‘School’s’ in session!

Researchers at the University of St Andrews have found that fish can work together to tackle complex problems. After studying the behaviour of sticklebacks, scientists have concluded that more experienced fish can pass knowledge on to less experienced fish and that, when information is shared, the whole shoal is benefited.

To test their theory, the study’s authors presented the sticklebacks with a two-part problem – the fish first had to first locate and then access a food source. The sticklebacks were shown either one of the two stages in the process or were not taught anything.

Fish in groups that contained members educated in both elements of the problem obtained food faster than groups that only had knowledge of one area. Shoals with fish that made good leaders/educators saw more fish that had begun the task uneducated attempting to work on both sides of the task. The researchers also discovered that larger groups of fish were also more likely outperform smaller groups and lone individuals when completing certain tasks.

Future Psychology students should study the team building behaviours of animals and how this can be applied to humans. Those hoping to study Computer Science should investigate how this swarm theory can be used in AI software and bio-inspired robotics.

In what is thought to be the first policy of its kind in India, publishing company Harper Collins has introduced ‘pawternity leave’ to employees adopting a pet. Employees who are adopting any animal – not just a dog or a cat – can have up to 5 days of paid leave to help bond with their new arrival.

In the West, some companies have already introduced such a policy, but it was – until now – unheard of in India. The idea is to encourage responsible adoption of pets, as well as, according to Harper Collins India’s CEO, to support their employees’ ‘work-life balance and family needs’.

In addition to pawternity leave, Harper Collins India will also be allowing employees who are unable to leave their pets at home to bring them to the office. The animals will be kept in a specifically designated ‘pet creche’ for the day. A spokesperson for Harper Collins UK stressed that the company was not looking to bring this policy to the UK.

Economics and Management students might be interested in how pawternity leave will impact on the business in varying ways, both positively and negatively (increased employee satisfaction vs financial repercussions of having a reduced workforce due to staff utilising these additional days of paid leave). Students of HSPS and other social sciences like Politics might be interested in why Harper Collins India have introduced this, but Harper Collins UK will not be introducing this policy.

Exotic animals have been kept as pets across the UK for years, imported from all over the world into British households. Currently, there are over 4,500 exotic pets kept in the country, BBC reports, including big cats, large reptiles and primates. In spite of increasing campaigning to highlight the cruelty of practices that bring animals outside their natural habitats and into our homes, interest in owning exotic pets has not appeared to have waned. One question particularly pertinent to discussions on the ownership of exotic pets is how private captivity changes their behaviour.

Studies have been done to monitor and find patterns in behavioural changes amongst pets kept in captivity, however there is limited information on the ways in which private ownership can affect exotic pets. Such studies also need to take into account the operational practices exotic pets undergo in order to coexist with their owners. For instance, dangerous exotic pets such as snakes and birds of prey are regularly de-fanged and declawed to minimise risk of injury to their owners.

Veterinary Medicine applicants may want to think of the long term health risks posed to exotic animals who are kept privately in the UK, while Biological Sciences applicants could consider the ways in which the behaviour of exotic animals are influenced and transformed through private ownership. For Land Economy applicants, the implications of self-funding and self-management involved in the private ownership of exotic pets could be analysed in juxtaposition with public enclosures in zoos, for instance.

More commonly associated with nightmares rather than dreams; a team at University College London has revealed new research which suggests that rats do in fact dream when they sleep.

Veterinary Medicine applicants will be interested to note that when electrodes are attached to rats’ brains, they show that different places which the rats visit are recorded and remembered by different combinations of their hippocampal neurons firing together.  The research team showed the rats a path to a treat in a maze and then encouraged the rats to go for a nap.  The team recorded their hippocampus activity while they slept and noted that after the rats woke up, they set along a path to the treat which fired the same hippocampal activity as the pattern of activity when they were asleep. 

Experimental Psychology students should question what this research tells us about rats dreams being shaped by their desire and PBS students will want to investigate what this experiment could teach us about how mental maps are constructed in general.

Medicine applicants should pay attention to the similarities between how the hippocampi of rats and humans work and Philosophy students might consider the idea that if we can understand areas of the brain that are fired when dreaming, could we stimulate and manipulate those areas on sleeping humans and what are the ethical implications for doing so.

With this new research on rats dreaming coming hot on the heels of reports of Google’s Artificial Intelligence being able to dream (Computer Science students take note), it is becoming increasingly apparent that the world is full of far more dreamers than previously imagined.

Despite its release almost 40 years ago, John Williams’ famous soundtrack to the hit film Jaws still provokes a deep feeling of fear for the magnificent Great White Shark. For the first time in cinematic history, audiences were confronted with the idea that an animal could ruthlessly eat them whole; and perceptions changed forever. Experimental Psychology students can investigate the importance of fear as an emotion and the physiological responses that it evokes.

Biology students and those with a conservation interest in subjects such as Geography can also note that years on, the author of Jaws Peter Benchly commented that had he known the effect of his book, he would not have written it today. The number of large sharks among the eastern seaboard of North America did decline after the release of the film, in part due to humans seeing the value of ‘blue collar fishing’ and the trophy nature of these animals. More important, however, is the hundreds of sharks killed each year for their fins, an Asian delicacy meaning that there are far more Man-Eaten sharks than Man-Eaters.

Veterinary Medicine or Biological Natural Sciences students may also show interest in the reasons behind the very rare but often disastrous attacks on human. They have more senses such as pressure sensitive pores which means they can detect the slightest changes in pressure; given that they are so highly-tuned, it is less likely that they are eating humans as food, but more likely that they see us as fellow predators, competing for food.