Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2014 September 29

= September 29 =

Alien possum ?
Hi, white eared possums use to be Didelphis albiventris‎ species. But they live in South America. So what do you think of this guy, said to be North American but white eared and black footed unlike regular Didelphis virginiana‎ ? --Salix (talk) 09:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * A few thoughts: 1) the source for the image (link rotted away) is linked to a URL from the IESB, a Brazilian institution. 2) The data that says it's D. virginiana is linked to "Nordopossum" on the de.wikipedia. So, it's likely that whoever made that association was not a North American. 3)Coat pattern and color can vary quite a bit within species. With all that in mind, it seems that this is definitely a questionable ID, though I would also hesitate to say with certainty that it is a white-eared possum. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:08, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Alien? HiLo48 (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm quite certain that's a white-eared opossum, not a North American opossum. Looie496 (talk) 14:07, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * That's slightly problematic, because the picture of the white-eared opossum in our article differs in appearance from this picture, and when you check the file description, that animal is called Didelphis marsupialis. Also, a reverse search on the picture here at google gives a link to an article in Portuguese that say the animal here has a range just up to the southern border of the US, not the rang shown in our article. μηδείς (talk) 23:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The title and file description call it Didelphis marsupialis Commons:File:Didelphis marsupialis, Bahia, Brazil.jpg. But someone recently removed the cat and added it to Didelphis albiventris instead [//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Didelphis_marsupialis,_Bahia,_Brazil.jpg&diff=134711392&oldid=118021581]. More importantly perhaps, the only reason why it's called marsupialis appears to be because that's what the source called it at the time. But if you check out the current version [//www.flickr.com/photos/12589168@N00/3453281076], it calls it albiventris. So it's very likely marsupialis was simply misidentification. Nil Einne (talk) 16:04, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Are hippos the most dangerous mammal in Africa?
Hi, there are a lot of websites that state that the Hippopotamus is the most dangerous mammal in Africa, and that it kills more humans than any other - but does anyone know if there is actually any evidence to support this? All I can find is an unverified figure of 2,900 - even if this is true how does it compare to, say, the crocodile or the elephant?

I did spot a paper by the FAO (http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1048e/i1048e03.pdf) that suggests the crocodile has superseded the hippo, but, again, it doesn't provide any evidence.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks.

Last Polar Bear (talk) 11:22, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I suspect that humans are the most dangerous mammal in Africa. Wars in Africa kill hundreds of thousands humans. --Mark viking (talk) 11:31, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed. According to our hippo article, humans killed ten times that many of them alone, in the mid-70s alone, in the Congo alone. So I stopped counting. We are the undisputed champions.


 * A crocodile is not a mammal. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:33, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The way I've heard it (as in a comment in National Geographic a number of years ago) is that the hippo is the most dangerous animal in Africa, not just the most dangerous mammal. Obviously, humans are biologically animals, but in this context the term is used to refer to non-humans. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:29, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Tsetse fly has no fans? Anyway there's a lovely story of the Zulu troops of John Robert Dunn singing a song of praise with a stanza which he translated as "He is a lion. Yes, he is better than a lion—he is a hippopotamus." Scouting in South Africa Jim.henderson (talk) 15:03, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * This is not just myth, it is basically true. Here's some hard research on at least part of Africa :

Human–wildlife conflicts are common across Africa. In Mozambique, official records show that wildlife killed 265 people during 27 months (July 2006 to September 2008). Crocodile Crocodylus niloticus, lion Panthera leo, elephant Loxodonta africana and hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibius caused most deaths but crocodiles were responsible for 66%.. Another paper here has some general numbers, but is restricted to tourist attacks. I think the claim is fairly plausible, Croc, hippo and lion seems to be the top non-human killers of humans, crocs are not mammals, and lions seem to be a bit more predictable... if you check your FAO source it probably has references to the studies they were citing. Google scholar will also help you find other hard numbers. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:47, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * It's just a matter of qualifying the claim:
 * Most dangerous animal...no...humans kill more than any other animal.
