From josh.greenman at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 13:17:12 2005 From: josh.greenman at gmail.com (Josh Greenman) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 13:17:12 -0500 Subject: [monkeywire] Chinese chimp celebrates first birthday Message-ID: <70ee28bc0512061017p609c222fk6331808501130cbf@mail.gmail.com> http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/051206/ids_photos_wl/r2545913769.jpg A chimpanzee named 'Wanxing' looks at a birthday cake and candles at a wild animal garden in Hefei, east China's Anhui province, December 6, 2005. Wanxing is one-year-old. CHINA OUT REUTERS/China Newsphoto From albys at internode.on.net Thu Dec 8 04:27:06 2005 From: albys at internode.on.net (Al Shew) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 20:27:06 +1100 Subject: [monkeywire] monkeys and contagious yawning Message-ID: Try to resist yawning while reading this... http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/ 0,9865,1660734,00.html Monkeys can 'catch' yawns from each other, too Alok Jha, science correspondent Wednesday December 7, 2005 The Guardian It is a familiar feeling: that need to suddenly yawn as soon as someone else in the room does it. Scientists know that humans and other great apes can "catch" yawns from each other but now they have evidence that the lesser primates such as macaques are susceptible too. "Almost all animals yawn, but we don't know why they yawn, we don't know what the function is," said Annika Paukner, a psychologist at Stirling University. "One hypothesis is related to empathy. Humans and chimpanzees catch yawns from each other and the idea is that because they empathise with the yawning individual that, in turn, will trigger us to yawn." Research has shown that up to 60% of people can catch yawns. "It's very basic - thinking about yawning might set you off yawning," said Ms Paukner. "We yawn in a variety of contexts, when we get up in the morning, when we go to bed at night, when we're tired, when we're hungry." In their experiment, the Stirling researchers sat a group of stumptail macaques in front of video clips of other, yawning, macaques. Compared with a control group of monkeys, which saw their television monkeys making non-specific mouth movements, the test group yawned more during and after the video. Scientists had never previously observed monkeys showing the kind of empathic behaviour seen in humans and the great apes and the results were a surprise to the Stirling team. "We wouldn't expect monkeys to catch yawns from each other," said Ms Paukner. The yawn tape also made the macaques scratch themselves more, indicating that a second reason might be behind the increased yawning. "Yawning in macaques does have a function: in tense situations, monkeys might scratch and yawn," said Ms Paukner. "In the wild, adult male macaques yawn in a yawning contest, almost, to show off [their] canines." Whether the macaques in the experiment were truly being empathic - and therefore catching the yawns from each other - or just responding to a potential threat will need more research. From josh.greenman at gmail.com Thu Dec 8 11:56:19 2005 From: josh.greenman at gmail.com (Josh Greenman) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 11:56:19 -0500 Subject: [monkeywire] Performing monkeys in Asia carry viruses that could jump species to humans Message-ID: <70ee28bc0512080856t7a10ed81he09ecaa9976be96b@mail.gmail.com> http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/performing_monkeys_in_asia_carry_viruses_that_could_jump_species_to_humans_9445 Performing monkeys in Asia carry viruses that could jump species to humans Some urban performing monkeys in Indonesia are carrying several retroviruses that are capable of infecting people, according to a new study led by University of Washington researchers. The results indicate that contact with performing monkeys, which is common in many Asian countries, could represent a little-known path for viruses to jump the species barrier from monkeys to humans and eventually cause human disease. Performing monkeys are animals that are trained to produce tricks in public. While scientists have conducted extensive research on primate-to-human viral transmission in Africa, where they believe HIV originated, few have researched this topic in Asia. "People aren't looking at Asia, and they need to do so, because viruses are emerging on that continent," explained Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, leader of the study and a research scientist in the Division of International Programs at the UW's Washington National Primate Research Center. "There is a large, diverse population of primates there, and a huge human population in dense urban centers, so there's the potential for viral transmission across the species barrier." The study's authors are urging more research on the different settings in Asia where people have contact with non-human primates ? zoos, animal markets, monkey forests, pet ownership, and urban street performances. Most previous research on viral transmission has focused on bushmeat hunting and consumption, a practice in which local residents hunt wild monkeys for food. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS in humans, is believed to have originated as a primate virus and jumped the species barrier to humans when African bushmeat hunters came into contact with blood from infected animals. However, in Asia other forms of primate/human contact, among them urban monkey performances, may be more prevalent than bushmeat hunting. Asia has a long history of performing monkeys, and initial studies indicate that the performances can include very close, physical contact between the animals and human spectators ? monkeys crawling on people, for instance. Such contact might increase the risk of a bite, scratch, or other interaction that could lead to exposure to monkey body fluids. "The risk of viral transmission in this context is unclear," said Dr. Michael Schillaci, professor of social sciences at the University of Toronto at Scarborough and lead author on the study. "But the contact here can be very intense." Also troubling are the animal markets where many performing monkeys are acquired by their trainers. The markets typically bring