His arms are terribly short though and he didn't devour the kids he'd hang around with thus his species has long disappeared.

I bookmarked it as well. Looks interesting, but I don't have 55 mins free right now.

Neither do I: it's real late where I live so gonna hit the sack soon.

He didn't eat them because he was smart, plus he needed them around to feel better of himself as his brain wasn't as developed as a grown human. He used to hang out with kids to feel smart. :P

By the way, it is theorized that our limbs, our hands, and how we used them to figure stuff out like tools and grabbing stuff helped, among other possible factors, develop our brain to set us apart from the rest of the animals, but there is no information that says that in order for an animal to acquire our intelligence (or self-awareness) it would need to have and go through the same process as we did.

Maybe different paths could lead to similar results. :)

You're right. Not maybe, different paths can certainly lead to similar results.

Well, it is possible that only we humans are the only beings in the Universe to achieve this level of intelligence. Maybe not, but it is a possibility. It is possible that our unique form of development and environment allowed us to the point we are right now and that is why it seems it was so hard for the rest of life here on the Earth to share this jump with us. That is why I used the "maybe", otherwise we would give for certain that other intelligent life, on the same level or above, exists in the universe.

On the other hand, I wonder if we will ever get to find a very fucked up looking life-form that is as intelligent as us. If we ever, I doubt it's going to be on our time, unfortuntely... or fortunately.

Crows and other certain types of ravens are known to be extremely intelligent. In fact in clinical studies they were not only shown to be self aware, but also to be capable of basic calculations and reasonably difficult problem solving.

One experiment I remember, had a string threaded through a fence with food at the end of it. The string itself was too far away to reach and pull on, the only thing in reaching distance of the crow was a short stick wich was just about too short to reach the string on it's own. However on the other side of the fence there was a longer stick just out of reach for the crows to pick it up with their beaks.

Not only did all the crows in the expieriment solve this successfully, but they did so on their first try, without resorting to trial and error. Noticing that, while the short stick would be useless to get to the food directly, it would be a good tool to reach the longer stick, to then reach the food with. The crows were seen to look at and take in the whole situation before acting on it.

In fact I remember reading an article that theorized that bird braincells are more powerful than mammal braincells. Not only are their brains very small, but they are also lacking the creases and folds (like a walnut) that are characteristic for mammal brains and serve to give the meninges more surface area and thus more space for braincells.

If bird braincells worked exactly the same as mammal ones, with their small surface area and therefore relative lack of braincells, birds should be relatively stupid, yet they are among the most intelligent animals we know of.

I highly doubt that since the Universe is big. And I mean really, really

BIG HUGE GIGANTIC

I wish we could find life forms from other planets as long as they come in peace of course! Would be interesting.

I like how this one is trained to feed both a cat and dog.

Could it be the experiment you are referring to is the second one in the video I posted in the first page:

https://youtu.be/2X5BuK84Adk?t=34s

Really amazing stuff.

Yeah, the universe is huge and considering the relative ease with which scientists have found planets similar to ours orbiting suns in our galaxies, the chances of finding life in other planets seem very high.

There are some people that push for the idea that intelligent life we may find one day must be peaceful and with good intentions but I wouldn't be surprised if they are very much like us, we good people and good assholes.

Yeah, that video was also at the end of the second I posted in the first page. Maybe in time we can train them to feed our babies or hospital patients and stuff. :P