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Scientists studying the human tendency to follow the gaze of other people have found a link to the behaviour of lemurs, a distant primate relative. Psychologists at the University of St Andrews said the action was a practical, food-finding skill, dating back to the time of the first primates. ... Humans find it impossible not to look up when they see someone staring upwards at the sky, even when they know it might be a trick. It's...
Female monkeys in Morocco have been observed suckling themselves, drinking their own milk.
The tender interactions between mothers and newborns might not be limited to humans, scientists report.
2009-10-08
monkey mother infant communication kiss evolution relationship emotion animalScientists may be a step closer to understanding the origins of human language. Two studies suggest that the ability to combine sounds and words to alter meaning may be rooted in a species of monkey. A team found the Campbell's monkey can add a simple sound to its alarm calls to create new ones and then combine them to convey even more information.
2009-12-11
monkey language linguistics speech evolutionThe pleasure of sham nudity [pictures of naked people] isn’t limited to humans. In a recent study, male rhesus monkeys were put into an experimental setup where they could choose, by moving their heads, to either receive some sweet fruit juice or to get to look at a picture. There were two sorts of pictures that monkeys would give up the juice for –female hindquarters and the faces of high-status male monkeys. Two major vices –pornography...
2010-06-16
nudity pornography psychology monkey celebrity worshipGibbons, it turns out, leap in four distinct ways, and will choose which to employ depending on the circumstances. For example, they make fast, efficient leaps if they know the trees well, but make slower, more energy-sapping leaps when putting safety first.
2010-07-21
monkey gibbon leap jump acrobatThe infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.
In Aesop's 2,000-year-old tale, a crow uses stones to raise the water level in a pitcher to reach the liquid so as to quench its thirst. But when given a similar set up, chimps were able to attain an out-of-reach, floating peanut by spitting water taken from a dispenser into a vertical tube. One hungry chimp went even further by urinating into the vessel to get hold of the prized snack.
2011-06-09
monkey chimpanzee intelligence animal intelligence food water gorilla child Aesop fableA few million virtual monkeys are close to re-creating the complete works of Shakespeare by randomly mashing keys on virtual typewriters.
2011-09-26
William Shakespeare monkey random AWS complexity simulation chance