Study reveals baby chickens aren't just cute — they are also math whizzes

[Warpy]

The study, published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B, presents the first known evidence that any non-human animal can perform consecutive addition and subtraction calculations on the same set.

It is also "the very first demonstration of some arithmetic ability in young animals," lead author Rosa Rugani told Discovery News.

Since the chicks could work with numbers up to five, and prior research suggests the limit for human newborns is three, it's possible that chicks could beat babies if the two groups were pitted against each other in a math contest.

Taken as a whole, however, the study supports the theory "that animals and humans share a non-verbal, and even pre-verbal in the case of humans, numerical system" that can perform precise arithmetic on small number sets — "with a limit of three or four" -- and make estimates about larger sets, said Rugani, a researcher in the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences at the University of Trento in Italy.

Much more at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29992796/

[ZombieHorde]

1. We have been studying this in my math 117 class.

Most of us have purchased chicks to help us with our probability homework. Some asshole will always bring in chicken nuggets and eat them in front of our chicks to throw them off.

[Warpy]

2. Just tell him what those things are made of

http://www.videograter.com/video/Jamie-Oliver-shows-Schoolkids-how-Chicken-Nuggets-are-made

[dipsydoodle]

3. Yeh - when asked what the cube root of 2 was

the chick apparently responded "Cluck Off"

[pokerfan]

4. the avian brain is impressive for its size

I've always wondered if it's more efficient than mammal brains because of the need to be light/small enough so that the animal can still fly.

And a minor nit-pick:

animals and humans humans and other animals share a non-verbal, and even pre-verbal in the case of humans, numerical system

Fixed. :)

[Thor_MN]

5. a concept of "More" means you can do addition and subtraction?