Monkeys
stoat | March 21, 2012I like this (h/t: QS):
The change from "Oh look that's fun, lets stop and watch" to the brief "Oh shit" to the "Ha ha, we all lived, that was great fun" to "who got it on video?" is oh-so-typical of our species.
oracknows | July 16, 2010
Ever since I somehow stumbled into a niche in the blogosphere where I seem to be one of a handful of go-to bloggers for issues having to do with vaccines and the anti-vaccine movement, like Spider-Man I realize that with great power comes great responsibility.
Wait a minute. That beginning was too pompous and pretentious even for me. I know it's hard to believe, but even Orac has limits when it comes to pretentiousness.
Orac-ian pomposity aside, there are indeed certain topics that I can't resist. Whether it's because they intensely interest me or my being an aforementioned "go-to" blogger…
oracknows | February 8, 2010It looks as though Generation Rescue's bubble-brained spokescelebrities Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have finally found their niche. Can you guess where it is? Come on, take two guesses! That's right. They've made it into NaturalNews.com, crossposted from a post they had their handlers make to Age of Autism, entitled A Statement from Jenny McCarthy & Jim Carrey: Andrew Wakefield, Scientific Censorship, and Fourteen Monkeys. Truly, it is one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen on AoA or NaturalNews.com. You'll see why in a moment. Suffice it to say that Jenny and Jim have the most…
edyong | December 7, 2009Many human languages achieve great diversity by combining basic words into compound ones - German is a classic example of this. We're not the only species that does this. Campbell's monkeys have just six basic types of calls but they have combined them into one of the richest and most sophisticated of animal vocabularies.
By chaining calls together in ways that drastically alter their meaning, they can communicate to each other about other falling trees, rival groups, harmless animals and potential threats. They can signal the presence of an unspecified threat, a leopard or an eagle, and…
edyong | December 5, 2009This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science.
Two years ago, Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center found that brown capuchin monkeys also react badly to receiving raw deals. Forget bananas - capuchins love the taste of grapes and far prefer them over cucumber. If monkeys were rewarded for completing a task with cucumber while their peers were given succulent grapes, they were more likely to shun both task and reward.
That suggested that the human ability to compare own efforts and rewards with those of our…
edyong | October 13, 2009In the movie industry, special effects and computer-generated imagery are becoming better and more realistic. As they'd improve, you'd expect moviegoers to more readily accept virtual worlds and characters, but that's not always the case. It turns out that people are incredibly put off by images or animations of humans that strive for realism, but aren't quite there yet.
A character like Wall-E is lovable because he's clearly not human but has many human-like qualities and expressions. In contrast, the more realistic CG-characters of Beowulf or The Polar Express are far closer to reality but…
edyong | August 13, 2009They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and it appears that capuchins believe it too. These very sociable monkeys gravitate towards humans that mimic their actions, spending more time in their company and even preferring to trade with them.
Annika Paukner, who studied this monkey business, thinks that imitation is a type of social glue that binds groups of monkeys together. It says, "We are alike," and in doing so, it lays the foundation for acts of selflessness by providing a means for two individuals to form an empathic connection.
Certainly, imitation is very much a…
emjohnson | July 9, 2009Ernest Cline, director of the recent film Fanboys, has this hilarious spoken word piece that pretty sums up my philosophy perfectly. It's put to music by The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and is accompanied by an 80's style film strip which only adds to the fun.
For more of his great work (including spoken word, info on his films and his blog) click here.
*Obligatory note: Humans are not monkeys. We're apes along with chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons. In general, monkeys have tails whereas apes do not. But I agree that the word monkey is much funnier.
[Video below the fold…
grrlscientist | July 9, 2009tags: Onion News Network, research, monkeys, medical news, humor, satire, streaming video
In this video, ONN reports on a newly published study indicating that repeatedly stabbing monkeys with sharpened objects may have an adverse effect on their health and longevity [1:08]
edyong | June 30, 2009In a classic episode of the Simpsons, Homer's brain explains to him that "money can be exchanged for goods and services". That's obviously true for humans (even cartoon ones) but monkeys use an altogether different form of payment - grooming. It's as close to a currency as monkeys have and it can be redeemed against a wide range of goods and services including more grooming, a free pass from aggression, permission to handle babies, back-up in fights and even sex.
The purposes of these exchanges go well beyond cleaning. Grooming, it seems, is also an enjoyable activity that releases brain…
edyong | May 21, 2009In the forests of South America lives the unusual but aptly named owl monkey, or douroucouli. You could probably guess by looking at its large round eyes that it's nocturnal, and indeed, it is the only monkey to be mostly active at night. But its eyes have many adaptations for such a lifestyle, beyond a large size.
The owl monkey's retinas are 50% larger than those of a day-living monkey of similar size, like the brown capuchin. The proportions of different cells in their retina are also different. Owl monkeys have relatively few cone cells, which are responsible for colour vision and fewer…
zooillogix | May 19, 2009
by Katie the Lowly Intern
Does the sinking feeling of knowing you could have gotten what you wanted had you made better choices in life sound familiar? Like how if in college, had you gotten a real degree, set goals for yourself, and not tried to buy friendships with your credit card, you could possibly now have a steady job, ambition, and friends? If it does, then you may rest easier tonight knowing there is a term for that: "fictive thinking". And guess what... monkeys get it too!
Researchers at Duke University have concluded that monkeys don't respond solely to direct punishment or…
edyong | April 3, 2009
Say the word 'statistician' and most people might think of an intelligent but reclusive person, probably working in a darkened room and almost certainly wearing glasses. But a new study shows that a monkey in front of a monitor can make a reasonably good statistician too.
Tianming Yang and Michael Shadlen from the University of Washington found that rhesus macaques can perform simple statistical calculations, and even watched their neurons doing it. Psychologists often train animals to learn simple tasks, where the right choice earns them a reward and the wrong one leaves them empty-…
edyong | January 15, 2009From the carpenter choosing the right strength of drill, or the artist selecting the right weight of pencil, humans have a natural talent for picking the right tool for the job. Now, it seems that monkeys are similarly selective about their tools. In the first study of its kind, Elisabetta Visalberghi from the National Research Council, Italy, found that capuchin monkeys are able to pick stones with the right properties for nutcracking.
Capuchins often use stones to crack otherwise impenetrable nuts upon hard, flat surfaces, turning innocuous forest objects into their own hammers and anvils…
edyong | August 26, 2008There are some who say that helping others is its own reward, and many biologists would agree. The fact that selfless acts give us a warm glow is evident from personal experience and neurological studies, which find that good deeds trigger activity in parts of the brain involved in feelings of reward. But feeling food by being good isn't just the province of humans - monkeys too get a kick out of the simple act of giving to their fellow simians.
At the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Frans de Waal's team of scientists have been investigating the selfless side of eight brown capuchin…
edyong | May 28, 2008The realm of science-fiction has just taken a big stride towards the world of science fact, with the creation of a prosthetic arm that can be moved solely by thought. Two monkeys, using only electrodes implanted in their brains, were able to feed themselves with the robotic arm complete with working joints.
Bionic limbs have been fitted to people before but they have always worked by connecting to the nerve endings in the chest. This is the first time that a prosthetic has been placed under direct control of the relevant part of the brain.
The study, carried out by Meel Velliste from the…