together many different species of wild monkeys, as well as many other types of animals, in very close, unnatural quarters and unsanitary conditions. "The market is a condensed area for mixing species and pathogens," explained Dr. Gregory Engel, an attending physician at Swedish/Providence Hospital in Seattle, Wash., a clinical instructor of family medicine at the UW, and a co-author on the study. "The animals may be sick or in bad shape there, and they're mixed with other animals that potentially could have pathogens, and then they're put into contact with a dense human population." In this study, the researchers drew blood from 20 urban performing macaques in Jakarta, Indonesia, and tested those samples for various simian viruses. They found that about half of the macaques tested positive for simian foamy virus (SFV), a primate retrovirus that so far has not been shown to cause disease in humans, but that has been detected in other monkey-human interaction settings in Asia. Two of the monkeys tested positive for simian retrovirus (SRV), which, though it has been shown to infect humans in a laboratory setting, has yet to be associated with any disease in humans. However, both SRV and SFV are retroviruses, which are typically slow-acting in their host, so it could be many years before physicians know the effects of those virus exposures. One monkey tested positive for simian T-cell lymphotropic virus (STLV), which is believed to be the primate ancestor to the human version of the virus, HTLV, a known cause of T-cell leukemia in people. One macaque tested positive for herpes B virus, also known as CHV-1, which rarely infects humans, but, in the 40 known human cases, was associated with an 80 percent fatality rate. The researchers still do not know the prevalence of such simian viruses across larger urban performing monkey populations in Indonesia, or elsewhere in Asia. Urban performing monkeys can be found in India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan and Korea. They hope to learn more about the risk of primate to human viral transmission in future studies of owners and their monkeys. However, they urge people to take precautions around performing monkeys, by preventing the animals from climbing on them and by keeping food away from the macaques. Such precautions can help reduce the risk of bites and scratches from the monkeys. This study included researchers at Bogor Agricultural University in Bogor, Indonesia, and the Southwest National Primate Research Center in San Antonio, Texas. It appears in the December issue of the journal Tropical Medicine and International Health, published on Dec. 8, 2005. From University of Washington From stay.free at verizon.net Fri Dec 9 10:45:45 2005 From: stay.free at verizon.net (Carrie McLaren) Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 10:45:45 -0500 Subject: [monkeywire] Runaway Chimp Shot Dead Message-ID: Thanks to Gerald MacDermott: Runaway Chimp Shot Dead Friday December 09, 2005 http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1205620,00.html A chimpanzee which escaped from a zoo in north Yorkshire has been shot dead by a zoo marksman, police have said. Police issued an urgent warning to the public after the adult female chimp escaped from Flamingo Land zoo near Malton shortly after 10am. The chimp then disappeared in the foggy conditions. The public warning said that the escaped chimp was "potentially dangerous and should not be approached". A police spokesman later confirmed: "A zoo marksman has shot the chimp dead. The public concern can now abate." From stay.free at verizon.net Thu Dec 15 12:35:02 2005 From: stay.free at verizon.net (Carrie McLaren) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:35:02 -0500 Subject: [monkeywire] Study: Human women aroused by bonobo sex Message-ID: GIRLS GONE WILD ... FOR MONKEYS Girls Gone Wild ... for Monkeys http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2005/10/girls_gone_wildfor_monkeys.php Pornography studios might do well to take a tip from the Discovery Channel. According to a recent study, women are aroused by watching monkey sex. Sure, they're more aroused by watching human sex, but the loving habits of the bonobo are enough to bring out the primate in any civilized lady. The study, conducted by Meredith Chivers of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health and J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, was published in the October issue of Biological Psychology. The researchers found that while straight men are only aroused by females of the human variety, straight women are equally aroused by all human sexual activity, including lesbian, heterosexual and homosexual male sex, and at least somewhat aroused by nonhuman sex. Each subject involved in the report watched seven two-minute clips of sex: six scenes involving humans and one of bonobos. The subject constantly monitored and noted his or her subjective arousal. The subject was also affixed with a device that measured genital arousal-penis circumference for the men and vaginal pulse amplitude for the women. All eighteen men were heterosexual and all reported subjective arousal only during the scenes with women. The objective data matched their reports: Images of our evolutionary ancestors do not make a man retrogress to Homo erectus. The eighteen heterosexual women reported greatest subjective arousal during the heterosexual scene, but their bodies reported they were less naturally selective. Chivers said in a previous study she had shown a very low correlation between women's stated sexual interests and their sexual arousal patterns in the lab. The correlation was much higher for men, she said. "There's the possibility that genital response for women is not necessarily imbued with meaning about her sexual interests," says Chivers. She also emphasized that her findings do not imply women harbor a latent desire for lesbian sex or bestiality. While the women did not report their arousal in the subjective part of the study, Chivers said women are generally receptive to her findings about their objective responses. "When I speak to women, there's sort of an intuitive 'Oh, yeah,'" she says. Barbara Bartlik, a psychiatry professor at Cornell, said she was not alarmed by the women's