 * Most dangerous non-human animal...no...the mosquito and/or tsetse fly kill far more.
 * Most dangerous non-human vertebrate...no...we think maybe the croc kills more.
 * Most dangerous non-human mammal...Yes - the hippo!!
 * With sufficiently careful qualification, you can get it to come out true.
 * SteveBaker (talk) 16:49, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * To be fair to the insects, they don't try to kill us. They just want a little blood, and happen to be infectious. Still dangerous, but not malicious or even reckless. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:05, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Being mauled by a wolf on one's way to work was a real possibility in 13th century England, too. Civilization means clearing your neighborhood of critters whoever put there Asmrulz (talk) 17:33, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Maybe the issue is that everyone knows crocodiles are dangerous, while the danger from hippos is not necessarily as obvious. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Malaria would be another runner-up (most dangerous species), among other bacteria (viruses are out; they lack metabolism and therefore don't really count as lifeforms).
 * Among all multi-cellular lifeforms, only h.s.s. comes close. It would be interesting to see how close exactly, but data on that is hard to get...
 * "For only $2 a month, this african child can survive. Donate now!
 * p.s. Airing this commercial just killed 4,500 kids!"


 * However, the malaria plasmodium and the tsetse fly amount to something more deadly than the two species separately – the insect draws some blood and spreads bacteria via her saliva, and the plasmodium is the one that kills you. Not sure how that should count. The Black Plague was even doubly-symbiotic: Black rats are usually blamed, but it was their fleas that carried most of the bacteria.
 * BTW, bacteria don't qualify as "animals", so Steve Baker's "Most dangerous" list is accurate if the tsetse fly gets the kill (or even half the kill). - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 09:40, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

After all my research on various websites and reading several articles I came to the conclusion that the hippopotamus is in fact the most dangerous animal that lives in Africa. National Geographic, one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions in the world named hippopotamus as being the most unpredictable and most dangerous animal in Africa. To support this, I recovered an article on New York Times that tells the story of a man who was actually swallowed by a hippo while traveling down the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe. During this attack nearly half of the mans body was inside the animals mouth. He was later found to have almost 40 puncture wounds and bite marks on his body. If this doesn’t show how powerful and destructive this animal is I don’t know what will. Go Africa a website that offers information submitted by experts says Hippos are responsible for more human fatalities in Africa than any other large animal. These animals are said to run at speeds over 20 miles and hour and have jaws which host up to 20-inch canines. I believe that Hippos are the most dangerous animals in the country of Africa. Kelmchargue (talk) 00:37, 3 October 2014 (UTC)kelmchargue


 * We should probably mention why hippos are so dangerous. The two main factors are that they hang out in water, where they are likely to run into people, and they don't appear to be dangerous. so people get too close.  The Disney movie Fantasia may have played a role in the second part, where dancing hippos in tutus seemed funny, not threatening: .  Even though that film was made a couple generations ago, the image of hippos as non-threatening has stuck. StuRat (talk) 18:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Engineering a living conscious system where entropy does not increase
Is it possible to engineer a living conscious system where entropy does not increase? Sustaining a consciousness indefinitely. 49.183.46.17 (talk) 12:38, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * no. -- Jayron  32  12:49, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy never decreases; it does not say entropy must increase. 49.183.46.17 (talk) 12:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * There are no known systems made of real materials where entropy does not increase. -- Jayron  32  13:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That's not true. For example, the entropy of a system does not increase if the system is already at thermodynamic equilibrium. 49.183.46.17 (talk) 13:12, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * True, but a system that was conscious (let alone living) would need to do work on the physical substrate of the system's mind (neurons or transistors), and the Second Law tells us that entropy must increase in this case. Even if we allow non-physical conscious systems (see substance dualism), any interaction of such a system with the physical world would involve work.  If we allow non-physical conscious systems that don't interact with the physical world (see Afterlife), we're outside the realm of engineering. Tevildo (talk) 13:41, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Why would a conscious system need to do work on the system's brain? 49.183.46.17 (talk) 14:27, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Because information processing requires work. We have an article called entropy in thermodynamics and information theory that will introduce several of the concepts.  Put very simply: whatever physical representation you use to store or process information must put enough work into the system to overcome the system's tendency not to store or process that same information.  If you consider a single bit, it always takes energy to store a zero- or a one- because if the system were at equilibrium, the bit could flip between the two states at random.  Any machine that processes information must necessarily have an energy well and then do work to put the system state into the energy well that corresponds to a particular informational state.  Nimur (talk) 15:04, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I see. So is the human brain always entering a higher and higher energy state as work is being done to it continuously? 49.183.46.17 (talk) 15:26, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily: let's look at the simplest possible case: let us use a single bit, zero or one. We can let it represent anything we like - perhaps it is the bit that represents the thresholded value of a thermostat, and will be used to turn on a boiler.  Perhaps the bit represents The Answer to some great philosophical question that the abstract thinking-machine has to compute.  For our purposes, it is a single bit: it has exactly two states.
