HOME |
RSS | 
In order to examine the way that the human brain evolved differently from that of other primates, scientists arranged for selected humans and monkeys to watch the Clint Eastwood movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
All the study participants watched 30 minutes of the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, listening to the dialogue through headphones. The humans watched it once and the monkeys saw it six times, during which the participants’ eye movements were scanned and their neural activity monitored via functional magnetic resonance imaging.
The researchers found some similarities in brain activity locations among the species, but several differences, too. Monkey brain areas that fired up during movements on screen were quiescent in the humans, yet both species shared activity in other areas. This is a function of the species‘ separate evolutions — brain regions that may once have been very similar have adapted to focus on different tasks.
“The method may clarify whether specific functions are preserved in areas that anatomically correspond, are absent in one of the two species, or are shifted to other cortical locations,” Mantini and colleagues wrote. This, in turn, could shed light on how human cognitive function evolved, as compared to cognitive function in our closest cousins.
Which movie would you compel monkeys to watch?
Link | Image: United Artists
Humans love to hold a warm, furry cat in their arms or in their laps (with some exceptions, of course) but humans aren’t the only primates who like pets. Monkeys and apes seem to have a similar affinity to cats, as you’ll see in a gallery of cute pictures at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Salim Virji)
We’ve all seen pictures of monkeys grooming each other. At first glance, it appears that it’s a tradeoff -you groom me, I’ll groom you. But monkeys will groom cats, pigs, deer, all kinds of fur! It may be a habit, or maybe the monkeys are looking for delicious parasite snacks. See a collection of different species willing to sit through a monkey treatment at Environmental Graffiti. Link
Comments Off
The infinite monkey theorem proposes that a group of monkeys, or even a single one, could reproduce the collected works of William Shakespeare by hitting random keystrokes if given sufficient time. It is, however, hard to prove this theorem with an experiment that uses actual monkeys. So computer engineer Jesse Anderson created a simulation that successfully reproduced 99.9% of the Bard’s published writings:
“The computer program I wrote compares that monkey’s gibberish to every work of Shakespeare to see if it actually matches a small portion of what Shakespeare wrote. If it does match, the portion of gibberish that matched Shakespeare is marked with green,” Andersen explained on his blog. “The parts of Shakespeare that have not been found are colored white. This process is repeated over and over until the monkeys have created every work of Shakespeare through random gibberish.”
Anderson developed the project to test Amazon’s web servers, but also to satisfy his curiosity of whether an infinite number of monkeys could randomly reproduce Shakespeare’s work by pecking away on an infinite number of typewriters.
Link -via Geekologie | Photo by Flickr user Jemima G used under Creative Commons license
Did you know that parrots name their babies? Or that monkeys that understand money immediately use the idea to solicit prostitution? As it turns out, animals are a lot more like humans than many of us ever imagined.
Comments Off 
While this little guy might not be in a mask like the others, I love this little guy’s fashion statement. Be sure to check out the rest of the cuties at the link.
Photographer David Slater had his picture taken by a crested black macaque in an Indonesian national park when the curious little critter figured out how to trigger the shutter release button on his tripod mounted camera. Soon, it seemed as if the monkeys actually knew that they were on to something, and they continued to snap shot after shot, showing an intelligence and problem solving ability macaques had been assumed not to possess. What’s next for the shutterbug macaque, a job directing in Hollywood?
A woman was due to appear in court in Amherst, Virginia. So, naturally, she stuffed a small monkey into her bra before entering the courthouse:
The woman brought along the palm-sized marmoset to a proceeding in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court in Amherst County, Va. Apparently, officials actually didn’t notice the clinging creature until the woman went to an office to do some paperwork.
“I can’t understand why the deputy didn’t see her – she was peeking out,” the woman told The Lynchburg News & Advance.
When the woman referred to a daughter, a puzzled official asked where the daughter was and the woman pulled the monkey out of her bra, the newspaper reported.
Link via Theresa Coleman‘s Facebook page | Photo: Lynchburg News & Advance
Some monkeys have enough self-awareness to realize when they don’t know an answer, and will tell us if we make it worth their time. It appears that uncertainty is not an exclusively human trait.
A team of researchers taught macaques how to maneuver a joystick to indicate whether the pixel density on a screen was sparse or dense. Given a pixel scenario, the monkeys would maneuver a joystick to a letter S (for sparse) or D (for dense). They were given a treat when they selected the correct answer, but when they were wrong, the game paused for a couple seconds. A third possible answer, though, allowed the monkeys to select a question mark, and thereby forgo the pause (and potentially get more treats).
