From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Sun Dec 2 14:46:17 2001 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 14:46:17 -0500 Subject: Apes have same speech area in brain as human Message-ID: The Independent (London) November 30, 2001, Friday HEADLINE: APES HAVE SAME SPEECH AREA IN BRAIN AS HUMANS BYLINE: Steve Connor Although apes communicate by grunts and gestures, they possess a brain component that is also critical for human speech Rex BODY: GORILLAS AND chimpanzees possess a rudimentary speech centre within their brains that until now was thought to be unique to humans, scientists have found. Brain scans of the apes - man's closest living relatives - have revealed a small, lopsided structure buried in the front part of the head which in humans is critical for language. The structure, Brodmann's area 44, is part of the language centre known as Broca's area, and the scans reveal that it is larger and more developed in the left half of the ape's brain than in the right hemisphere - just as it is in humans. Claudio Cantalupo and William Hopkins, who conducted the study at the Yerkes Primate Research Centre at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, were surprised such a critical feature within the ape's brain had gone unnoticed. Unlike humans, apes do not have language, and communicate by grunts and hand movements. The scientists believe their brains show that the evolution of language is rooted in a common ape-human ancestor who lived more than five million years ago. Mr Cantalupo and Mr Hopkins say in the journal Nature: "The part possession by great apes of a homologue of Broca's area is puzzling, particularly considering the discrepancy between sophisticated human speech and the primitive vocalisations of great apes." Chimpanzees and gorillas nevertheless share one thing in common with human communication - they tend to use their right hands when grunting, which are controlled by the left-side of the brain. "Our findings suggest that the neuro-anatomical substrates for left-hemisphere dominance in speech production were evident at least five million years ago and are not unique to hominid evolution," the scientists say. "Whatever the function of area 44 in great apes, our finding that these species show a human-like asymmetry ... indicates that the origin of asymmetry in language-related areas of the human brain should be interpreted in evolutionary terms rather than being confined to the human species." The latest study follows work published in 1999 showing that wild chimpanzees have a relatively sophisticated culture in which they are able to pass on ideas and inventions to their offspring through teaching and learning. Other studies at Georgia University's Language Research Centre have indicated that some chimpanzees can understand simple English sentences. Panbanisha, a hand-reared female pygmy chimpanzee, can communicate in basic phrases using a keyboard and a computer screen displaying symbols that she can press to produce a rudimentary response to a human voice. -- Tech note: Email to my stayfreemagazine.org address often bounces, for whatever reason. If you email me and it comes back, send it to stay.free at verizon.net From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Tue Dec 4 12:32:32 2001 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 12:32:32 -0500 Subject: Monkeys swarm cake at annual monkey feast Message-ID: AP Worldstream November 25, 2001 Sunday HEADLINE: Monkeys treated to cake at annual monkey feast BYLINE: DAVID LONGSTREATH; Associated Press Writer DATELINE: LOPBURI, Thailand BODY: A brigade of naughty, greedy monkeys descended from rooftops and temple walls to devour a special cake and other goodies at the annual monkey feast Sunday. Terrorist attacks have put a brake on tourism in Thailand, but one wouldn't have guessed that in this central Thailand town as more than 1,000 foreign and domestic visitors watched the simian antics. The event has been hosted since 1989 by local businessman and "Monkey King" Yongyuth Kitwatananuson, who believes the monkeys that have traditionally roamed Lopburi were behind his family's good fortune. So each year is payback time. For the first time, he offered some 500 long-tailed macaques a huge, layered and frosted cake along with mounds of watermelon, pineapples, vegetables, Thai sweets and soft drinks neatly laid out on tables. Visitors from distant places shared in the mirth. "We don't have anything like this in Finland, except at the zoo," said Eero Rautamaki of Helsinki. Arriving with a group of tourists in a bus, Rautamaki said it felt "like we were in the cage and they were watching us." Lopburi's monkeys are given free rein, often to the annoyance of local vendors and residents as the brazen animals dart out of hiding places to snatch food and handbags. The monkeys enjoy a religious connection in Lopburi, 112 kilometers (70 miles) north of Bangkok. They are regarded as disciples of Chao Pho Prakarn, a four-armed deity whose likeness is enshrined in the heart of the town. On Sunday, security guards armed with slingshots kept the monkeys at bay until after the official opening ceremony. Then the macaques charged down from the walls of an ancient Buddhist temple and other perches to snatch the food. In years past, the monkeys have been served American fried rice, special Chinese noodles, tomato soup, chicken eggs and banana bread. -- Tech note: Email to my stayfreemagazine.org address often bounces, for whatever reason. If you email me and it comes back, send it to stay.free at verizon.net From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Fri Dec 7 