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POPSCrows smarter than Chimpanzees Not-so great apes To investigate further, the team presented the crows with a wooden table, divided into two compartments. A treat was at the end of each compartment, but in one, it was positioned behind a rectangular trap hole. To get the snack, the crow had to consistently choose to retrieve food from the compartment without the hole. A recent study of great apes found they could not transfer success at the trap-tube to success at the trap-table. The three crows could, however. "They seem to have some kind of concept of a hole that isn't tied to purely visual features, and they can use this concept to figure out the novel problem," Taylor says. "This is the most conclusive evidence to date for causal reasoning in an animal." Three of the crows did fail at both tasks, however. The team plans further work to investigate why. Journal reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1107)
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POPSScientists map Neanderthal maternal DNA 38,000 years wasn't that long ago. They became extinct shortly afterward (as far as we know) after dwindling around Western Europe. It's easy to wonder what may have happened if they were isolated in an area that was free of Homo sapiens sapiens (So smart that we have to repeat it to ourselves to remove any doubt.)
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POPSGorilla 'mother lode' found in Congo I can't help thinking that they are there, because we didn't know about them, but there are other species that have been downgraded from critically endangered to endangered due to conservation efforts. However the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 48% of the 634 known species and sub-species of primates, humankind's closest relatives such as chimpanzees, orangutans, gibbons and lemurs, are at risk of extinction. Primates are suffering most in Asia, with 71% of all species at risk, against 37% in Africa.
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POPSAging may be a mistake, and not a given "I don't think there are any theories that account for the vast differences in life spans between animals. Nobody knows why we age in 80 years and chimpanzees age in 40," he said. Kim said he thinks the worm results may one day answer questions such as why the human kidney ages faster than the liver or why some clams live for 400 years and whales can live for 200 years. "Why can't I live as long as a whale? How hard would it be?" he asked. it is a very good question...
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POPSSentient Beings Protected I'd say it's high time that we got off our high horse and recognized other sentient beings that we share the earth with and grant them limited rights such as freedom from torture. Ethically, it is the right thing to do. In part, we can blame religion for this ethical blunder.
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POPSChimp Sanctuary Carol Noon needs our help to provide for the chimps. Maybe the movie Space chimps could share?
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POPSWhen Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans The 300 apes in Spanish zoos would not be freed, but better conditions would be mandated. Meanwhile, even in democracies, the law accords diminished rights to many humans: children, prisoners, the insane, the senile. Teenagers may not vote, philosophers who slip into dementia may be lashed to their beds, courts can order surgery or force-feeding. Spain’s Catholic bishops attacked the vote as undermining a divine will that placed humans above animals. One said such thinking led to abortion, euthanasia and ethnic cleansing.
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POPSGreat Apes Think Ahead: Conclusive Evidence Of Advanced Planning Capacities In a series of four experiments, Mathias and Helena Osvath investigated whether chimpanzees and orangutans could override immediate drives in favor of future needs, and therefore demonstrate both self-control and the ability to plan ahead, rather than simply fulfill immediate needs through impulsive behavior. (More at www.sciencedaily.com )
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POPSA Way to End All Wars? De Waal acknowledges that “we have a tendency, and all the primates have a tendency, to be hostile to non–group members.” But he and other experts insist that humans and their primate cousins are much less bellicose than the public has come to believe. Studies of monkeys, apes, and Homo sapiens offer ample hope that we can overcome our aggressive tendencies and greatly reduce or maybe even eliminate warfare.
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POPSChimps Agree: A Bird in Hand Is Worth Two in the Bush This tendency held true for both groups, despite different rearing histories, suggesting that their disinclination to barter is innate, says Sarah Brosnan of Georgia State University, the lead researcher in this study. The chimps’ risk-averse behavior, Brosnan speculates, is attributable to a lack of language skills. “If one chimp could say to another, ‘OK, you crack nuts while I hunt meat, and then we’ll trade,’ they’d be able to specialize and have a developed economy,” Brosnan says.
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POPSJane Goodall: We Need A New Mindset "We should admit that the infliction of suffering on beings who are capable of feeling is ethically problematic and that the amazing human brain should set to work to find new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live, sentient beings." "Her call comes as the European Commission prepares to publish draft legislation to update the EU’s animal experiments directive (Directive 86/609 EEC). The existing law is out of date (over 20 years old), with hundreds of thousands of animals currently receiving no protection at all." "Dr Goodall was joined by biomedical researchers, MEPs and animal protectionists at a Replace Animal Experiments in Europe event in Brussels. Event organisers, the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research and the Humane Society International (HSI), are spearheading a campaign to accelerate European efforts to replace animal experiments with more ethical and reliable methods."
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POPSSo you think humans are unique? "Take gesture, arguably the starting point for language. Until recently it was considered uniquely human - but not any more. Mike Tomasello of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and others have compiled a list of gestures observed in monkeys, gibbons, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orang-utans, which reveals that gesticulation plays a large role in their communication. Ape gestures can involve touch, vocalising or eye movement, and individuals wait until they have another ape's attention before making visual or auditory gestures. If their gestures go unacknowledged, they will often repeat them or touch the recipient."
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