Ready Player One. Valerian. Worlds in chaos that need human video gamers to save their worlds via virtual reality. Similarly, high-tech gadgets utilizing facial recognition or voice activation tools to access superpower suits or weapons are the secret to saving the world in Iron Man or The Incredibles. Even our smart phones today utilize various virtual […]

Many parents of three- and four-year old children learn very quickly that tantrums can be averted by dividing a cookie into two parts when the child “wants” two cookies or using two cups that are the same size when serving drinks. These tricks mediate the sense of equity or “fairness” that even young humans feel […]

Suppose I were to show you three different objects – a Jeep, Honda, and Ferrari. You could quickly name their shared category as “car”. Pigeons, honeybees, dogs, rats, and a variety of primates can answer that question just as fast as a human, after sufficient experience. Even more impressive is that all of these species can […]

Long ago (~ 1050 AD) in the Western Alps, a monk by the name St. Bernard de Menthon established a monastery to help travelers across the dangerous St. Bernard’s Pass. Roughly 600 years later, the monks of this monastery acquired their first St. Bernard dog; a breed that ultimately became renowned for its ability to […]

Last January, I celebrated the end of my sabbatical with a trip to a tropical paradise to conduct research, right before my next teaching term began. This enabled me to trade the middle of winter in south Texas for this: Paradise “lost”. To prepare for my forthcoming blog deadlines (and to avoid procrastination in its […]

Sir Winston Churchill once made the following statement: “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” While Sir Churchill’s perspective may be indicating the direction of a partnership, it also reminds us that we must be mindful of the biases and assets that […]