18:08:23 2001 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 18:08:23 -0500 Subject: Monkeys to be served brandy to keep warm Message-ID: [ Thanks to Gregory Nahas for this story. ] Monkeys to be served brandy to keep them warm http://www.ananova.com/yournews/story/sm_467676.html Friday 7th December 2001 Monkeys in an Indian zoo are to be served brandy to keep them warm during winter. Lucknow zoo has requisitioned stocks of brandy from a government store to serve its 35 monkeys. The brandy will be diluted with warm water before being served to the primates. Newspaper Dainik Ujala says the exact dose will be determined by the age and size of the animals. The authorities say the monkeys will have no problems because of the similarity to the human digestive system. "We don't want to get them drunk. The brandy is meant to prevent the poor things from catching a cold and moving around with running noses," said the zoo's director B Prabhakar. This is the first time that serving alcohol to animals has been "officially sanctioned" by the zoo. However, zookeepers are said to have previously served liquor to the animals unofficially - one of the monkeys is said to have developed a whisky habit. From jathree at panix.com Wed Dec 12 16:11:52 2001 From: jathree at panix.com (John Aboud) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:11:52 -0500 Subject: Cloned monkey embryos a "gallery of horrors" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Attack of the blah blah blah. -ja3 http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991679 Cloned monkey embryos are a "gallery of horrors" 19:00 12 December 01 Sylvia Pag?n Westphal, Boston A high percentage of cloned monkey embryos that look healthy are really a "gallery of horrors" deep within, says a researcher at Advanced Cell Technology, the company that last month published the first paper on cloned human embryos. This could mean that there is something unique about primate eggs that will make cloning monkeys or people far more difficult than cloning other animals. At the very least, the experiments show that there's a lot to learn before primates can be cloned. Tanja Dominko, who presented the results last week at a conference in Washington DC, did the work before joining ACT, while she was working for the reproductive biologist Gerald Schatten at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center in Beaverton. Several groups have been trying for years to clone monkeys, but while the embryos look normal, no one has ever got them to develop further. Uneven scatter To try and figure out what was going wrong, Dominko looked at 265 cloned rhesus macaque embryos created by nuclear transfer - plucking out an egg's nucleus and then adding a nucleus from a donor cell. She followed development of the embryos through several divisions, from the two-cell stage until the 32-cell stage. Though they appeared superficially healthy, the cells in the vast majority of Dominko's embryos did not form distinct nuclei containing all the chromosomes. Instead, the chromosomes were scattered unevenly throughout the cells. "The surprising thing is that these cells keep dividing," says Dominko. Some embryos developed to the stage known as a blastocyst, but by day six or seven they had started to look abnormal. The cloned human embryos created by ACT didn't even get this far. Only one reached the six-cell stage. Trauma of removal Dominko says that the trauma of removing the nucleus from the egg might be what triggers the defects. Eggs whose nuclei are removed and then put back inside show the same abnormalities, as well as evidence of programmed cell suicide. "This is not to say that normal embryos can't be made, but not on a regular basis," says Dominko. Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, told the conference that Dominko's results were not surprising in the light of experience of nuclear transfer in mice and cows. Even in these animals the success rates are not high, so the phenomena observed by Dominko probably occur in them as well - it's just that everyone focuses on the few successes, he says. Even so, researchers hoping to publish work on nuclear transfer in humans may now have to come up with better evidence that embryos are healthy. William Haseltine, editor of the journal in which ACT published details of its cloned human embryos, now agrees that pictures alone aren't enough. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/monkeywire/attachments/20011212/7b3e765f/attachment.html From lettherebemonkeys at yahoo.com Thu Dec 13 11:37:50 2001 From: lettherebemonkeys at yahoo.com (gregory nahas) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 08:37:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Poets to perform reading in baboon cage Message-ID: <20011213163750.3969.qmail@web10804.mail.yahoo.com> Poets to hold reading in zoo's baboon enclosure Seven poets are to hold a reading of their work inside the baboon enclosure of a zoo in Chile. They are holding the recital as a form of protest. They want to imply that apes are more receptive to poetry than their countrymen. They will be lowered into the enclosure in a small cage, specially designed to protect them from possible attack. "We will descend into the enclosure on Saturday morning at around 11 am," one of the poets told newspaper Las Ultimas Noticias. "For around an hour we will take it in turns to read our poems, creating a sort of dialogue with the apes." They are hopeful the baboons at Santiago's Metropolitan Zoo will sit quietly and listen to the poetry - thereby showing they are more interested than the average Chilean. The spokesman