The Geekiest Animals in History

Flipper writes "CNET has compiled a list of the geekiest animals throughout history. The entries include such peculiar characters as Ham The Astrochimp (the first chimp in space), Schrödinger's Cat (used to demonstrate quantum superposition) and Hans, a horse who could apparently do complex mathematics and read words. The classics are there too, Pavlov's dogs get a well-deserved mention, as does Dolly The Sheep. What sounds like a pretty bizarre list is actually strangely interesting — some of these animals are seriously geeky."

Not a chance

Where's Mr. Peabody?

"Sherman, fire up the wayback machine..."

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Or, for those who grew up in the 70s/80s, that TV show with the really smart Orangutan?

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You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!

Re:Not a chance

'Every Which Way But Loose'?

That ape only looked smart in comparison to Clint Eastwood.

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Mr. Peabody was a neodog, uplifted in 2114. He stole the Wayback Machine to escape his oppressive masters (he was on lease to Halliburton Homeland Security Concepts, Ltd.) and settled in 1960s North America to take advantage of readily available weed and a

Remember humans are animals too

Lest we give all the glory to other species.

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Christ, is it that hard to discern from context when "animal" means "Heterotrophic eukaryote" and when it means "Heterotrophic eukaryote that isn't human?" You are deliberately blurring the meanings when it should be perfectly clear.

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Where's Mr. Peabody?

Quiet, you.

Re:Not a chance

Hans was not able to do complex math or read. Has anyone ever heard of the clever hans effect?

Where is Laika?

She would have had my first vote.

Stolen from Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika [wikipedia.org]

Laika (from Russian meaning "Barker", as well as being a dog breed) was a Russian space dog that became the first living creature from Earth to enter orbit. She was found as a stray wandering the streets of Moscow. Originally named Kudryavka, she was renamed Laika after her breed type. After undergoing training with two other dogs, she was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 and was launched into space on November 3, 1957.

Laika died a few hours after launch from stress and overheating, likely due to a malfunction in the thermal control system. The true cause of her death was not made public until decades after the flight. Some former Soviet scientists have since expressed regret that Laika was allowed to die.

(more in article)

Re:Where is Laika?

Laika died a few hours after launch from stress and overheating,

Now when North Korea launches its space program, the do will be cooked on purpose.

Re:Where is Laika?

That is an awefully expensive way to cook up a batch of General Tso's "chicken"...

..or Nim Chimsky?

Seeing as the Chomsky hierarchy [wikipedia.org] is usually taught to computer science students nowadays, I'd think Nim Chimsky [wikipedia.org] should have been in that list as well (maybe replacing that dimwitted gorilla..), if anything at least for that geekish name or some of his utter

The man in the mirror.

I'd be considered the hairy, unkempt member of clan Stallman.

Geekiest extinct animal

Has to be the long horse [boingboing.net].
It was the multicore processor of its day.
Moores' law (not THAT Moore, his great grandfather) held that horses would double in length every 18 months.

I know

The Geekiest Animal is the GNU!

How about the Trojan Horse?

Ok, it wasn't really an animal but it's still geeky.

And how about the remote controlled goldfish? [youtube.com]

Re:How about the Trojan Horse?

Nah, Trojan Horses are more greeky.

No Danger Mouse!?

ahhh crum.

Tux?

I mean I know he's not a real penguin, but a hypothetical cat got on the list. Every linux user (which is some form of geek, myself included) has a special place in his or her (mostly his) heart for that happy little penguin.

Re:Tux?

Schrodinger's cat is NOT hypothetical. He exists... probably

Re:Tux?

You haven't observed him, have you?

Re:Tux?

I'm glad someone said it! Shrodinger's cat is an analogy to describe the "collapse of the wavefunction" principle, and not heisenberg uncertainty. It's not that you don't know which state the cat is in - it's that it is in both states until it's observed. I'm sure you knew this already, and hence the clever comment - but it's worth explaining for those who constantly misuse the analogy.

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You're arguing nomenclature that's standard in just about every quantum mechanics course taught in the world. You're arguing nomenclature that was established by the fathers of quantum physics. At this point, it's accepted terminology and you aren't gonn

Lesser known

Less is said about an alternative test called Schrödinger's lawyer. The test involved the gun discharging no matter what state the particle was in. Schrödinger himself admitted the proposed test was pointless but much more satisfying and humane than the cat test.

The Very Definition of Geekiness.

ScuttleMonkey wrote: What sounds like a pretty bizarre list is actually strangely interesting ...

I would add:

I think that finding this a strangely interesting article is the very definition of what it means to be a geek.

Crickets Play Pacman

This is a really neat research project using crickets as the ghosts in Pacman. [pong.hku.nl] Considering that crickets can tell the temperature [dartmouth.edu] and that they have the most sensitive mechano-sensors known in the animal kingdom, [europa.eu] this is a creature that demonstrates many geeky qualities.

