Crowdscience

“What separates humans from animals, is an interest in the past”. That’s a 900-year-old quote from a textbook that Nigerian listener Taiwo came across, and he wrote to CrowdScience to ask if modern science would agree. Most of us spend time thinking about the past, whether it is nostalgia for a bygone age or just wondering where we put the house keys yesterday. But is that just a human activity or do other animals also ruminate on their history and use it to make decisions? Taiwo wants to know if there is any evidence to show that animals have an interest in the past and if it matters to them. Presenter Caroline Steel has a history of answering questions like this, so she sets out to find an answer. She meets researchers who have found evidence that animals not only remember past events, but use their memory for planning. She talks to neuroscientist Dr Freyja Olafsdottir and discovers that some animals, including rats and mice, have the same brain structure for memory as humans. She meets baby magpies in Pro