Wednesday, February 13, 2013

What Next?

Today's blog is another little something I gleaned from Millionaire,Ape Apps. Apparently there is more than one research project ongoing with different members of the primate family,but the one I am exploring today is being conducted with bonobos (a bonobo is similar to a chimpanzee but a separtate species). The most recent work is being done with a Motorola Xoom tablet with special icons that allow the animals to communicate. Through the tablets they can ask questions,make requests and sometimes tell jokes. What I found to be the most impressive about this work is the way it was being applied to the animals general health and well being. They are able to find ways to make their living areas more comfortable and in one case though there was no lexigram for toothache the researcher typed in the word and a new symbol appeared to the bonobo along with a mechanical voice that said the word,which the animals then connected to the pain it felt.
The only puzzling part of this to me is...would I get a bonobo joke?
lexigrams

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