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Health & Science3h 22m ago
Andreas Nieder, a professor of animal physiology, found evidence that crows and monkeys process numerical information in similar ways, suggesting the cognitive building blocks of math may have evolved hundreds of millions of years before humans.
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University of Tübingen, Germany
Who
Andreas Nieder, Kenna Hughes-Castleberry
What
Andreas Nieder, a professor of animal physiology, found evidence that crows and monkeys process numerical information in similar ways, suggesting the cognitive building blocks of math may have evolved hundreds of millions of years before humans.
When
Wed, 17 Jun 2026 15:20:27 GMT · 3h 22m ago
Where
University of Tübingen, Germany ·
Why
Research into crow cognition, including their understanding of zero and statistical analysis, reveals that the foundations of mathematics may predate humans by a long evolutionary timescale.
The Frontline Impact
How this affects you
The findings challenge the view of mathematics as a uniquely human invention, suggesting that fundamental numerical abilities are much older and more widespread in the animal kingdom than previously thought, influencing our understanding of cognitive evolution.
Story chain
3 events in this thread- Health & Science3h 22m agoLive Science spoke with animal researcher Andreas Nieder about how animals process mathematical concepts like statistical reasoning and the idea of zero.Open article
- Health & Science3h 22m agoCrows can extract probabilistic regularities from experience, store this information in memory, and use it flexibly to make reward-maximizing decisions under uncertainty.Open article
- Currently Reading3h 22m agoAndreas Nieder, a professor of animal physiology, found evidence that crows and monkeys process numerical information in similar ways, suggesting the cognitive building blocks of math may have evolved hundreds of millions of years before humans.