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The Independent
2 days ago
- Science
- The Independent
New research reveals elephants have been trying to communicate with us for years
Elephants are known for their intelligence, strong social bonds, and good memories. But do they communicate to show real intention? A new study suggests they do. The research showed that elephants gestured to ask for food when a person was around and that they kept gesturing when they didn't receive all the food. These are signs that the elephants are trying to communicate with intention. We spoke to lead author Vesta Eleuteri, a PhD candidate, to learn more about what this means and why it matters. Why did you study how elephants use gestures to communicate? Most of the research on elephant communication is on their calls and chemical signals, likely because of their extraordinary hearing and smell. How elephants communicate with gestures is comparatively less studied. But there are descriptions of elephants using many different body movements and displays in different contexts, which suggests a key role of gestures in elephant communication. But whether elephants gesture intentionally to others to communicate goals in mind has not been systematically explored before. My colleagues and I study the cognition and communication of animals to understand how complex cognitive skills evolved, which is what this article is based on. In our study, led by the University of Vienna and in collaboration with the University of St Andrews, the University of Portsmouth and City University of New York, we show that semi-captive elephants use many different gestures intentionally to ask a human to give them apples (their goal). We found that the elephants used 38 different gesture types intentionally. The elephants kept gesturing when they only got half the apples (only partially reached their goal), while they changed gestures when they got no apples (did not reach their goal), both key behaviours to establish intentional use. Why is it important to know whether their communication is intentional? The ability to intentionally communicate goals in mind using a variety of gestures might help elephants navigate their complex social lives. By showing that semi-captive elephants gesture intentionally to humans using many different gesture types, our study builds on the evidence that this ability is not unique to primates, but that it has repeatedly emerged during evolution. Here, we consider intentionality as 'goal-directed intentionality', which is the ability to communicate goals we have in mind to others. This was, in the past, considered to be a unique human skill. Today we know that all the other apes and even some other primates (although in a less flexible way) communicate intentionally using over 70 different gesture types to communicate many different goals in mind. Some examples include gesturing for things like 'come here'; 'give me that'; 'groom me'. In non-primates, this intentionality was shown only in a few animals, from guppy fish to Arabian babblers. But typically, this was done with one or two gestures and for specific goals, like 'follow me'. Elephants are distantly related to humans in evolution. We last shared a common ancestor with them over 100 million years ago. But, like apes, they are highly intelligent and live in complex societies where they have many different types of relationships (from kin to allies, friends and strangers). Also, there are descriptions of elephants using many different body movements and displays during many different contexts. These include when they greet, affiliate, play with each other or even when they travel together. What gestures did the elephants use, and how do you know they were on purpose? The elephants in semi-captivity often reached their trunks or swung them back and forth towards the human or the tray with apples. This made it clear they were communicating that they wanted the apples. To know whether the elephants were using their gestures intentionally, we applied the behavioural criteria first created to study the development of intentional communication in human infants. These are: audience directedness, persistence and elaboration. Signallers should use gestures when there is a recipient and appropriately according to whether he/she is looking or not (audience directedness). For example, if the recipient is not looking at them, they should use tactile gestures instead of visual gestures that the recipient would not see. After gesturing, signallers should wait for the recipient to react and, if the recipient does not react as they wanted, they should keep gesturing (persistence) or change gestures (elaboration) to clarify what they wanted. I can make an example. If I want to ask you to pass me the salt (my goal), I first should consider whether you are looking at me and, if you are, I may reach my hand towards the salt (audience directedness). If you don't react or pass me the wrong thing, like the pepper, I should keep gesturing (persistence) or should change gesture by, for example, pointing towards the salt to clarify I wanted the salt from you (elaboration). You worked with semi-captive elephants; do wild elephants act the same? We and many other elephant experts have observed wild elephants gesturing apparently intentionally to each other (and even to us!) many times in the field. Nonetheless, we cannot confirm their ability to gesture intentionally merely from our observations. Science is there to systematically test with data the intuitions or feelings we get from observations. Whether wild elephants use the same gestures we observed in this semi-captive group is an interesting question that needs to be explored. The same goes for assessing if different elephant groups or populations use different gestures. Based on previous descriptions, wild elephants should use, intentionally, a few of the gestures we found (trunk reaches or swings) but maybe they don't use some of the 'more creative' ones like the 'blow leaf in the air' our elephant Pfumo had fun using. What's next for your research? We want to systematically test whether wild elephants gesture intentionally to each other, describe the repertoire of their intentional gestures and the goals (meanings) they use these gestures for (they may say to each other: 'travel with me', 'move away', 'stop that'). We have thousands of videos collected in two elephant populations in South Africa that I am video-coding for gestures and their intentional use. It will take time to define the repertoire and meanings of elephant intentional gestures. But we hope to someday do this and to compare the gestures of different populations to understand if elephants may have different 'gestural languages'. Studying animal communication offers 'a window' into our own language, into our minds, because it allows us to understand what, if anything, makes language unique. Showing that animals have so much in common with us makes people empathise more with them and care more about them, which is important for their conservation. Most importantly, studying animal communication is crucial because we can understand animals better and, if we know them better, we can take better measures to safeguard them.
