Posted on 05/29/2009 12:24:46 AM PDT by LibWhacker
People have a deep desire to communicate with animals, as is evident from the way they converse with their dogs, enjoy myths about talking animals or devote lifetimes to teaching chimpanzees how to speak. A delicate, if tiny, step has now been taken toward the real thing: the creation of a mouse with a human gene for language.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
O’no Then we will really know what a DemoRat thinks.. They will ask to vote.. and unionize..
I kinda like that my dog couldn’t talk to me. Besides, body language was enough for him. Go fishing, we just sat there and enjoyed each other’s company. If I was sad, he knew it and tried to help. If I was happy or excited, he knew that too. My sister’s cat is the same way with her(not a cat person myself though). There is something to be said about the silence of animals. Its almost an understanding.
The experiment has been declared a success, if a limited success; the mouse vocabulary consists of only two words, repeated in infinite strings: “Food! Sex! Food! Sex! Sex! Food!” etc.
Not nearly as spectacular if the mouse had said: "Get this damn thing out of me you fools, can't you see I'm a mouse. Now shut the hell up and get me some cheese..."
We already have rats with the gene for double talk.
My cat already talks to me. And has me pretty well trained. I talk to he but she ignors me.
Can you imagine instead of hearing mice squeaking inside the walls we had to listen to them complaining about us?
Yikes! I shudder to think...
The Neandertal Enigma"Allan Wilson had always been described to me in superlatives, such as 'one of the real geniuses in science,' or 'the most arrogant guy I know...' [H]e apologized for putting me off so long and bluntly explained that the reason he had done so was that he did not trust me... 'The anthropological perspective on evolution is no longer valid; it has been overthrown. And yet the science writers who insist on talking to me come drenched in an anthropological perspective, and there is really no point in talking to them... It is paralytic. It prevents you from asking certain questions, and it forces you to ask others. The whole discipline invites you not to investigate.'
by James Shreeve
...A few months before my visit, Wilson had announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science... that the Neandertals were replaced because they could not speak... suggesting that a particular gene for language might have been carried in the mitochondria themselves. Since invading males would have been more likely to mate with resident females than the other way around, the offspring of sexual contact between the two groups would be 'linguistically deaf-mute,' like their Neandertal mothers. Thus disadvantaged, these 'village idiots' would face the same fate as the mothers: extinction. Only the language-endowed African lineage would continue. The language gene idea, and especially the unfortunate term 'village idiots,' elicited hoots of derision from the anti-Eve camp, and gave no joy to Wilson's colleagues." [pp 119-121]
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Wow.
I remember seeing a PBS special about the family, and how they isolated the gene, think it was a NOVA.
I’d like to see what happens if they put it in dogs...
Not to mention the domestic disputes.
"Throw the ball. Throw the ball. Oh BOY, he's gonna throw the ball. C'MON THROW THE BALL!"
"Throw the ball again. Throw the ball. C'MON!"
"Where's my water?"
Only if they give me the gene that lets them lick their own balls.
Hmmm. Sounds like Laz...
Ha Ha, Pluto. Bad Dog! Get down off of Minnie!
Are their tongues able to master language, physically I mean. I read once the animal tongue is not able to form words.
If they can this will put a whole new meaning to the ‘exterminator’ business.
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