And as John David Smith, a researcher at SUNY Buffalo, and Michael Beran, a researcher at Georgia State University, announced at the AAAS meeting this weekend, the macaques selected the question mark just as humans do when they encounter a mind-stumping question. As Smith told the BBC, “Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error…. They seem to know when they don’t know.”
The same experiment with capuchin monkeys returned different results: they didn’t use the question mark button. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Would you like me to read you the specials? Well, that’s unfortunate because I’m a monkey in a ladymask! Yeah, bet you haven’t seen anything this weird since that stranger gave you those “aspirin” at that Happy Mondays show back in ’94, huh? No, but I’m sure the Health Department is totally OK with this.
This monkey works in a Japanese restaurant like it’s no big deal.
It looks like something from the darkest corners of DeviantArt, but it’s just Japan being Japan.
According to a blog post written by the folks who took the video, the restaurant had terrible service. Imagine.
What is it about interspecies animal friendships that make humans so infatuated? Is it the unlikelihood of the partnerships or the simple cuteness of two different species reflecting so well upon one another? Whatever it is, these adorable animal pairings are simply precious no matter how you look at it.
Perhaps one of the most famous strange animal friendships involves Greg Pike’s three companions, Booger, Kitty and Mousie, who constantly ride on top of one another. His animals were named by a group of school children who Greg gave the opportunity to name.
Pike is a busker who receives monetary compensation from passersby who wish to photograph his bizarre animal trio. He currently resides in San Francisco, but he and his pets previously lived in a small border town in Colorado, Arizona, in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in Santa Barbara, so if you think you may have seen him in person and you happened to be in one of those places, then you almost certainly saw the real act, not an impersonator.
Greg likes to think of them as a symbol of peace, if these three national enemies can get along, why can’t we humans. If you like the act, you can always make a donation via his website.
When Stuart and Caroline Ward bought an owl named Boobah right before her German shepherd, Hazel, gave birth to puppies, they worried the dog would be overprotective of the litter and act aggressive towards the owl. Fortunately, the exact opposite was true. Hazel immediately started to look after her owl friend who took to riding on the dog’s back for rides. The pair soon became inseparable and Boobah even tried to suckle milk from Hazel like the young puppies did.
Many people have seen this image without ever seeing the equally sweet story. The 12 week-old macaque was brought to an animal sanctuary after he was discovered close to death after being abandoned by his mother. After his rescue, his health improved, but he remained listless until he struck up a friendship with an unlikely suspect –a white pigeon. The two were so close keepers almost never found them more than a few feet from one another’s side. The friendship managed to bring the monkey back from the brink and he displayed a whole new attitude.
While some consider cats and dogs to be mortal enemies, it is still fairly common to see the two animals become close friends after living together. As common as cat and dog friendships are, it takes a special bond to capture the interest of a nation, but Cashew and Libby were that close.
Cashew was an older yellow lab that had gone blind and deaf in her old age, but his feline friend, Libby, didn’t let that stand in the way of their friendship. Libby served as a seeing-eye cat for her elderly friend, leading him to his food and watching over him while the pair slept next to each other. The cat would even follow her friend on walks to make sure he got back safely.
After Cashew passed, Libby has shown no interest in other dogs and has been known to hang around at her friend’s favorite nap spots. The cat’s utter loyalty to her friend earner her the Cat of the Year from the ASPCA, a high honor with so many great kitties in the country.
While the header for this one has the makings of a great animal sitcom, it’s actually a true story that warms your heart. It al started when a stray goat and dog were picked up by animal control outside of a wedding chapel in Dallas. They were brought to the East Lake Pet Orphanage, where volunteers soon saw the pair was inseparable. Unfortunately, Texas law requires that abandoned pets must be kept with animals of the same species, so a sheriff’s deputy took away the goat, named Minnelli. If the goat stayed unclaimed, she would have been sold at a livestock auction.
Fortunately, the story already hit the papers and the Dallas County Commissioner assured the public Minnelli would not end up on someone’s dinner table. A few days later, the animal’s owner came forward. The family also owned a three-legged yellow lab and could no longer afford to take care of their animals, so they signed over the rights to all three pets to the East Lake Pet Orphanage.
The shelter received hundreds of adoption requests for the unlikely trio, which they then narrowed down to the five best applicants. Representatives from the shelter visited each home to ensure the pets were given to the best possible candidates. Eventually, they were adopted by Norman and Sandra Williams who owned three acres of land and plenty of other critters to keep their new family members company.
I didn’t know until just now, but December 14th is Monkey Day! {wiki} The day is set aside to raise awareness about monkey issues, monkeys in the news, and ways you can help monkeys (apes and other primates are included as well). In honor of the occasion, holiday founder Casey Sorrow put together a roundup of monkey news, links, and videos from the past year for your education and entertainment. Link
(Image credit: 123 Greetings)
Two baby monkeys named Nehime and Rakan were appointed station masters at a train station in Hyoto prefecture, Japan:
The monkeys, aged seven months and three months, were dressed in blue uniforms made from traditional local fabrics complete with mini hats before being formally appointed station masters and “special city residents” by the local mayor.[...]
