Animals feel empathy, grieve, seek joy just like us

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we explore the inner lives of animals, follow scientists to the edge of the world, see ancient documents that have confounded archaeologists, consider the link between COVID-19 and Alzheimer’s … and travel to Tatooine.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JASPER DOEST

Rats show kindness, orcas mourn their dead, and monkeys protest injustice.

Scientists are learning that other species also have complex emotions—and many have much more in common with humans than previously thought.

This is a weighty realization. “If you recognize emotions in animals,” says ethologist Frans de Waal, “then they become morally relevant. They are not the same as rocks. They are sentient beings.”

Read the full article here.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY EVGENIA ARBUGAEVA

Images: At top, a Japanese macaque stares at its reflection in a moped mirror. Some monkeys appear to recognize the image that they’re seeing as themselves, as do apes. Above, Nat Geo Explorer Evgenia Arbugaeva shows a sheep pondering two numbers to pick the one it was taught to recognize. Sheep are good at this. Read more.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPH BY @ESTHERHORVATH

Hard-earned data: Photographer Esther Horvath is dedicated to the frigid, fragile poles and those willing to endure the harshest conditions on Earth to study them. In Horvath’s latest post for Nat Geo’s Instagram, researcher Maria Josefa Verdugo holds an ice core taken in the central Arctic Ocean in order to study methane in the Arctic Ocean and atmosphere.

ICE CORES FROM VANISHING GLACIERS

STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

PHOTOGRAPH BY KENT KOBERSTEEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION

Five ancient texts that have code breakers baffled (No records explain Easter Island’s monolithic statues, pictured above)

Kids can observe these four animals to learn about the changing seasons

We know where the wonders of the ancient world are—except for one

This hot pepper is surviving Italy’s extreme heat wave

A 2,000-mile journey through Afghanistan one year after the Taliban takeover

Stories from the first Black recruits of the Marines—the last U.S. military service to integrate

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHERYLE ST. ONGE

COVID-19’s link to Alzheimer’s: Memory loss. Disorientation. Personality changes. Symptoms that plague long COVID sufferers are all too familiar to the some 6 million Americans with Alzheimer’s (like photographer Cheryle St. Onge’s mom Francis, pictured above). On today’s World Alzheimer’s Day, scientists are digging into the cause of COVID-related neurological problems—and the research could lead to better treatment for both conditions.

READ ON

THE NIGHT SKIES

ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW FAZEKAS

Equinox time: Step outside an hour before sunrise tomorrow and Friday and look east for the waning crescent moon as it glides through Leo, the lion constellation. The super bright star Regulus should be easy to spot with unaided eyes, but try using binoculars to see if you can find the giant sickle pattern of stars that mark the neck, mane, and head of the lion figure. As the northern hemisphere marks the autumn equinox tomorrow at 9:04 pm ET, the brightest overhead star for those across the mid-northern latitudes will be Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the swan.

THAT TIME OF YEAR

IN A FEW WORDS

I have so much hope when I get to meet with the local guardians of the Amazon, and they know that it is more critical now than ever to protect their own knowledge and their own backyards.

Rosa Vásquez Espinoza

Chemical biologist and Nat Geo Explorer

From: Magnifying the world’s tiniest life forms

LAST GLIMPSE

PHOTOGRAPH BY NAFTALI HILGER, REDUX

This is the way: You don’t need a Millennium Falcon to visit the otherworldly landscapes from Star Wars film sets. From the original structures built for A New Hope in Tunisia (like the building pictured above) to the California redwoods that were crawling with spear-wielding Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, these eight travel locations will transport you to a galaxy far away.

OTHERWORLDLY DESTINATIONS

This newsletter has been curated and edited by Sydney Combs, Heather Kim, David Beard, and Jen Tse. Have you traveled to these Star Wars locations? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. And thanks for reading.

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Animals feel empathy, grieve, seek joy just like us

Animals feel empathy, grieve, seek joy just like us

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