response to the nonhuman stimuli. "I don't know why this has surprised everybody that women get aroused watching humans and animals," she says. "Animals, because of the way they function in an uninhibited manner...can be very arousing to look at when they copulate." However, Bartlik was surprised that the men did not have the same response as the women. "I would wonder if the men weren't concerned about being labeled as homosexual or perverse by being interested in these things, and therefore their erections were inhibited," she said. Chivers hopes to discover what specific aspect of a visual stimulus causes women to become aroused. Some experts believe mentally labeling an act as sexual arouses women. Others, including Chivers, believe innately recognized sexual features such as an erect penis, even out of their usual human context, stimulate women. She said she did not yet know how similar to humans an animal would need to be in order to elicit a sexual response from women. From josh.greenman at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 12:31:57 2005 From: josh.greenman at gmail.com (Josh Greenman) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 12:31:57 -0500 Subject: [monkeywire] Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors Message-ID: <70ee28bc0512200931t3e9d18bbx8b4f987ab650ad18@mail.gmail.com> http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2434192005 Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors CHRIS STEPHEN AND ALLAN HALL THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents. Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior. According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat." In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine". The order came at a time when the Soviet Union was embarked on a crusade to turn the world upside down, with social engineering seen as a partner to industrialisation: new cities, architecture, and a new egalitarian society were being created. The Soviet authorities were struggling to rebuild the Red Army after bruising wars. And there was intense pressure to find a new labour force, particularly one that would not complain, with Russia about to embark on its first Five-Year Plan for fast-track industrialisation. Mr Ivanov was highly regarded. He had established his reputation under the Tsar when in 1901 he established the world's first centre for the artificial insemination of racehorses. Mr Ivanov's ideas were music to the ears of Soviet planners and in 1926 he was dispatched to West Africa with $200,000 to conduct his first experiment in impregnating chimpanzees. Meanwhile, a centre for the experiments was set up in Georgia - Stalin's birthplace - for the apes to be raised. Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail. A final attempt to persuade a Cuban heiress to lend some of her monkeys for further experiments reached American ears, with the New York Times reporting on the story, and she dropped the idea amid the uproar. Mr Ivanov was now in disgrace. His were not the only experiments going wrong: the plan to collectivise farms ended in the 1932 famine in which at least four million died. For his expensive failure, he was sentenced to five years' jail, which was later commuted to five years' exile in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan in 1931. A year later he died, reportedly after falling sick while standing on a freezing railway platform. From rufus.cartwright at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 11:33:27 2005 From: rufus.cartwright at gmail.com (Rufus Cartwright) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:33:27 +0000 Subject: [monkeywire] Study: Gorillas go through menopause Message-ID: *http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/12/21/gorilla.menopause.ap/index.html* ** *CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Jenny, Shamba, Timbo, Beta and Elaine are zoo gorillas, but they have something in common with millions of women: They have undergone menopause.* A study of gorillas at 17 North American zoos, led by Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, is the first to document gorilla menopause, according to researchers who were not involved in the study. The findings may help zoos improve how they care for aging female gorillas and change the way evolutionary biologists think about menopause in humans. The study also may provoke a few chuckles along the way. "Do they have hot flashes? Do they get grouchy? We haven't been able to measure those things yet, but give us time," said study co-author Sue Margolis, a former Brookfield Zoo researcher and now curator of primates at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. Many biologists believe menopause evolved because it gave human grandmothers more time to help care for their grandchildren, said Steve Austad, a researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio who was not involved in the study. The new findings argue against the so-called "grandmother hypothesis," because female gorillas in the wild migrate away from their family groups and don't hang around to care for the grandkids. Instead of an evolutionary adaptation, menopause could result merely from humans -- and captive gorillas -- living longer, Austad said. "It's going to make evolutionary biologists think long and hard about what this suggests for humans," Austad said. "Right now, they're saying humans are unique. It may turn out you can get gorillas to live 75 years, and 25 years of that is post-menopausal." The oldest gorilla in captivity is believed to be 51-year-old Jenny at the Dallas Zoo. She was one of 30 gorillas in the study and among the 23 percent of older gorillas found to have undergone menopause when researchers measured the gorillas' hormones. Another 32 percent of the older gorillas showed irregular hormone patterns over several months, signs that they, too, might be approaching menopause. The average age of the post-menopausal gorillas was 44. In American women, menopause hits around age 51. The researchers received a $50,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the federal National Institutes of Health. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/monkeywire/attachments/20051222/be1f313b/attachment.html