 * We can build an electrical circuit to store this bit: we might have a capacitor, and if the capacitor carries charge such that its potential is greater than one volt, the bit equals "1"; if the capacitor carries charge such that the potential is less than half a volt, the bit equals "0." For this machine, that bit has more energy when it is in the "1" state.
 * But suppose I am a clever engineer and I do not want my machine to spend any more or any less energy, no matter what answer it computes for the result of the Great Question. So instead, I can represent one single bit using two capacitors: the same threshold values apply, but in this case, if capacitor A is high, and capacitor B is low, the state is "1."  If A is low and B is high, the state is "0."  I build my machine such that all other combinations are invalid.
 * This incarnation of my machine carries the exact same amount of potential energy for state 0 and state 1. Yet, the act of calculation - i.e. when the machine operates such that it switches state from zero to one, or from one to zero - necessarily wastes energy to heat and that energy necessarily escapes the system.  This is the energy lost because the entropy decreased.  By placing the device in a known configuration, energy had to be spent; work had to be done on the system.
 * So it is not always true that the machine must be left in a higher energy configuration after each calculation. But it is true that for each informational-processing operation, work must be done.  If this were not true, state 0 and state 1 would be in thermodynamic equilibrium, and the machine could freely transit between them.  There is necessarily a potential energy barrier between these states, or else they are the same state.
 * Nimur (talk) 15:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * You could impement such a system using a quantum computer that would simulate it in a virtual environment, see also this reply to a question explaining that entropy does not have a physical meaning. Count Iblis (talk) 15:32, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Please explain: in your quantum computer, exactly which parameter would you quantize? Most computers have already quantized every value they work with: information is quantized into discrete bits; voltages are thresholded into discrete levels; time-intervals are quantized into distinct steps through the use of electronic clock pulses.  Which other parameter would you quantize, and in which way would you expect the machine to behave differently because of this change?
 * In the example I gave above, do you believe anything would differ if you built a machine in which state was stored by the polarity of the spin of an electron, instead of the magnitude of charge on a capacitor plate? Why would you expect this different behavior?  What reliable source concurs with you?
 * Count Iblis, it is common to have difficulty in defining entropy. You are in good company when you find it difficult to describe the physical nature of entropy.  But you are frankly incorrect if you take the claim further and state that it has no such meaning.  Many scientists have defined entropy and related its interpretation to physical quantities.  Here is a review-article from the Plato Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Which Entropy?  This article presents several historical sources, and cites other articles that provide more detailed reviews; and proceeds with a tandem description of the qualitative properties of entropy alongside a formal mathematical definition.
