Who gets to be sentient?

Intelligence isn’t exclusive to humans, and some of the animals we share this planet with are far more capable than we often ...

For centuries, humans have operated under a comfortable assumption: that we alone possess the cognitive sophistication to think, feel, plan, and communicate in meaningful ways. We invented language, ...

For most of human history, the dominant position on animal consciousness was essentially a legal and philosophical convenience: animals do not have subjective experience in any meaningful sense, ...

Humans aren’t the only animals capable of remarkable intelligence. From elephants that remember individuals for decades to ...

Read about the latest research on animal learning and intelligence, including studies on elephants, apes, birds and dogs.

I stressed that there is no evidence that supposedly smarter animals suffer more than animals who supposedly are not as intelligent. In this essay I also wrote, "It's also become clear that the word ...

Learn how researchers tested a cow’s behavior and what her tool use reveals about animal intelligence. Veronika the cow reaches down and picks up a brush with her mouth. Instead of using it in a ...