says they will be asking the public not to throw peanuts at the caged poets. "We are reading our poetry to the monkeys because poets need an audience and it is hard to find people who want to listen to us," the poet's spokesman said. The poets include Raul Zurita, who during previous performances has burned his face with molten iron and ammonia and publicly masturbated. Vet Maricarmen Barba said she was surprised the zoo authorities were allowing the reading to go ahead. "These monkeys like biting and are aggressively territorial," she said. "I wouldn't get in there with them because they are extremely unpredictable. They could easily kill someone." Story filed: 14:13 Thursday 13th December 2001 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com From prim88 at home.com Fri Dec 14 08:32:40 2001 From: prim88 at home.com (Bob) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 07:32:40 -0600 Subject: Susy's Murderer Message-ID: The following is an article downloaded from the Post Dispatch online: in news Jury suggests 30-day sentence for chimp killer BY CHRIS CARROLL Of the Post-Dispatch 12/13/2001 09:35 PM A Festus teen-ager should serve 30 days in jail and pay a fine for shooting a chimpanzee that escaped from its pen, a Jefferson County jury recommended Thursday. The jury found Jason Coats, 18, guilty of felony property damage and misdemeanor animal abuse in the shooting April 19 of Suzy, a 28-year-old chimp that Coats had claimed was threatening him, his friends and his dog. The convictions carry sentencing of up to five years in prison. Circuit Judge Gary P. Kramer will sentence Coats on March 4. The chimpanzee escaped with two other apes from a compound near Festus that houses Chimparty, a business that supplies juvenile chimps for parties and TV commercials. Older chimps, including those that escaped, also live at the compound on Highway CC. Coats and three of his friends testified that they drove up to Coats' house and were confronted by angry chimps that attacked the car, charged the teens and fought with Coats' dog. Coats said he retrieved a 20-gauge shotgun from his house and shot Suzy when he believed she might charge him. But Suzy's owner, Connie Casey, and neighbors who witnessed the shooting said the chimps had been exploring and playing - even picking flowers - not acting aggressively. Prosecution witnesses said Coats' dog, Lucky, wasn't there when the shooting happened. A juror, Eugene Day, of Hillsboro, said the jury had to decide which witnesses were more credible, and sided with Casey and the neighbors. Prosecution witnesses said that Coats seemed elated by the shootings, and after shooting Suzy, climbed onto the roof of his house with a gun to get clear shots at the other animals. But Coats testified he had climbed unarmed onto the roof of his house to replace a screen in an upstairs window because he was concerned a chimp might come through the window. Day said that sounded unbelievable. "I think he wanted to get him a chimp and when he got one, he wanted to get some more," he said. Coats' attorney, Clinton Wright, of the law firm Rosenblum, Schwartz & Rogers, said the sentence recommendation seemed to be a signal from the jury that they acknowledged Coats thought he acted properly, even if they did not believe he did. "I think they wanted to send a message that they disagree with what he did, but they understood that he felt he had a right to shoot," he said. "We're very happy he is not going to be facing penitentiary time." Michael Griffith, assistant Jefferson County prosecutor, said Coats deserved a stricter sentence for Suzy's death. "I think his actions warranted it, but I'm not altogether surprised, given his young age," he said. Casey seemed close to tears after the verdict was read. Casey had owned Suzy since 1984, and said the chimp, which was used to breed baby chimps that were sold for as much as $50,000, was the crucial head of a chimp family group the Caseys own. Suzy was also practically a member of the Casey family, she said. "I think a fine but no prison sentence is not right," Casey said. "Thirty days (in jail) is a vacation, but Suzy's dead forever." From jathree at panix.com Fri Dec 14 15:43:30 2001 From: jathree at panix.com (John Aboud) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 15:43:30 -0500 Subject: Karate Chimps to lens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: From Variety. -ja3 Apollo backs $25 million 'Karate Chimps' Pic stars ape skilled in martial arts By ED MEZA BERLIN -- German film fund Apollo Media is bankrolling "Karate Chimps," a family-oriented action comedy about a simian trained in the martial arts. Apollo's Frank Huebner, Quality International's Jan Fantl and Signature Entertainment's Moshe Diamant are producing the pic, which is being directed by Gene Quintano. Quintano penned the trio's recent co-productions "The Musketeer" and "Extremists." Huebner, Fantl and Diamant also produced the upcoming thriller from helmer Bill Malone, "Fear.com." Apollo has a non-exclusive relationship with Diamant, but Huebner said he hopes there will be more joint projects to come. "You don't change a winning team," he said. Budgeted north of 28 million euros ($25 million), "Chimps" will be backed by the $54 million Apollo Media 5 fund, which is finance around 10 projects, including "Boat Trip," Samuel L. Jackson-starrer "No Good Deed," "Kart Racer," "Animal Tales" and "George and the Dragon." The budgets for the projects start at $2 million. "Chimps" will begin lensing Dec. 18, although a cast is yet to be signed. Pic will lense in the U.K., Luxembourg and Germany.v From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Thu