Introduction

Welcome to the home of Spit and Twitches: The Animal Cognition Podcast.

My name is Dave Brodbeck and I am an associate professor of psychology at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario, Canada.  I have been studying cognition in animals for the past 27 years.  I have done work with rats, pigeons, juncos, black capped chickadees, squirrel monkeys and even humans.  My primary focus has been on the adaptive significance of spatial cognition and adaptive specializations of learning in different species.

I got interested in podcasting back in 2005 and have been involved as a host/producer or whatever of number of different podcasts, including Thunderbird Six, Why? The Science Podcast for Kids, Broken Area, The Jonathan Files, Best Episode Ever and The Marshall Mcluhan Variety Hour.  I also have been podcasting my class lectures since 2006.  This podcast will allow me to combine two of the things I love, animal cognition research and podcasting. The stuff may get a little technical now and then, and that's ok.  That said, I hope the material will be accessible to the casual listener.  I hope for the podcast to be not unlike Marc Pelletier's 'Futures in Biotech' show that ran for a few years on the TWiT network.  Except there will be way fewer things about gene splicing.

If you have any ideas for guests, or, if you want to be on the podcast, you can email me, send me a message on twitter, leave a comment here, find me on Facebook, or whatever you would like.  OK, don't come by the house....

Oh, the title.  Someone just asked me what the title refers to.  Well, go read this article.

So, watch this space, and follow me on twitter for updates.