Thursday, September 12

SMART FOOD


Here's some unwelcome news for those who like not thinking about what they're eating: Scientists now say ordinary pigs engage in social competitive behavior of a kind normally seen in primates. In other words, pigs' thinking is a lot closer to ours than we'd thought. The same goes for chickens, which went unreported in the above version of the story. But in terms of social intelligence, watch out for those sheep - yes, sheep, who can remember 10 human faces - and 50 sheep faces - for up to two years. How many sheep faces would you be able to remember for two days? As the Cambridge professor says, "We may have underestimated the importance and complexity of a sheep's social environment and their intelligence." Great, so when do we acknowledge that and stop slaughtering 'em? Oh, that's right, we haven't gotten that smart yet.

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