Discussion
chasil: https://archive.ph/EHCxx
talktalkmake: You're talking ** Karl, PLAY A RECORD
mrbluecoat: They're also into bananas
gtowey: What's wrong with bananas?
SpaceL10n: A sizable percentage of the human population is deathly allergic to bananas.
moi2388: What if you place a whole bunch of simulator crystals in a pile, with only 1 or 2 smooth rocks?I’m willing to bet they will go after the smooth rocks and it’s about rarity, not crystals.
IAmBroom: And this is relevant how?
JoelMcCracken: Don’t get me wrong, this is very interesting, but there is something very funny about the idea that “give a chimpanzee stuff and see if they like it” is academic research.This could absolutely be a headline on The Onion.
Centigonal: so are people! we overthrew multiple countries for banan
IAmBroom: "Bananoi", please. They aren't Latin.
olivia-banks: I'm mildly allergic to bananas, but I don't think the number of people allergic to bananas is "sizable."
dmix: > But he’s also very interested in “the impact of crystals on the history of art and the history of mind,”This made my eyes roll a bit.
indoordin0saur: Definitely gives fuel to those in congress looking to defund university budgetsSenator: "And this one! '1.2 million dollars to study if Chimpanzees think crystals are pretty.' That's your tax dollars at work, folks!"
tantalor: I'd gladly trade you a banana tomorrow for a crystal today.
egypturnash: If you read the original paper (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....) then they go into more detail on the piles of pebbles and what got taken; the graphs in figure 4 (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....) make it very obvious that the chimps loved the crystals.(an "euhedral" crystal is one with lots of obvious facets, an "anhedral" one is one that's been rounded down into a more pebble shape.)
that_lurker: Have Americans tried giving them crystals
omegared8: Sure seems stupid on first glance but most science seems pointless. It’s only when several loosely interconnected ideas that prove something MIGHT be commercially viable do we find out that it was the first curious question that … again seems stupid… was the seed of inivation
buttermeup: What are some examples of questions that at first seemed stupid yet became brilliant when connected with other seemingly stupid ideas?
chao-: Rather than a singular "question" that seems stupid, consider prime numbers. People toyed with prime numbers for centuries, asking all sorts of questions, with little-to-no impact on the vast majority of humans. Fast forward to the age of telecommunications: suddenly massive innovations in cryptography are being built on knowledge of prime numbers that previously was a novelty.
ducttapecrown: It's mentioned in the article that the chimpanzees only relinquished the crystals in exchange for many bananas, so it seems they're more into crystals...
iberator: Imagine if monkeys could communicate using crystals. That would be interesting - human - animal language!Research could lead into shit like cows TELLING us when feeling sick or know something etc. Food production, pets, police animals - a lot of potential uses.The same as literally chemistry and rocks gave us transistors.Almost no study is crazy.Playing with glass gave us telescopes and microscopes.
doubled112: I've often joked about inflation and that while TVs may have become inexpensive, food has not.Are you saying that I might be able to harvest the crystals in them and pay for bananas?
ducttapecrown: NYTimes competing with NYTimesPitchBot for funnier headlines, I see. What a bizarre and awesome piece of science. I like crystals for the miracle of uncountable numbers of atoms transferring symmetry from the smallest scale to the visible scale.
tedmiston: now give them The Orb
iberator: Microwaves were invented as hamster defrost machines. Seriously!
buttermeup: While that sounds like an interesting tidbit, it also doesn’t appear remotely true based off of the history sections in the wiki pages for microwaves and microwave ovens.
manarth: there is something very funny about the idea that “give a chimpanzee stuff and see if they like it” This is the premise behind the "Ignobel prize" – awards for scientific research which at first-glance may appear to be an April Fool's prank, but genuinely advance the cause of scientific research. "the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza" "what a nursing baby experiences when the baby’s mother eats garlic" "some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prizehttps://improbable.com/ig/winners/
dustractor: how are you still able to access archive.ph? do we need to put something in the hosts? All I've gotten there for the last month and a half is an nginx landing page.
tsimionescu: They're a nightmare for atheists!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfv-Qn1M58I
MyHonestOpinon: This is clearly a parody. right? right? please say yes.
marcosdumay: Watch the last few seconds.
e1ghtSpace: Damn now I want to buy a large crystal for my desk.
pkghost: “While the attraction is clear, the underlying motivation is not,” he said.Nobody involved in the study or the article has ever done even a small dose of psilocybin and interacted with crystals.
actionfromafar: Not even the chimps.
pinkmuffinere: I love the ignoble prizes, receiving one is a bucket-list item for me! I’ll need to step up my game though and do more weird things, I’m hoping I can put this off till the last 5-10 years of my career.
cluckindan: Avoid these sites, they use visitor browsers as a DDoS attack platform.
metalman: here is a random wierd thing about chimps that makes the whole crystal thing worth a go. I give you ,stick in earand worsehttps://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/chimps-deve...
harimau777: My understanding is that much of discrete mathematics was considered to be purely academic until computers were invented.
pseudohadamard: That was my reaction as well, they're really shooting for an Ig Nobel with this one.
moi2388: They had piles of average 30 rocks and 3 crystals. They do not do the inverse. They did not account fo rarity.
lich_king: > I’m willing to bet they will go after the smooth rocks and it’s about rarity, not crystals.Why? Crystals are pretty, rocks are not. We clearly prefer shiny colorful things to dull beige things, even if shiny things are abundant.
mikkupikku: Well.. Some rocks are definitely shiney. It would be interesting to see if monkeys have any affinity for well polished rocks with pretty colors. Humans do like them, maybe not as much as crystals but they're nice nonetheless.
adrian_b: While the ancient Romans liked transparent crystals, especially emeralds and beryls, they were not the most valued gems.The most valued gems in Ancient Rome were the higher-quality varieties of noble opals and pearls, which are not transparent, but which show a variable play of colors, depending on the ambient light and on the angle of sight.
kayo_20211030: Great comment. It's bananas. Chimps like bananas too, right?
oniony: I thought it was fruit flies.
ramon156: Fruit can't fly, silly
speedylight: Humans like pretty things, that’s why I have an urge to pet bears and tigers even though I know they’ll kill me.
CatMustard: Follow up study?
jdougan: Time flies like a bannana
radishingr: The Tom Scott video(https://youtu.be/2tdiKTSdE9Y) did a pretty good summary of the Percy Spencer microwave (a giant commercial oven) and the later parallel development by J. E. Lovelock of a small microwave to reheat small mammals for experiments with cryorevival (replacing lamps and hot paddles).
specproc: This, I've not heard of. Do you have a source?
quuxplusone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47092006https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46843805https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624740(I don't fully understand the relationship between archive.is, archive.ph, and archive.today, but my impression is that they're all the same person.)