 * Nimur (talk) 15:45, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * A quantum computer is a closed system that evolves according to the Schrodinger equation, it does not decohere. This means that you can always describe the exact state it is in from the knowledge of its initial state. Thermodynamics is only really useful to give an effective description of macroscopic objects in terms only macroscopic variables. The fact that the laws of thermodynamics were discovered empirically without a sound theoretical basis, has led to entire generations being indoctrinated by wrong ideas. Most people think that concepts like heat, temperature entropy are physically fundamental quantities while in fact they are purely statistical concepts that arise when you attempt to give a closed description the dynamics of a system of say, 10^23 particles in terms of only a few macroscopic observables of that system. In general, this cannot work, but it turns out that that under suitable conditions this is possible (we call that thermal equilibrium). Count Iblis (talk) 22:58, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * A computation can be done with an indefinitely low expenditure of energy by biasing a reversible computer but the time taken goes up as you use less and less energy. Dmcq (talk) 16:31, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I am intrigued by this idea. Can you use an arbitrarily little amount of energy to perform a computation (at the expense of computation time)? How? 49.183.46.11 (talk) 02:33, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Taking on the second part of the question - how to run consciousness indefinitely, one idea for doing that relies on that fact that although entropy increases, the universe will never be able to attain a perfect state of uniform chaos implied by that increase. It asymptotically approaches that state - but can never, finally, reach it.  There is always just a little exploitable energy somewhere.  So imagine you have a consciousness embodied in a computer.   As entropy increases, the energy required to power the computer gets harder and harder to find.   But suppose you engineer the computer to soak up available energy until it has enough to cycle the processor through one clock tick.   Initially, the clock ticks a billion times a second - but as the universe becomes increasingly uniform, collecting energy gets harder and harder - and the computer runs more and more slowly.  But it never becomes utterly impossible for there ever to be another clock tick.  Eventually, you might have to wait a trillion years for your computer clock to advance by a single 'tick'.   So from the perspective of the consciousness inside, time would seem to gradually increase in speed - things going faster and faster.   But since the universe has less and less that can change, being able to 'fast-forward' over it seems like that would be OK...perhaps even advantageous.  Thinking of "time" as the accumulation of energy rather than the increase in entropy is the key here.  SteveBaker (talk) 16:43, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Heat death of the universe is the relevant article. I would argue that there _will_ come a time when there isn't a sufficiently large energy gradient anywhere in the universe to power the machine; the universe may not be at a state of perfect equilibrium, but the machine will have a minimum energy per tick that the universe will be incapable of supplying.  There will eventually be a last tick.  Genesis 3:19. Tevildo (talk) 17:45, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * At that point, will time cease to exist? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:26, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * No; it will just cease to be an interesting or useful way to describe events, because events will be pretty homogeneous with respect to changes in time. Nimur (talk) 19:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * At a certain point, that question becomes more a matter of philosophy than science. Relevant articles: Arrow of time, Entropy_(arrow of time), Philosophy of space and time, temporal finitism, and of course good old Time. It's also worth mentioning that there's lots of uncertainty regarding the Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe, and I'm not sure if all of Nimur/Steve/Tevildo's comments above are compatible with all of the current theories. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I should admit at this point that my contribution is shamelessly ripped-off from Barrow (as in the Strong Anthropic Principle), but I would still consider it valid at a high level of generality. Tevildo (talk) 21:36, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I think perhaps some clarification is needed here. It's not possible in any meaningful sense to create an isolated complex system where entropy doesn't increase, but it is possible if the system is not isolated.  In fact an animal is essentially such a system:  it maintains more or less constant internal entropy, by taking in matter that has low entropy and expelling waste that has higher entropy.  (This might be implicit in some of the answers above, but I can't see it stated clearly.) Looie496 (talk) 00:59, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I think everyone here understands that - the problem here is that our OP wants a system for "Sustaining a consciousness indefinitely." - and that implies a constant entropy system. SteveBaker (talk) 01:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure everyone understands that. Forgetting that the second law only applies to isolated systems is a very common mistake. The answer to the OP's first question is "yes, of course". Making such a system run indefinitely would require an energy source with an indefinite life, however.--Srleffler (talk) 03:07, 3 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Let there be Light. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Are chickens really cowardly?