Fast Company
30-07-2025
- Health
- Fast Company
A massive new study of 24,000 people says this is what happens to people who stay up too late every night
WORK LIFE Let's just say it was a struggle. BY Listen to this Article More info 0:00 / 4:20 I'm a night owl, so I'm interested when I come across studies about what happens to people who habitually stay up late. Sometimes they can be disturbing, and sometimes they're innocuous. But sometimes — like the latest one I've read — they come with a silver lining. Today's study comes to us from the medical school at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. It involves tracking the sleep habits and health outcomes of nearly 24,000 people over 10 full years. Let's give you the results up front: good, bad, and the reason to look on the bright side. Writing in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease, the Dutch researchers said they tracked the sleep habits and the degree to which they displayed cognitive decline over the same period. The results were disconcerting on their face for night owls; people who habitually stay up late wound up with faster cognitive decline than those who go to bed early. But, there was an unexpected twist. The less education night owls had, the less likely they were to experience similar levels of cognitive decline over the study period. That finding begs for an explanation, and researcher Ana Wenzler, a Ph.D. candidate in the university's department of epidemiology, offered a few: First, as we saw in another recent study, people who stay up late are less likely than their early-to-bed peers to exercise during the day. Second, people who go to bed early simply sleep through many of the times when other people smoke, drink, and eat unhealthy foods most often. Finally — and this might be the most interesting — the increased correlation between more education and more cognitive decline for night owls might stem from the fact that, statistically, more educated people wind up trapped in a daytime work hours environment, even when their natural rhythms might be better served by a different schedule. As Wenzler explained in an accompanying statement: 'That probably has to do with their sleep rhythm. They are often people who have to go back to work early in the morning and are therefore more likely to sleep too short, giving their brains too little rest. We suspect that lower- or middle-educated people are more likely to have a job that allows them to take their sleep rhythm into account, such as a job in the hospitality industry or one with night shifts. If this is not possible, your brain does not get enough rest and you are more likely to adopt bad habits. It would be nice if more consideration was given to evening people who now have to work early: for example, by giving them the option of starting later.' This is the part I look at as a silver lining. Because, even as workplaces have evolved during the 10 years or so that the study period covered, many highly educated night owls have, in fact, adjusted. More of us work remotely, more of us work for ourselves, and more of us have worked out flexibility. We've actually given ourselves 'the option of starting later' if it fits our schedules better. In my personal situation, that's exactly what's happened. If you go back to the earlier parts of my career, I was chained to an inflexible schedule at work. As an example, I had a job that required me to battle a Los Angeles commute and be sitting at my desk by 7:30 a.m. each day. Let's just say it was a struggle. Today, I'm fortunate in that I answer to nobody but myself, and so I set my own hours. I probably put in a lot more time each week than I once did when I was on someone else's schedule, but the hours I work are better suited to my natural chronotype (or 'biological clock'). Of course, we're hearing about this study just as many big companies are swinging the pendulum back the other way, requiring employees to be in the office more often, and limiting remote work and flexibility. Maybe that's a competitive opportunity if you're running a business. Great employees come in all chronotypes: night owls and early birds alike. Call it another silver lining. — By Bill Murphy Jr. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy. The early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, September 5, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Inc. Magazine: Everything you need to start and grow your business. More
Washington Post
27-07-2025
- Science
- Washington Post
We've made sharks into monsters
