I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Organs Zone. It has scientists studying health and disease in various parts of our bodies. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
I’m sure there is. And if I’m correct Emma might be the one to answer this (?!)
If I had to guess, I’d say it would be food related!
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Well, I don’t work on animal behaviour, but I do have a dog, and I often think I know what he’s thinking, by the way he behaves.
I know when he’s hungry, because he tells me by barking, or by bring his bowl to me. I know when he needs to go to the toilet, because he goes to the door ready to be let out.
There’s lots more to communication than just verbal communication. Like sign language, and body language. I’m sure you have some kind of non verbal communication with your friends, where you do something, like a hand signal, without saying anything, but you still know what they are thinking!
Do you have a pet? Can you ever tell what they are thinking?
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There certainly are. I’ve worked with horses most of my life (as well as dogs and cats), and I do a type of horsemanship called “natural horsemanship”. The idea is that you can not only tell what they’re thinking and feeling, but you can communicate with them to put them at ease and get them to do what you want them to.
Luckily, animals generally have fairly simple thought processes. You can tell that they are scared of that waving flag. It would be harder to tell that they were thinking about the meaning of life.
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Hi Dot2dot. I spend a lot of time trying to work out what mice are thinking. They are very complicated creatures.
I test the memory of mice by running them in mazes. Most often my mice can find their way to the end. Very occasionally a mouse will sit frozen at the start of the maze. This mouse is anxious, like you might be if you had to do a exam or test. If I place this animal in a box that has a light open side and a dark and covered side, it will prefer to hide in the dark safe side. This is one way of telling if it is too anxious to perform in my maze. I look for signs to indicate if my mice are happy and healthy. If a mouse is threatened by me, instead of barking like a dog, it will rattle its tail (like a rattle snake). I allow this mouse to get use to my hand before I pick it up. A happy mouse will perform in a maze much better than an anxious or threatened mouse.
Scientists can record the electrical activity of a mouse’s brain while its running in a maze to find out which brain areas are most active. The aim is to correlate a mouse finding the end of the maze with specific brain activity.
With most animals, spending more time with them will allow you to understand the signs they use to let you know they are threatened, relaxed or interested in you.
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