University of Tennessee study finds fish just wanna have fun
Fish just want to have fun, according to a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, study that finds even fish 'play.'
2014-10-20
(Press-News.org) Fish just want to have fun, according to a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, study that finds even fish "play."
The research is published in the academic journal Ethology and can be viewed at http://bit.ly/1tLunpC.
Gordon Burghardt, a professor in the departments of Psychology and Ecology are Evolutionary Biology, is known for defining "play" in a way that allows us to identify it in species not previously thought capable of play, such as wasps, reptiles and invertebrates.
"Play is repeated behavior that is incompletely functional in the context or at the age in which it is performed and is initiated voluntarily when the animal or person is in a relaxed or low-stress setting," said Burghardt.
He and his colleagues Vladimir Dinets, a psychology research assistant professor, and James Murphy of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., are the first to document play with objects in a cichlid fish species. There are hundreds of species of cichlid, including tilapia, but the behavior of the species they studied appears unique.
The team studied and filmed three male fish individually over the course of two years. They observed the fish repeatedly striking a bottom-weighted thermometer. The presence or absence of food, or other fish within the aquarium or visible in an adjacent aquarium, had no effect on their behavior. The thermometer-attacking behavior satisfies Burghardt's criteria for play.
"The quick righting response seemed the primary stimulus factor that maintained the behavior," said Burghardt. "We have observed octopus doing this with balls by pulling them underwater and watching them pop back up again. This reactive feature is common in toys used for children and companion animals."
According to Burghardt, by more accurately characterizing play and observing it throughout the entire animal kingdom, humans may better understand themselves. His research illustrates how play is embedded in species' biology, including in the brain. Play, like much of animals' psychology including emotions, motivations, perceptions and intellect, is part of their evolutionary history and not just random, meaningless behavior.
"Play is an integral part of life and may make a life worth living," said Burghardt.
INFORMATION:
Burghardt's book, "The Genesis of Animal Play—Testing the Limits" sums up many of his findings. More about the book can be found at the publisher's website, http://bit.ly/1vvnBdz.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2014-10-20
This news release is available in German. Diatoms play an important role in water quality and in the global climate. They generate about one fourth of the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere and perform around one-quarter of the global CO2 assimilation, i.e. they convert carbon dioxide into organic substances. Their light receptors are a crucial factor in this process. Researchers at the Leipzig University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research have now discovered that blue and red light sensing photoreceptors control the carbon flow in these algae. These ...
2014-10-20
WASHINGTON, DC – A mass of marine debris discovered in a giant sinkhole in the Hawaiian islands provides evidence that at least one mammoth tsunami, larger than any in Hawaii's recorded history, has struck the islands, and that a similar disaster could happen again, new research finds. Scientists are reporting that a wall of water up to nine meters (30 feet) high surged onto Hawaiian shores about 500 years ago. A 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Aleutian Islands triggered the mighty wave, which left behind up to nine shipping containers worth of ocean ...
2014-10-20
Since World War II, more than 45 international human-rights treaties have been signed by many of the world's roughly 200 countries. But why do some states sign such accords, especially if they lack a strong human-rights commitment in the first place?
One prominent idea holds that treaty-ratifying countries are essentially bought off: They agree to lend support to the human-rights movement in exchange for material good, such as foreign aid or more trade. However, a new study co-authored by an MIT political scientist finds that not to be the case; the actions of states, ...
2014-10-20
This news release is available in German. What started out as a mathematical oddity, has now become a new kind of laser technology. Two years ago, physicists at TU Wien predicted a paradoxical laser effect: Under certain conditions, a laser can be switched on not by supplying it with more energy, but by taking energy away from the laser. First experimental signatures of this effect were recently reported at TU Wien. In collaboration with colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis, USA and at Riken, Japan the researchers have now succeeded in transferring the paradoxical ...
2014-10-20
Amsterdam, NL, October 20, 2014 – White Canes provide low-tech assistance to the visually impaired, but some blind people object to their use because they are cumbersome, fail to detect elevated obstacles, or require long training periods to master. Electronic travel aids (ETAs) have the potential to improve navigation for the blind, but early versions had disadvantages that limited widespread adoption. A new ETA, the "EyeCane," developed by a team of researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, expands the world of its users, allowing them to better estimate ...
2014-10-20
Climate change predictions for the Middle East, like other arid regions of the world, are alarming. In an area known for its water scarcity, rainfall is expected to decrease even further in the near future, spelling disaster for the functioning of unique ecosystems — hotspots of biodiversity and rich genetic fodder for essential crops.
To test these dire predictions, Prof. Marcelo Sternberg of the Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants at Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Life Sciences, together with ecologists from the University of Tübingen ...
2014-10-20
Older people from Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in England fear changes in cultural attitudes will leave them without the family care they expect to rely on in their twilight years, a new study has found.
The research, undertaken at Brunel University London, reports that elderly people in these communities expect their children and wider family will look after them in old age and are traditionally unlikely to take-up state social services.
However, those surveyed also expressed uncertainty over whether changes in cultural attitudes and geographical factors ...
2014-10-20
Members of today's younger Net Generation aren't more tech savvy than their teachers just because they were born into a world full of computers. In fact, if it weren't for the coaxing and support of their educators, many students would never use their electronic devices for more than playing games or listening to music. So says Shiang-Kwei Wang of the New York Institute of Technology in the US, who led a study on how middle school science teachers and their students use technology inside and outside the classroom. The findings¹ appear in the journal Educational Technology ...
2014-10-20
ANN ARBOR—In a design that mimics a hard-to-duplicate texture of starfish shells, University of Michigan engineers have made rounded crystals that have no facets.
"We call them nanolobes. They look like little hot air balloons that are rising from the surface," said Olga Shalev, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering who worked on the project.
Both the nanolobes' shape and the way they're made have promising applications, the researchers say. The geometry could potentially be useful to guide light in advanced LEDs, solar cells and nonreflective ...
2014-10-20
Researchers at Griffith University's Institute for Glycomics have moved a step closer to identifying a treatment for the dreaded Human parainfluenza virus (hPIV).
These highly-infectious viruses are the leading cause of upper and lower respiratory tract disease in young children, including Croup, responsible for thousands of hospitalisations in the developed world, and hundreds of thousands of deaths each year in developing countries.
Institute Director Professor Mark von Itzstein said his Group's research findings published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] University of Tennessee study finds fish just wanna have fun
Fish just want to have fun, according to a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, study that finds even fish 'play.'
