first ones i learned about were the ones local to me! this obviously depends on where you live haha. a good place to start would be googling which birds live in your country/state/region/county/etc.

there is an app called merlin from the cornell lab of ornithology that's REALLY useful for figuring out what birds are near you. if you see or hear a bird you don't recognize, you can record its call or take a picture of it, and the app tells you what it is. :) i'm plugging it here because i recently downloaded it and i LOVE it haha.

i love using wikipedia to read about birds :) there are also blogs like @todaysbird that post pictures & fun facts about birds!

i think the most important thing is, if you see or hear about a bird you think is funny or cool or cute, look it up! there's bound to be something interesting about every animal you hear about, no matter how common it is.

i'll finish up by linking a few articles on birds that i thought were really interesting, since people might appreciate it:

scientists taught pet parrots to video call each other—and the birds loved it

wikipedia page on alex the parrot, a pet african grey parrot who was the subject of a study on how parrots copy words & sentences from their owners

juvenile bird accidentally breaks record for longest non-stop flight on its first attempt

if anybody has any articles, resources, blogs, etc. that they'd like to share, feel free to do so! i'd love to see what people have to share.

[justanotherdreamingthought]

Scientists gave parrots a video chat with other parrots, and slowly taught them to ring each other themselves. First the owner would do it for them when the parrot rang the bell, then they progressed to giving the parrots the ability to ring each other independently.

They all found best friends! They sang with each other! They would stop mid conversation to get a toy, and show it to their video chat parrot friend!

Fifteen parrots, two months, 147 deliberate calls, over 1000 hours of video chat time!

Two of the oldest parrots, a pair of elderly birds, became best friends!

Some of the parrots became fond of their new parrot friend’s human owners!

All in all, parrot social media.

Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-taught-pet-parrots-to-video-call-each-other-and-the-birds-loved-it-180982041/

#animals #cute #parrots #birds #science #animal behaviour

[xumoonhao]

what i read in august 2023 💖

(entries marked with an * indicate favourites)

{articles in green are short reads [2-10 minutes]; articles in yellow are medium [11-25 minutes]; articles in red are long [longer than 25 minutes].}

ONLINE ARTICLES

“Orange Is the New Black” Signalled the Rot Inside the Streaming Economy by Michael Schulman | The New Yorker

* The Trans Son Of Anti-Trans Influencer Tania Joy Gibson Speaks Out by Christopher Mathias | Huffington Post

Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other—and the Birds Loved It by Sarah Kuta | Smithsonian Mag

How People Sentenced to Life in Prison Made Their Case for Release by Issie Lapowsky and Abdul Kircher | The New York Times

A Light Under the Door by Matthew Eng | Hazlitt

“Girl Dinner” and “Hot Girl Walks” Aren’t TikTok Trends, They’re Marketing Campaigns by Rebecca Jennings | Vox

What Is Narcissism? Science Confronts a Widely Misunderstood Phenomenon by Diana Kwon | Scientific American

There are Complex Reasons for Our Dire Wildfires, but Scientists Say Climate Change Plays Key Role by Bethany Lindsay | CBC News

It’s Never Too Late for Siblings to Change Their Relationship by Angela Chen | The Atlantic

What Separates Highly Creative People by Brian Gallagher | Nautilus

Your Clothes Don’t Fit. Here’s Why by Elizabeth Endicott | The New York Times

Hollywood’s Strikes Illuminate Something Crucial About the Present—and Future—of Art by Aaron Bady | Slate

Why Some People Struggle With Procrastination by Lauren Geall | Stylist

BOOKS

Divine Rivals (The Letters of Enchantment Duology #1) by Rebecca Ross (2023) ★★⋆ 2.5/5

* Timekeeper (The Timekeeper Series #1) by Tara Sim (2016) ★★★★ 4/5

The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander (2016) ★★★★ 4/5

reader apps: pocket | omnivore my storygraph

#finally read a few more articles this month :o also all fiction books omg.....tho the magdalen girls was historical fiction so #still a bit nonfiction-y!! that one was vvv sad tho. if you do read it please look up trigger warnings for it bc its very :((( #also hi linking the things i use to read articles and review books <3 #reading list #🎆.txt

[linguisticalities]

#animal communication

[lilithsaintcrow]

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring, PARROT PHONE!

#parrot #birds using tools #smithsonian magazine

[meret118]

[sethshead]

As for other parrot owners, the researchers caution it might not be wise to suddenly begin launching FaceTime or Zoom chats on behalf of their pets. The study involved experienced parrot handlers who had the time and energy to keep tabs on their birds’ behavior—at the first sign of fear, aggression, disinterest or discomfort, they ended the calls. As the study’s authors note in the statement, “unmediated interactions could lead to fear [or] even violence and property damage.”

“We were really careful about training the birds’ caregivers thoroughly to ensure that they could offer an appropriate level of support to empower their parrots but also help them avoid any negative experiences,” says study co-author Rébecca Kleinberger, a humanics and voice technology researcher at Northeastern University, in a University of Glasgow statement.

I feel like this is pertinent advice for parents monitoring their human children's online interactions, as well.

#animals #biology #birds #land birds #new research

[egelwan]

Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other—and the Birds Loved It

‘For starters, they found that the parrots took advantage of the opportunity to call one another, and they typically stayed on the call for the maximum time allowed during the experiment. They also seemed to understand that another live bird was on the other side of the screen, not a recorded bird, researchers say. Some of the parrots learned new skills from their virtual companions, including…

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[why5x5]

#Youtube