and…
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this experiment makes intuitive sense to me. when i drive a car i am not using the logical part of my brain to steer, press the gas and brake etc. once you get used to driving the car just becomes an extension of your self. it makes sense to me that an intelligent animal could pick this skill up easily.
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The real question is whether we can use Froot Loops to train human drivers to put away their goddamm phones and drive!
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Your faux-jovial inter-species misogyny is misplaced, female rats are smarter than the males.
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Can confirm, anecdotally anyway… When I had my retirement home for aged classroom pets, the mama rat and her female cage mate were much craftier than her sons that I had adopted earlier. They were the ones who were sneaky about escape attempts and hiding their food out of the sight line of the boys, even though they were in separate cages.
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Absolutely they are!
I had over 30 in a 10 year period, including two litters, one of 10, one of 12.
Boys get all the strength and loyalty, girls get all the smarts and empathy.
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And this is different because? Seriously, my wife needs this to be clarified.
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Different how, to people?
No idea why, but my experience says they were smarter.
Dan-dan was WAY smart - you can tell, right?
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Yeah, I have a suspicion that in most critters females are smarter. Their survival is important. Us males, not so much. There is always an excess.
ETA: She is way cute!
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Oh, so cute! Mama rat Violet and her best son Buckwheat were both hooded rats, just like that.
Violet, smart girl that she was, never quite trusted my daughter in the months we had her, presumably because of her long classroom experience with elementary-aged kids. With adults, she was pretty chill, though she’d nip in an instant if she felt nervous.
Her son Buckwheat, who I adopted when he was a couple months old, was super chill and never nippy, having escaped the terrors of the classroom at a young age. He was a sweetie and not too bright or adventurous. I don’t think he’d have learned to drive!
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That’s why I don’t have a pet one, I used to but they don’t live for long. He was the best! Too lazy to drive a car though.
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i tracked down a youtube video of the conference presentation, fascinating work
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