h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

They really _are_ just like us!

"Chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed making and using wooden spears to hunt other primates"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6387611.stm

Today, wooden spears. Tomorrow, AK-47s

yeah, I saw that. Fascinating. Did you also see the one the other week where they reckon they may have found evidence of a chimpanzee stone age?



ah, here we go:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070213-chimps-tools.html

"The excavated stones resemble those used by ancient humans and modern chimpanzees to smash nuts—showing evidence of flakes, chips, and worn edges."

As we investigate further and further so it seems that the varies supposed human unique qualities become less so. I wonder how long it will take for it to become accepted that consciousness and intelligence are on a sliding scale of ability and not a clearly defined 'has' and 'has not'.
*that's badly worded but it's early for me

Just realised anhaga posted that story last week. me so up to date

Here's another interesting study:

'The results are in: chimps are evolving faster than human beings. This startling discovery was made by a group of biologists and evolutionary scientists at the Biped Research Institute of Portland, Oregon following a three-year study into the genetic and evolutionary patterns of multiple generations of both species. Research was conducted by analysing the genetic patterns in a rare, 22-generation direct line of chimpanzee descendants, then comparing these records with those of a similar multiple-generation selection of humans. According to Biped Research, chimpanzees, or Pan troglodytes, are evolving approximately 30% faster than human beings and will, if the rate continues, eventually outstrip homo sapiens in many of the characteristics that define "humanness".'

http://www.avantnews.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=101


Will they evolve fast enough to escape the bush meat industry?

not overly surprising though, given that they have a much more varied genome than humans do. Something like the average familial group of chimps is more genetically varied than the entire human population (although I'm not totally sure about the numbers there!).

The plot (Quebecois slang alert) just gets thicker and thicker:

'A new study suggests that while we've been sharing head lice with chimps since before we were even separate species, pubic lice came from gorillas--and not very long ago. . . .
Because lice rarely survive more than a few hours off their hosts, this jump required close contact between the two species. "They must have been in the same place at the same time," Reed points out. Vincent Smith, a cybertaxonomist at the Natural History Museum in London, says the study "raises some interesting questions about what gorillas and our hominid ancestors were doing in such close proximity to share each other's lice."'



http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/307/3?rss=1

I just read about that on Loom -- http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/03/07/question_of_the_day_how_do_you.php


"Is this evidence of a Pliocene love that dare not speak its name?"

interesting, but the question which vexes me most is:
what the hell is a cybertaxonomist?

'We are cybertaxonomists. You will be classified. Resistance is an inherited trait'

'A pair of wild western lowland gorillas in Africa have surprised researchers by engaging in face-to-face mating, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced today. '

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080212-gorilla-sex.html


curiouser and curiouser.

this is a particularly charming shot: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/photogalleries/gorilla-pictures/

Perhaps they'd been watching the Playboy channel..

' Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans. . .

. . . Philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri founded the Great Ape Project in 1993, arguing that "non-human hominids" like chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos should enjoy the right to life, freedom and not to be tortured.'

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL256586320080625?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&rpc=22&sp=true


Now if we could get the Bush administration to follow Spain's lead. . .









And if we could get the Bush administration to declare some of those poor sods at Guantanamo Bay 'Chimpanzees' . . .