Dec 20 16:24:15 2001 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 16:24:15 -0500 Subject: Poets pleased with response from baboons Message-ID: Poets pleased with response from baboons Story filed: 17:41 Tuesday 18th December 2001 http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_476651.html?menu= A group of seven Chilean poets who held a poetry reading in a baboon enclosure have praised the animals' patience. It had been feared they could attack the poets who wanted to demonstrate baboons are more receptive to poetry than their countrymen. Poet Leonel Lienlaf says were surprised by the warm welcome they had got from the monkeys at Santiago's Metropolitan Zoo. Colleague Ra?l Zurita told Las Ultimas Noticias newspaper he was pleased they had not attacked the cage the poets were in. "In fact, they were impressively alert, as well as showing the kind of curiosity we associate with young children," he said. Mr Lienlaf added: "I was very surprised by the warmth of their welcome to us. They were very quiet during our reading, although we sometimes saw their playful side." The paper reports the baboons seemed particularly interested when Guillermo Garc?a addressed them directly. "Yesterday, my dear baboons, I had a profound dream. I dreamt that one day humanity would again live in harmony with you," the poet told his audience. The poetry of Lienlaf and Jorge del R?o also provoked a response. During both readings the baboons climbed to the top of their tower and began shrieking. The seven poets ended with an epic poem. Mr Zurita said: "There was certainly a profound silence during that piece. At least that's how I remember it." From lettherebemonkeys at yahoo.com Mon Dec 24 09:51:59 2001 From: lettherebemonkeys at yahoo.com (gregory nahas) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 06:51:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fake crocs fail to keep monkeys away from crops Message-ID: <20011224145159.44149.qmail@web10807.mail.yahoo.com> Ananova : Fake crocs fail to keep rice fields monkey free Farmers in Thailand are failing in their efforts to use fake crocodiles to scare marauding monkeys from their rice crops. The monkeys are not being scared away, but have been destroying the reptile scarecrows. Hundreds of monkeys from a forest are raiding rice fields in Tha Phae district of Satun province. Police Sergeant Kasen Sanlem said his family's farm was among those ransacked by the short-tailed monkeys, who have spent the past three weeks eating up his unharvested crop. About 100 other farmers nearby have the same problem, he said. "They (the monkeys) are not afraid of people at all because they outnumber us," Kasem said. Local belief holds that monkeys are scared of crocodiles, but for reasons unknown they weren't convinced by the fake crocodiles some farmers placed in their fields. The desperate farmers have asked the Forestry Department to help solve the problem. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com From lettherebemonkeys at yahoo.com Wed Dec 26 13:58:01 2001 From: lettherebemonkeys at yahoo.com (gregory nahas) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 10:58:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: Apes 'get high' on plants Message-ID: <20011226185801.78349.qmail@web10802.mail.yahoo.com> Apes 'get high' on plants Scientists believe apes may use recreational drugs. Research has been carried out by Professor Michael Huffman from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University, and Don Cousins, author of The Magnificent Gorilla. They found African apes eat the seeds of Kola trees which contain caffeine and theobromine and help prevent fatigue. They also found gorillas in Equatorial Guinea and chimpanzees in the Republic of Guinea eat two hallucinogenic plants. According to The Daily Telegraph, one of the hallucinogenic plants, A. Floribunda, is used by cults because the root is believed to be an aphrodisiac. It's said to provide a state of intense excitement followed by a deep, sometimes fatal depression. Professor Huffman says people have watched the animals go into 'a frenzy of fear' after eating the roots, as if they are being chased by invisible objects. It's reported the apes even go through detox, using the root of the Tabernanthe iboga plant. The findings are reported in the forthcoming issue of the journal, African Study Monographs. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com From lettherebemonkeys at yahoo.com Mon Dec 31 09:14:26 2001 From: lettherebemonkeys at yahoo.com (gregory nahas) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 06:14:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Monkey reads paper during bus ride Message-ID: <20011231141426.39371.qmail@web10806.mail.yahoo.com> Monkey 'reads' conductor's paper during hour-long bus ride A monkey in New Delhi took a bus conductor's seat and pretended to read his newspaper during an hour-long ride. The Jagriti newspaper says passengers couldn't help but laugh when they saw it sitting quietly 'reading'. The conductor says it was so well-behaved he didn't have the heart to move it. The monkey carried on ignoring both passengers and the conductor for the full hour. "His behaviour was exemplary and I didn't have the heart to shoo him away," Vijay Bhan, the conductor of the Delhi Transport Corporation bus, says. The monkey then got off the bus in an orderly manner with the other passengers at the last stop. Passenger Supriya Mujumdar says: "He was so cute that anyone could have forgiven him for travelling without a ticket." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com