The following is excerpted from “Horses Remember,” New Scientist, Apr. 30, 2018: “Horses can remember the facial expressions they see on human faces and respond differently if you smiled or frowned when they last saw you. Leanne Proops, now at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and her colleagues at the University of Sussex showed in 2016 that horses respond differently to photographs of happy or angry human faces. Now they have studied whether horses can form lasting memories of people that depend on their facial expressions. First, they showed horses a photo of one of two human models, displaying either a happy or angry face. Several hours later, the model visited the horse in person, this time with a neutral expression. As a control, some horses saw a different model in the second part to the one they saw in the photograph. Crucially, the models didn’t know which photo the horse had seen earlier. … The team found that the horses remembered the models’ previous facial expressions. … Many other animals have shown an ability to remember human faces, including sheep and fish. Wild crows will hold a grudge for years against people who have treated them badly, and even teach other crows to mob their enemies. However, the horses seem to form an opinion about people based only on their expression in a photograph. ‘That’s something we haven’t really seen in animals before,’ says Proops.” CONCLUDING NOTE: The crow sounds like a lot of church members I have known! According to the Bible, God made the animals for man, who alone among earth’s creatures is made in God’s image (Genesis 1-2), so it is no surprise that they can relate to man. Adam, the first man, named the animals. The fall of man is the cause of the “wildness” and “red in tooth and claw” in the animal kingdom. This will be healed in Christ’s kingdom. “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9). (Friday Church News Notes, September 28, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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