I haven't really spent a huge amount of time around chickens, granted, but they never seemed particularly cowardly to me, or at least not moreso than any other bird that will move away from you if you walk towards it. The adult males are certainly not cowardly by any stretch of the imagination - those guys will stand their ground. Is the chicken's yellow-bellied reputation really deserved? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 19:45, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I saw something on stackexchange or something like that saying that the expression originally had to do with the chicken's apparent lack of defence, though it was revived to have a slightly altered meaning..  ~Helicopter  Llama~  19:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * okay i found it http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/95494/etymology-of-the-phrase-chicken-out  ~Helicopter  Llama~  19:56, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * No; no more than rats are traitorous, snakes are deceitful, or badgers are annoying. Nobody who's ever seen a Cockfighting rooster would ever think they are cowardly (google images at your own risk.) This stuff is all just an accident of history and culture, and little-to-none of it really holds up to biological scrutiny. I'm sure there's some culture where rats are seen as valorous, chickens are seen as clever, etc. Here's a collection of academic papers on the topic. It all comes down to the fact that metaphors aren't made by biologists:  . A few of those works cite Metaphors We Live By, which is a very interesting and influential book on the topic of metaphor.  (I know this answer is more socio-linguistic than biological, but that's how I see it.  Interestingly, there are some areas of biology where the folklore is basically correct, particularly the ones that have to do with phenology, e.g. "Plant your corn when the oak leaves are the size of a mouse's ear ") SemanticMantis (talk) 20:16, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I bet some of those animal reputations have a grain of truth to them. Snakes are ambush predators, for example, and that could well be described as sneaky.  Rats can turn on each other in the case of scarce resources, more than, perhaps, a more tightly knit eusocial species, like bees or ants.  As for badgers, there I believe "badgering" was the term applied to the way dogs hunt badgers, with a pack attacking from all sides, then each retreating when the badger turns toward them. StuRat (talk) 04:40, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * With bees and ants, "each other" itself is an alien concept. One hive, one code, one mission. Somewhere between their truth and rats' is the naked mole rat. Another "sneaky" trait of some snakes is the way they weave laterally before striking straight on, without telegraphing it. More of a rapid acceleration than a snap, too. Deceptively slow. Yoel Romero does something of the same to humans. Tying it back to chickens is chicken hypnotism. There's apparently a state beyond fear and confidence. You could use it to pet them as well as behead them. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:15, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * One example that does more-or-less hold up to "biological scrutiny" is "elephants never forget" (per Scientific American) —71.20.250.51 (talk) 20:43, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Not really. There isn't remotely enough capacity in an elephant brain to literally remember absolutely everything and never forget it.  SteveBaker (talk) 20:56, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Okay, submit that to SA for peer review. Note that "more-or-less" is not synonymous with "literally remember absolutely everything" — Preceding comment not intended to be snarky, so please don't take it personally, okay?  ;)  71.20.250.51 (talk) 21:20, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Chinese culture has a very different view of roosters and snakes, they give them all very positive traits, just look up Chinese zodiac for examples. Vespine (talk) 23:27, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Thinking about this further, isn't the chicken a prominent national symbol in France? Obvious political humour about French military accomplishments and foreign policies aside, I'm assuming that the chicken must have very different connotations over there too? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 01:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The French symbol is a cock. DuncanHill (talk) 01:11, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * We have an article on it - Gallic rooster, which includes intimations of cock-worship. DuncanHill (talk) 01:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * As Mantis said, roosters are very far from cowardly. But an important factor is that roosters have spurs, which are a wicked weapon.  Hens don't have spurs, and are basically defenseless, therefore timid.  It's much more common to encounter hens than roosters, because you can't have more than one adult rooster in the same area without them fighting to the death. Looie496 (talk) 00:52, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Apparently (this has come up here before), in the wild the roosters will form a pecking order within the flock and don't actually kill each other for coming too close and/or making eye contact. The subordinate males help with flock defence and finding food. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 01:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I have six roosters, only the old, weak one gets chased (somewhat gently). If they're raised in the group, they come up knowing their place. Just the strange males that cause problems. Did that once, and eventually had to cage them both for a couple of weeks beside each other till they calmed down. It'd be the same if a strange guy moved in with our women uninvited, I think.


