CAS Southpark Style

I saw this south park episode a while ago and thought it was an interesting take on the interaction between physiology (aging) and cognition (thoughts about the world).  Stan has had a birthday and his outlook on life changes, he develops CAS.  This can be thought of as aging affecting Stan's cognition, I won't spoil anything just have a gander. This puts an entertaining twist on the otherwise fairly dry cognitive part of the syllabus.

Clever Canines Commute to Get Food

I know the new syllabus doesn't have much on behaviorism, but for those of you who are familiar with the now archaic perspective I have some news that actually makes behaviorism interesting.

There are dogs in Moscow that take the underground from the suburbs into the city to beg and search for food. They leave in the morning and return at night. The dogs apparently work together to make sure they get off at the right tube stop. Sometimes they fall asleep and get off at the wrong stop - just like humans.

The dogs have even developed methods to manipulatively steal food from people. For example, they sneak up behind an ignorant shawarma eater, bark loudly to startle the human so they drop their food, and enjoy their tasty snack. That is pretty damn clever and shows that dogs do have the ability to solve novel problems.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2372125.ece