Scientists: Crows Have Natural Tool-Making Ability

Reuters ^ | Wed, Jan 12, 2005

[Tijeras_Slim]

I thought his goose was cooked.

[presidio9]

I make no promises. As you well know, there are some stories that simply overcome my self-control. With therapy, I have managed to reduce the presence of Anna Kournikova in my life. It is my opinion that ANY story involving Anna is ALWAYS news, but apparently there are others here who do not share my enthusiasm.

[RightWhale]

No crows here, however ravens are everywhere. They talk if they want to.

[D Edmund Joaquin]

Crows are good watchmen like geese. They will alert you to strange people or animals coming around. If the person or animal belongs in the vicinity, they are quiet.

[martin_fierro]

Scientists: Crows Have Natural Tool-Making Ability

[presidio9]

You tagline makes me uncomfortable. The Mods have been alerted.

[Ruth A.]

Aesop knew that crows were smart.

[Constitution Day]

I love that photo. Where'd you get it?

[retrokitten]

Talking animals in general are creepy. I read a story once about a talking cat and it was like the malamute, it would actually ask for things. Creepy. I don't really want to hear what's on my pets minds. Judging from how the one acts, I think she would just tell me what an idiot she thinks I am.

[presidio9]

Casting Porosity

[Constitution Day]

I know what the problem is; we deal with it all the time.
That's why I liked the photo! :^)

[presidio9]

ping

[Fierce Allegiance]

Damn, I was all confused. I thought maybe it was something religious, or another area I know very little about. Now I get it. (DUH!)

Not too sharp for a kid whose best friends family owned a foundry!

[martin_fierro]

That's an actual sign that appears next to I-880 near Oakland, CA.

Someone else thought it was pretty funny, too.

[Charles Henrickson]

there is something inherently creepy about a talking crow

[presidio9]

So did this person

[Taliesan]

a description of one raven that would sit in an oak tree along a busy road, dropping acorns down on the road in the hopes that a squirrel would get run over by a car while gathering them. The raven would then feed on the carcasses of these dead squirrels.

That's nothing.

There was a crow in my hometown who would steal Mrs. Murphy's pies by dressing up as a traveling vacuam cleaner salesman. When he would dump out the ashes on the carpet and ask her to go get her vacuam to try it first, he'd grab the pies and vamoose.

She never did figure it out.

[Constitution Day]

STOP CASTING POROSITY

I'm not surprised you would be confused. I did a double-take when I saw that photo.
It sounds so mysterious, doesn't it?

[HenryLeeII]

The crows -- three males and one female -- were raised in artificial nests and then transferred to aviaries that contained a variety of twigs and food hidden in crevices. Two of the birds were shown by their human foster parents how to pry food out of tiny spaces with the twigs but the other birds were not. "All four crows developed the ability to use twig tools," Kacelnick and his colleagues said in a report in the science journal Nature.

My son knew the difference between pliers and a wrench at age two, and could distinguish between a Philips head and regular screwdriver - distinctions that most intellectuals and many scientists can't make - yet no one is writin' articles about him in Nature!

[Fierce Allegiance]

lol. My oldest daughter used to go to home depot with me all the time. She could tell you the difference between OSB, plywood & MDF. She knew tools & heavy equipment names & uses better than most men I know. She knew how to run a bobcat skid steer loader when she was 8. She was as good with a router as anyone else I know besides me (of course)

A strange thing happened, though. She turned 14 last year and now I am only an ATM for her, and I am way too weird to be seen with around town, or god forbid the lumber yard.