Thursday Things: Squawking Parrots Edition
9 May 2024. Vol 6 No 19. By Dan McGirt. #248
It’s Thursday Things! This week we conference in parrots, have dinner with Dali, and wonder why women live longer.
If you enjoy this edition, please click the heart icon in the header or at the end of the post to let me know.
Call me! Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash
Zooming with the parrots
Some say social media is for the birds.
It turns out they were right:
What happened when scientists taught parrots to video chat?
Before we get to that, there is another question ask — why exactly would scientists teach parrots to video chat in the first place?
Parrots, renowned for their impressive intelligence and charming vocal mimicry, have gained popularity as pets in recent decades. Those same traits that make the birds fascinating to observe, however, can also cause issues. A lack of socialization and proper stimulation can cause parrots to act out, or in some cases, even harm themselves. An estimated 40% of cockatoos and African Greys, two popular species of parrots, reportedly engage in potentially harmful feather destruction. Many of these stress-induced, destructive behaviors are a byproduct of parrots living in environments drastically different from their natural habitats where they fly free among fellow birds. New research suggests modern technology, specially Facebook Messenger video chats, could help these birds regain their social lives
Because parrots get lonely too, that’s why.
Researchers hooked up a bunch of parrots and other birds and taught them how to initiate video chats with their feathered friends elsewhere.
The results were shocking. In almost all cases, the birds’ caretakers claim the video calls improved their well-being. Some of the birds even appeared to learn new skills, like foraging or improved flight, after observing other birds doing so. Two of the birds, a cockatoo named Ellie and an African Grey named Cookie, still call each other nearly a year later.
“It really speaks to how cognitively complex these birds are and how much ability they have to express themselves,” Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas said in a statement. “It was really beautiful, those two birds, for me.”
Meanwhile, human beings can barely make a match on Tinder.
Read the article for all the details of how the scientists taught the birds to make video calls, and what the birds learned from each other.
Researchers observed multiple instances of birds appearing to mimic each other’s behaviors. Some would begin grooming themselves after watching a bird on the other end of screen do so. Other times, the birds would “sing” in unison.
One interesting finding was that the birds preferred live feeds with their bird friends over watching pre-recorded messages:
Interestingly, parrots included in the study appeared substantially less interested in video calls if they featured pre-recorded video of other birds. A related study published by University of Glasgow researchers show the parrots strongly preferred to chat with other parrots in real time. Over the course of six months of observation, the parrots spent more time engaged in the calls with real birds than with the pre-recorded videos.
Just wait until the parrots discover Instagram filters.
Dining with Dali
To me Salvador Dali is the melted clocks guy with the funny mustache. But he was so much more than that!
Did you know Dali made an animated short film with Walt Disney? It was called Destino, and how that project came about is an interesting story in itself.
5 Facts You May Not Know About Disney and Dali’s Lost Project ‘Destino
But that’s not why we’re here today. I’ve known about Destino for a while.
And the Dali-designed Christmas cards from Hallmark.
But what I only learned about recently was … Dali dinnerware!
Going out on a limb say these are not dishwasher safe. Image: Sotheby’s via My Modern Met
Salvador Dalí Created a Surreal Cutlery Collection Inspired by Nature in 1957
Iconic artist Salvador Dalí is undoubtedly a Surrealist superstar. Beyond the signature mustache, his art and philosophy have heavily influenced the way that artists express their innermost thoughts. In his prime, constructs of time, memory, dreams, and the unpredictability of the imagination interested Dalí and his Surrealist contemporaries. These concepts are well-known today to have been explored in their paintings, but Dalí also applied them to his lesser-known works, including a six-piece tableware set. Comprised of an elephant fork, snail knife, leaf knife, two artichoke spoons, and a fish fork, Dalí brings to life these biomorphic forms in a unique way, tapping into the bounty of our imagination.
And who among us doesn’t need a biomorphic artichoke spoon?
The cutlery collection went for more than $21,000 in 2012 and was recently on auction at Sotheby’s. Bidding is now closed and I seem to have misplaced my Sotheby’s auction site login, so I can’t tell you the results. I’m sure the selling price would keep one in artichokes for quite some time.
But wait! There’s more!
On a similar note, the artist explored the relationship between Surrealism and cuisine in his cookbook Les Diners De Gala, published in 1973. In this literary work, Dalí uses the written word as a way to convey the subconscious. Containing 136 recipes for out-of-this-world ingredients like “thousand-year-old eggs,” quail, and toffee paired with something you would find in a your backyard—pine cones. Dalí takes readers on a journey to the most unrealistic places, yet there is something intriguing about the nonsensical characteristic of this artistic style.
A cookbook too?
Films, forks, greeting cards — that Dali was hustling 24/7, wasn’t he?
Disney. Dali. Destino.
Why women live longer
It is widely known that women, on average, live longer than men. This feature from Our World in Data examines some fascinating statistics on that phenomenon and asks why?
Why do women live longer than men?
Women tend to live longer than men. In 2021, this difference amounted to a 5-year gap in global life expectancy: the average life expectancy was 73.8 years for women versus 68.4 years for men.
What causes these differences? Is it because women outlive men at old ages? Or because young men are more likely to experience accidents and violent deaths?
I don’t want to spoil it for you, but my guess would be that it’s because women are usually less interested in things like flamethrower robot dogs or test-driving a flying car.
While women outlive men the world over, there are variations in how much of a life expectancy advantage women have both by country and over time.
In some countries, like Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, the gap is large – more than 10 years in 2021.
In other countries, such as Nigeria, it is less than 2 years.1
The next chart shows how the sex gap has changed over time.
Large spikes are visible during major wars, reflecting the fact that many young men died then.
You can also see that the gap gradually widened in many countries over the twentieth century, but has narrowed again in recent decades.
And while a greater propensity for risky behavior among boys and men accounts for some of the gap, along with a greater likelihood of being employed in dangerous jobs, the female advantage in life expectancy begins at birth:
The sex gap in life expectancy begins at birth, as newborn boys have a higher probability of death than newborn girls.
Boys are more likely to be born premature;2 and they also have higher death rates in the first week of life.3 This gap continues throughout infancy.
I won’t roll through the whole article here. The charts tell the story better than I could. So if you’re interested in demographics and data click on over to the article and see for yourself why women live longer than men.
It’s a mystery we may never solve. Photo by Carter Moorse on Unsplash
Thank you for reading!
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