Lindsay L. Graff is a shark researcher and PhD candidate in marine biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. There are few summer traditions more predictable than turning sharks into profit. Fifty years ago, on June 20, 1975, 'Jaws' established the template for the modern-day blockbuster, combining mass marketing and high-concept thrills that all but guarantee mega box-office returns. But the film's lasting power lies in how it transformed a relatively obscure marine predator into a cultural icon and villain that could be used for financial gain. Before 1975, sharks managed to lead inconspicuous existences that belied their ecological importance. Fear of sharks wasn't born with 'Jaws': Isolated incidents, such as the infamous 1916 attacks along the East Coast, had already stirred public alarm in coastal communities. It was easy to scale local anxiety into global panic. Transforming sharks into predatory monsters leverages the primal unease humans experience when we're reminded of our natural place within the food web. In a single summer, 'Jaws' distilled a subclass of hundreds of species, small and large, down to the singular, misleading moniker of 'man-eater.' After the summer of 1975, sharks became unforgettable — and extremely profitable. But half a century after 'Jaws,' the truth is clear: Humans are far deadlier to these animals than they are to us. Each year, we kill an estimated 100 million sharks, largely due to overfishing, where they are caught intentionally for finning or incidentally as bycatch. Sharks were the perfect monsters for an economy built on entertainment and fear — not facts. Their capability of causing traumatic harm to humans (47 people were bitten by sharks last year in unprovoked attacks) lent enough validity for the 'man-eating' label to stick, irrespective of the fact that the vast majority of shark species feed primarily on fish, squid, invertebrates and planktonic organisms. It was far easier to sell society on sharks' evil tendencies than it was to face the reality that you're statistically more likely to be killed by a grass-eating hippopotamus — or that there are more people bitten by squirrels in New York City each year than Americans injured by sharks. 'Squirrelnado' wouldn't have quite the same ring to it. The lack of research on and public understanding about sharks in the 1970s allowed them to become whatever Hollywood imagined. This fact can be heard in the remorse of 'Jaws' author Peter Benchley, who, after an encounter with a great white shark while diving in the Bahamas, penned an essay with his famous line: 'I couldn't write 'Jaws' today. The extensive new knowledge of sharks would make it impossible for me to create, in good conscience, a villain of the magnitude and malignity of the original.' Before science could dispel the myths, sharks had been cemented in the public's eye. The immense success of 'Jaws' sparked a wave of films, including sequels: 'Jaws 2' (1978), 'Jaws 3-D' (1983) and 'Jaws: The Revenge' (1987). Hollywood's interest exploded. Television networks followed suit. Discovery Channel aired the first Shark Week in July 1988, and it has since become a summer rite of passage. Shark Week leaned heavily into sensationalized storytelling of shark attacks and shark bite reenactments. It provided a space for viewers to face their growing galeophobia, however misguided, without leaving the comfort and safety of their living rooms. Today, Shark Week is the longest-running cable television programming event in history. As the scientific and public perception of sharks matured, driven by advances in marine science and public education, media channels adapted their content; sensationalized fearmongering was replaced with conservation-focused storytelling, and shark behavior was allowed to extend beyond the overused verbiage of 'lurking' and 'stalking.' Even as Hollywood maintained its fascination with the man-eater — not least of all in the series of six (six!) 'Sharknado' movies — National Geographic launched its own week of shark-focused TV in 2012, SharkFest, developing it into the multi-week TV event that it is today. SharkFest is marketed as a science-based, educational alternative to Discovery Channel's Shark Week, but the platform remained grounded in the same logic: that sharks are media assets designed to generate viewership. There remains an uneven balance between episodes of science and spectacle — each meant to appease an audience viewing these animals through a different lens. (Even the popular TV show 'Shark Tank,' which has nothing to do with these cartilaginous fishes, is meant to evoke in viewers the sense of business-focused, man-eating investors.) Recently, the commodification of sharks has reached digital platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, where sharks fuel personal branding and ego. Platforms are flooded with influencers who disguise sharks as subjects of scientific curiosity and conservation, when in reality they are used as props to gain followers, views and personal clout. We are spammed with content from people recording themselves unsafely interacting with wild animals and sensationalizing shark encounters to feed a performative image of bravery or connection with nature. They are exploiting these animals like those before them did on our movie and TV screens, reducing 450 million years of evolution to a tool for engagement and sponsorships. Humans intentionally kill sharks for profit, selling their fins for shark fin soup or mounting them as trophies. Consequently, over one-third of shark and ray species are now threatened with global extinction. By contrast, between 2019 and 2023, there were just 64 unprovoked shark attacks, including six fatalities, per year on average. Most attacks occur when swimmers or surfers are mistaken for prey, such as seals. Sharks are important and worthy of conservation and research, and not because they generate profit. Without sharks, marine ecosystems can unravel, leading to population booms of prey species, degradation of habitats and a loss of biodiversity. Sharks matter — not for what they give us, but for what they are.