 * Compared to a cat or dog, chickens are hard to pet. But as far as birds go, their inability to fly makes them easier to befriend. I can pet three of my hens and two roosters. They all come pretty close, especially for food. Also, some hens grow spurs. Has to do with a hormone rush that comes from protecting their chicks. When they're doing that, they're definitely brave and can terrify cats, even without spurs. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:47, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I think we may have been forgetting that chicken traditionally means a young bird (especially a young domestic fowl). So, we need to stop thinking about full-grown cocks and start thinking about the behaviour of young fowl. Are they cowardly? DuncanHill (talk) 01:25, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't identify "Chicken" with a young bird...that would be a "chick". Adults are hens and cocks - but generically, all three are "chickens".  If I see a group of such birds of mixed age and gender - I'm going to call them all "chickens".  I guess there are probably regional dialect differences at play here. SteveBaker (talk) 01:41, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Chicks are the fluffy little yellow jobs. A chick grows into a chicken, which grows into a hen or a cock (of course, most male chicks don't get the chance to grow up). Collectively they are fowl. What you buy in the supermarket labeled as chicken will be a chicken, that is to say, not fully mature. Even in my lifetime I've noticed a tendency for "chicken" to absorb the other meanings. It's also noticeable, in my experience, that there is a difference in usage between people who grew up in traditional mixed agricultural areas, and those from big towns or cities - the latter calling everything chicken. DuncanHill (talk) 01:51, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I grew up around farmers, and that's the first I hear of this. Killing a chicken for market before it's mature would just mean less meat and less money. Everything I've ever seen in stores in Canada (and on TV) was a full-grown chicken. "Fowl" is the collective term for all sorts of birds, usually chickens, ducks and geese, in a food sense. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:01, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Chambers 20th Century Dictionary has "Chicken - the young of birds, especially of the domestic fowl: the flesh of a fowl, not always very young: a prairie chicken: a youthful person...." We used to keep hens for eggs. The ones you buy in supermarkets aren't mature - they are killed as soon as they're the right size, not when they have reached maturity. DuncanHill (talk) 02:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I was thinking of a right-sized hen when I said mature, but I guess you're thinking of sexual maturity. Fair enough. Thanks for the reference, though people here would generally think it odd if you said a laying chicken isn't a chicken. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:49, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * "Laying chicken" sounds odd to me - chickens are for eating, hens for laying. DuncanHill (talk) 02:52, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Laying hen works for me, too. And yeah, there's chicken (food). Haven't heard of hen salad or hen fingers. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:59, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I think your notion of "chicken" is closer to the definition of "pullet" -- 'Females over a year old are known as hens and younger females as pullets[8] although in the egg-laying industry, a pullet becomes a hen when she begins to lay eggs at 16 to 20 weeks of age.' -- IMO, the fact that the prepared chicken we buy at the market may in fact be the bodies of very large-bred pullets is a bit of a red herring with respect to this question. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:51, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Pullet is basically the Norman-French word for a chicken. In modern French poule means fowl, poulet means a young fowl. DuncanHill (talk) 16:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * WP:OR here but chickens do run from people unless they are brought up being held by people often. Our first batch of chickens were often being pet and held. They'd go up to strangers as well as my wife and I.  Since then we've taken a more hands off approach and they do run away at the slightest provocation.  Our rooster will keep with the hens but will normally take a position between us and the hens.  Dismas |(talk) 01:33, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Birds in general often run or fly away from humans. The ones that don't (such as the dodo) tend to go extinct. Penguins are supposedly unafraid of humans, but the frigid temperatures are their friend. If they lived in a warm climate, they might already have gone the way of the dodo or the passenger pigeon. And given what usually happens to chickens, running away is justified. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:12, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Even without memories of of killer humans, I think there's an instinctual fear (in everyone) of enormous creatures. If The Friendly Giant (or a primitive chicken) came up to shake my hand and pat my back for the first time, I'd step/run away. Even after knowing him for a while, I'd stay cautious. Accidents happen. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:32, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Chickens tend to be "cowardly" near animals that could kill them, which, for a chicken, is quite a lot. If people were surrounded by T. Rex's, then we would be rather cowardly, too.  