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It's funny that someone named Fox_1 knows this information yet didn't make it onto the geekiest animals list.

Wht do u get when u cross a polar bear with a Seal

A polar bear.

Shamu

I went a Seaworld once and ate dinner at the Dinner with Shamu where you get to see their larger pool, and talk with the trainers. I asked him just how smart they really were and he said VERY smart. I asked how many commands they knew, and he said 300-400, which is really very amazing. They aren't usually mentioned in terms of the smartest animal, usually that's dogs, pigs and horses, but I bet Killer Whales are WAY up there, maybe even higher because of the size of their brain.

Re:Shamu

I asked him just how smart they really were and he said VERY smart. I asked how many commands they knew, and he said 300-400, which is really very amazing.

      Unfortunately, it maxes-out around 300-400, depending on how much time the whales want to spend on training the people.

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Well, if you've ever seen the footage from the BBC's Blue Planet series of two orcas torturing a seal to death and then playing with the carcass, you'd have to agree. They tossed it back and forth between each other like it was a Frisbee. Then when they

K-9 is somewhat lame, but the list gets kudos...

For being a top ten list with one fucking page view. Thanks for that.

My two votes...

    First would be Laika, who gave her life in space exploration. Second would be Freud's Chow-Chow. Determining the mental state of a patient through pheromones and other bodily odors gets two dew-claws up.

      On a somewhat related note of sniffing out people's mental state, one of my neighbors is a K9 cop. He said that several times, the cuplrit of a crime has stayed at the scene and just blended in with the crowd, and as soon as he showed up, without being given a scent or anything, his dog simply went straight into the crowd and picked out the party who turned out to be guilty.

steve

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First would be Laika, who gave her life in space exploration

I think you mean who's life was _taken_ in space exploration. not that there's anything wrong with that

Who Cares...

about Hoover the seal... He sucked...

Orally Book Covers

Surely the geekiest animals in history are going to prove to be the ones on the cover of the O'Reilly books.

Schrödinger's Cat is DEAD!

Poor cat. Being left alone in a box without air or water or food for all that time.

Even if the cat had plenty of food in that damn box it would have died of old age a looong time ago.

Re:Schrödinger's Cat is DEAD!

SO, where does reanimation fit within Schrödinger's little there? huh? HUH?

It could be an undead cat.

Just so you know.

Koko's dialog all goes through her owner for editing first. All the gibberish is removed until something sorta kinda interpretable is left. Often the interpretatons require huge mental leaps. I've met a couple deaf people who've seen Koko at a zoo and they all said she just signs random words all the time. Yeah, yeah, they're not animal behaviorist experts or whatever, but check out the AOL chat transcript with Koko sometime... It's full of wild wishful thinking by her owner who will stop at nothing to make sense of random signs and movements.

One of my favorite parts:

Question: Do you like to chat with other people?
HaloMyBaby: That was from Rulucky!
LiveKOKO: fine nipple
DrPPatrsn: Nipple rhymes with people, she doesn't sign people per se, she was trying to do a "sounds like..."

Yeah, I'm really sure Koko was trying to say the word "people" by signing "nipple" which sounds just like it! Fun read.

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Not sure that was the best example. True, the rhyming explanation was rather lame, but if the sexual harassment lawsuits were founded, then there might be another more awkward reason [wikipedia.org] for Koko's choice of sign...

Koko

I was pleased to see Koko the gorilla on the list. When I was young I managed to see her when my father was doing some work to help the gorilla foundation back in the early 1980s. At the time, I wore braces and she found them very interesting and made up a new sign on the spot for them. They also had another gorilla, Michael. My sister made the sign "Koko loves Michael" to which Koko responded, "Michael dirty toilet", which apparently she came up with and was not taught. Koko was never very fond of Michael, though her attraction to some of her handlers was known even back then.

-Aaron

I don't buy this

...a horse who could apparently do complex mathematics

A horse that understands the square root of negative one? No way.

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You just don't understand his answer!

The Square Root of -1 is neigh.
And we all know horse neigh when they hear "Frau Blucher"

Which means "Frau Blucher" is the Square Root of -1

What do you call an exploding monkey?

a BaBOOM!

KoKo the gorilla and lawsuits?

I didn't know gorilla's are subject to the same laws as humans in the United States. Eventhough it is a serious matter, it is kinda strange he's being charged with sexual harrassment.

If my puppy humps my leg can I sue him?

Unix Geek Creature

Where's Maxwell's Daemon?????

HEY!

What about Snoopy?? He was a WWl ace, an author, a world traveler, multi-lingual, a real lady's man(dog?) and he could do cool tricks with his dog food dish.

Re:I'm older but who cares...

Gyro Gearloose!! He's brainy in the same way that Scrooge McDuck is rich.

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Darwin is the reason I'm for catching dolphins with tuna.