Humans tend to think about other animals in human terms — which is only natural since we don’t really have other frames of reference other than our own experiences. So not surprisingly, it’s always interesting when animals seem to enjoy the same activities that people do and seem to be able to solve problems better than we can. Here are just some fairly recent examples.

• Orangutans at a Milwaukee zoo get to play with iPads and even have access to the internet. Pretty soon the zookeepers will have to install internet filtering software so that these orangutans don’t try to gamble away their bananas via online casinos. [url]
• The “Monty Hall Dilemma” is a probability problem that most people don’t solve correctly by instinct, but some birds seem to? Given “three doors” with mixed grain as a prize, pigeons seem to learn how to optimize their door-choosing strategy better than people. [url]
• People like sledding on snow-covered hills with inner tubes and lunch trays. Crows like to sled down snow-covered rooftops using jar lids. Sledding is just fun, but you’d think that animals that can fly wouldn’t be so entertained by sliding along the ground…. [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what’s currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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