Of course, most birds are in the same boat, except perhaps those with few natural predators, like penguins or emus.  Killdeers also seem irrationally brave, threatening any animal who comes near their nest.  I suppose their ability to come close to the animal but veer off at the last minute and still stay out of range allows them to be that brave and survive. StuRat (talk) 04:51, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Penguins have few natural predators? On land, perhaps, but not underwater, to judge by the article. —Quondum 05:15, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, I meant on land. Perhaps a better example is the dodo, which had no natural predators, and hence no fear, which did them in when people came around, and they neither ran nor hid from the hunters.   However, this left them with the reputation of being stupid, more than brave.StuRat (talk) 05:53, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Another brave bird for you. Found videos of this species when looking for footage of the bird that *I* know as a lapwing (which is also pretty brave in the face of a potential predator in its own right). There are loads of vids on YouTube of these Australian critters standing their ground. Note the spurs on the wings, ready to strike. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 08:18, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * A sandhill crane dropkicked my "playful" dog a couple of weeks ago, instead of fleeing. Apparently, even cars aren't scary enough. Here they are, chasing an alligator. But yeah, it's easy to be brave when you're tall. I haven't seen how my chickens interact with them yet. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yet here's a video of a rooster backing down a sandhill crane... :) Also a rooster backing down a great black-backed gull (also a very powerful bird) and 15+ turkeys that're trying to gang up on him. Roosters - not chicken at all. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 16:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Viva la coq! InedibleHulk (talk) 22:57, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You're mixing your French (Vive le coq!) with the verb from Italian or Spanish, presumably, User:InedibleHulk. μηδείς (talk) 01:38, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * My bad. Though English is all about taking bits and pieces. Just assume it's English, I guess. I think I was right with the "la", but I'll doublecheck. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Nope, had my masculine/feminine backwards, too. C'est la vie. At least this isn't the Language Desk. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:53, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Probably interference from the Italian, "Viva il Papa!" μηδείς (talk) 01:59, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Good guess, but it was Viva Puffs (fraises). InedibleHulk (talk) 02:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

There are various reason why chickens act the way they do, but they are not always considered a cowardly animal. They are very interesting animals in that they have exceptional vision and other special senses. Chickens have a panoramic vision of about 300 degrees and binocular vision of 26 degrees. Hearing is an acute sense in chickens though and their main form of communication within flocks of birds takes place through posture and vocalizations. Chickens posture are helped used to signal threat and vocalizations are used to signal warning and different calls. A chicken could perhaps act cowardly in certain situations because they feel threatened and through vision, hearing, and vocalization they can sense if there is a possible threat and inform the other chickens. Other causes that can make chickens act anxious could include tension between other chickens. Sometime males will hound other males, which causes problems. Also, caged birds may exhibit abnormal behavior sometimes by pulling and pecking the feathers of other birds and once they are released they feel stressed. There are pecking orders that emerge in cages in breeder shed where hierarchy is established by pecking and threatening when hens are placed in the cage. There is a strong sense of territory, so in situations such as these chickens are not considered cowardly because they stand their ground. Chickens are in fact very brave when need be. They will endlessly defend their babies or their flock and hens sometime sacrifice themselves for their chicks. Roosters are also known for being aggressive and will fight to the death and are very protective over the female. Chickens are in fact pretty intelligent birds, which most people do not realize. They can learn to count and understand the concept of zero. Them seem to plan future actions or anticipating reactions to any action they are going to take. Chickens learn by observing and mimicking other chickens so they aren't just scared chickens running around, they actually learn and act to different things. Furthermore, Chickens don't handle hot temperatures all that well, in fact they tolerate cool temperatures better. They don't sweat and they may pant when desperate to cool down and dunk their beaks in cold water or flap their wings to air out. The stress of the heat can add to the misconception that chickens are really cowardly. These are just a few examples of reason chickens act the way they do, but they are not always a cowardly animal like everyone thinks.Lorencat (talk) 17:22, 3 October 2014 (UTC)