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can i have a pet quoll?
Sep 24th, 2010 by michael chalk

Sun bathing tiger quollListening to an episode of background briefing, where they’re talking about how the Eastern quoll was wiped out in the 60s, and the Western quoll is endangered. So is it time to open up ‘captive breeding’ for quolls, and allow suburban dwellers to take in their own pet quoll.. instead of getting another cat?

Greg Miles reckons it’s an “anti-extinction” policy. A ranger from Kakadu, he has seen native animal populations ravaged by all kinds of ferals.

On one hand, the income could really help native animal breeders. On the other, animal rights advocates might say that marsupials shouldn’t have to live in captivity, with humans.

Good program, worth a listen.

Here’s the mp3 file on the abc site.

Sugar gliders sound like bad pets though. They bark, and their bark sounds like a mad car alarm. They will urinate on you as soon as they wake up. But in the US, people are hopping on the sugar glider bandwagon like kids lining up for sugar at a birthday party.

Creative Commons License photo credit: pierre pouliquin

Plastic brains
Feb 4th, 2009 by michael chalk

lonely -- the rorschach test versionReading a book i picked up in Cambodia .. about the neuro-plasticity of the brain: Norman Doidge, “The Brain that Changes itself“.

Chapter One tells the story of a scientist back in 1969, who hooked up a computer to a camera .. and wired it all into a small pixellated metal plate, touching the skin of a person who had been blind since birth.

He did this because he wanted to show that the brain’s visual cortex can take sensory input from .. not only eyes but also skin. Touch can create a picture .. and the brain can adapt to turn this into vision. After a few weeks of practising, the person was experiencing something very like vision.

Nice experiment!

However back then, people hated the idea that the brain could re-make itself back then, so his research went largely un-noticed.

Here’s Dr Doidge talking on Slow TV, the Australian Monthly series:

Related stuff:

Creative Commons License photo credit: onkel_wart

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