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A28 SCIENCE
Saturday 9 February 2019

Fish pass mirror test, but does it mean they’re self-aware?

By MALCOLM RITTER the reflection to parts of
AP Science Writer their own bodies, but he
NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists said that less-sophisticated
report that a fish can pass mental talent doesn’t re-
a standard test of recogniz- quire self-awareness, which
ing itself in a mirror — and includes talents like distin-
they raise a question about guishing their own bodies
what that means. from those of other fish or
Does this decades-old recognizing their own ter-
test, designed to show self- ritory or possessions. Nor
awareness in animals, re- does it imply self-conscious-
ally do that? ness, which means thinking
Since the mirror test was in- about oneself and one’s
troduced in 1970, scientists own behavior in relation to
have found that relatively how others act, he said in
few animals can pass it. an email.
Most humans can by age Gallup said he believes
18 to 24 months, and so the experimental proce-
can chimps and orang- dure was flawed, so the fish
utans, says the test’s inven- can’t really be said to have
tor, evolutionary psycholo- passed the test.
gist Gordon Gallup Jr. of Al- Frans de Waal, an expert
bany College in New York. on ape and monkey be-
Outside of ape species, havior at Emory University’s
many researchers say Yerkes National Primate Re-
there’s also good evidence search Center in Atlanta,
for passing the test in bot- In this undated photo provided by researcher Alex Jordan in February 2019, a cleaner wrasse said he found the fish results
tlenose dolphins, Asian interacts with its reflection in a mirror placed on the outside of the aquarium glass. to be inconclusive.
elephants and European Associated Press In a journal commentary,
magpies, although Gallup mal in a place the creature The new paper released four fish were injected with de Waal also said it’s better
is skeptical of those results. can observe only in the mir- Thursday by PLOS Biology a tag that left a visible to think of different animals
The test exposes animals to ror, does the animal try to subjected up to 10 fish to brown mark under their having varying degrees of
a mirror and looks for reac- remove it? various parts of the test. throats, three scraped that self-awareness, rather than
tions that indicate some Passing the test suggests an Alex Jordan, who’s at the part of their bodies against considering it an all-or-
recognition of themselves. animal can “become the Max Planck Institute for a rock or the sandy bottom nothing trait possessed by
For example, do the ani- object of its own attention,” Ornithology in Konstanz, of the tank, as if trying to re- just a few species.
mals do unusual things to and if it does, it should be Germany, and colleagues move it. “To explore self-awareness
see if the image copies able to use its own experi- observed a reef-dwelling But Jordan says his fish further we should stop look-
them? Do they appear to ence to infer what others species called the cleaner could have succeeded ing at responses to the mir-
use the mirror to explore know, want or intend to do, wrasse doing odd behav- without possessing true self- ror as the litmus test” and
their own bodies? And if said Gallup, who did not iors like swimming upside- awareness. turn to other means of eval-
researchers mark an ani- participate in the fish study. down by the mirror. When They may have matched uation, he said.q

Tiny satellites fall silent after

proving new tech at Mars

By MARCIA DUNN hasn’t heard from them for worlds.
AP Aerospace Writer more than a month now — Chief engineer Andy Kle-
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. and doubts it ever will. sh noted the mission was
(AP) — Two tiny satellites WALL-E, which had been about pushing the limits of
have fallen silent hundreds leaking fuel since liftoff last miniaturized technology.
of millions of miles away, May, last radioed back on “We’ve put a stake in the
This illustration made available by NASA on March 29, 2018 after proving new technol- Dec. 29. ground,” he said. “Future
shows the twin Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft flying over ogy at Mars. It’s now more than 1 million CubeSats might go even
Mars with Earth and the sun in the distance.
Associated Press The twin CubeSats, nick- miles (1.6 million kilometers) farther.”
named WALL-E and EVE, beyond Mars. EVE went Engineers speculate WALL-
shadowed NASA’s InSight mum on Jan. 4; it’s nearly E and EVE might be wob-
lander to Mars last year. As 2 million miles (3.2 million bling and unable to point
the lander descended to kilometers) past the red precisely to send messag-
the Martian surface in No- planet. es, or there could be bat-
vember, the briefcase-size These were the first Cube- tery recharging issues.
satellites flew past the red Sats to venture into deep In any event, the mini satel-
planet, providing real-time space, part of an $18.5 lites will remain in an elon-
updates to ground control- million experiment to see gated orbit around the sun.
lers in this first-of-its-kind ex- whether such compact, They were named after the
periment. cheap devices might serve main characters in the 2008
This week, NASA said it as radio relays at faraway animated movie. q