Animals not only use tools and perform math, but they also plan for the future, researchers say

Monkeys perform mental math, pigeons can select the picture that doesn't belong. Humans may not be the only animals that plan for the future, say researchers reporting on the latest studies of animal mental ability. "I suggest we humans should keep our egos in check," Edward A. Wasserman of the University of Iowa said Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Wasserman, a professor of experimental psychology, said that, like people, pigeons and baboons were able to tell which pictures showed similar items, like triangles or dots, and which showed different items.

This is the definition of a concept, he said, "and the animals passed it with flying colors."

He spoke at a symposium on "Animal Smarts," where researchers discussed the latest findings in the mental abilities of animals.

In the last 20 years there has been a major revolution in the understanding of animals, added Nicola S. Clayton, a professor of comparative cognition at the University of Cambridge in England.

Full Article : latimes

The Fight Over NASA’s Future

NASA has named the rocket Ares I, as in the god of war — and its life has been a battle from the start.
Ares I is part of a new system of spacecraft being designed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to replace the nation’s aging space shuttles. The Ares I and its Orion capsule, along with a companion heavy-lift rocket known as the Ares V, are meant for travel to the Moon and beyond.

Technical troubles have dogged the design process for the Ares I, the first of the rockets scheduled to be built, with attendant delays and growing costs. And in an age of always-on communication, instant messages and blogs, internal debate that once might have been part of a cloistered process has spilled into public view.

Some critics say there are profound problems with the design that render the Ares I dead on arrival, while other observers argue that technical complications crop up in any spacecraft development program of this scope.

Article and Source : The New York Times