It is not the first time in Japan that animals have found themselves at the helm of a railway station: Tama, the tortoiseshell cat, is famous in Japan as a longstanding station master of Kishi station in Wakayama prefecture.
Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Kyodo
India has deployed large langur monkeys in Delhi to serve as security guards during the upcoming Commonwealth Games. They will chase smaller monkeys away from sporting venues in the city:
From Wednesday, 10 langurs will be put on duty outside several Games venues in the Indian capital, with the swimming complex seen as particularly vulnerable to monkey misbehavior, an official said.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has a regular team of 28 langurs which are used to scare away their weaker brethren in VIP areas of the city.[...]
Monkeys are a common sight in the verdant Indian capital, where they routinely scamper through government offices, courts and even police stations and hospitals.
Link via Hit & Run | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user mckaysavage used under Creative Commons license
Authorities at the international airport in Mexico city detained a man because of a strange bulge under his t-shirt. A search revealed that he had 18 tiny monkeys hidden in a girdle underneath!
The Public Safety Department said in a statement Monday that 38-year-old Roberto Cabrera arrived on a commercial flight Friday from Lima, Peru, when authorities noticed the bulge and conducted a body search.
The department says Cabrera was carrying the 6-inch titi monkeys in pouches attached to the girdle.
Two of the monkeys were dead.
Cabrera was arrested on charges of trafficking an endangered species.
Cabrera told authorities he was carrying the monkeys in a suitcase but decided to put them in his girdle “so the X-rays wouldn’t hurt them.”
(Image credit: Flickr user Lea Maimone)
See also: 10 Weird Items People Tried to Smuggle
Ebola has a 90% fatality rate among infected humans. But scientists are hopeful that a successful treatment recently tested on monkeys can be used to develop a human counterpart:
Seven of the nine monkeys in the study received the same amount of the drug over a six-day period. Three of the seven monkeys got the drug every other day, while four received it daily. One monkey in each group served as a control animal and didn’t receive the drug.
Analysis of the treated monkeys revealed that, ten days after having been infected with Ebola, the first group of monkeys had very low levels of the virus in their blood. Researchers were unable to detect the virus at all in the group that had received daily doses.
“The siRNAs inhibited the replication of the virus and completely protected the monkeys against death from hemorrhagic fever,” Geisbert noted. “This has never been done before.”
Link | Image (unrelated): CDC | Previously: A Vaccine for the Ebola Virus?
Studies with apes and monkeys show that the concept of fairness goes beyond human experience. Researchers taught monkeys and chimpanzees to exchange tokens for grapes (which they preferred) or carrots. The exchanges went well when the subject knew what to expect, and when the reward they bought was the same for their cohorts. But when the researcher offered a grape and then delivered a carrot, or when the subject got a different reward from his cohorts, the tantrums began.
However, chimpanzees in this study went beyond the basic tenets of the social contract and demonstrated what could be considered the foundation of social solidarity. In 95 trials chimpanzees that received a grape were significantly more likely to refuse the high-value reward when their group mate only received a carrot (p = 0.008). Even those who benefitted from inequality recognized that the situation was unfair and they refused to enjoy their own reward if it meant someone else had to suffer.
This particular behavior was not seen in the monkeys. Did a sense of fairness evolve along with cooperation among higher primates? Link
(image credit: Flickr user Owen Booth)
Campbell’s monkeys have six basic sounds they make in the wild, but they can string these six sounds together in ways that mean many different things. Researcher Karim Ouattara spent 20 months observing six families of monkeys in the Ivory Coast and figured out what many sequences of calls mean.
With no danger in sight, males make three call sequences. The first – a pair of booms – is made when the monkey is far away from the group and can’t see them. It’s a summons that draws the rest of the group towards him. Adding a krak-oo to the end of the boom pair changes its meaning. Rather than “Come here”, the signal now means “Watch out for that branch”. Whenever the males cried “Boom-boom-krak-oo”, other monkeys knew that there were falling trees or branches around (or fighting monkeys overhead that could easily lead to falling vegetation).
Interspersing the booms and krak-oos with some hok-oos changes the meaning yet again. This call means “Prepare for battle”, and it’s used when rival groups or strange males have showed up. In line with this translation, the hok-oo calls are used far more often towards the edge of the monkeys’ territories than they are in the centre. The most important thing about this is that hok-oo is essentially meaningless. The monkeys never say it in isolation – they only use it to change the meaning of another call.
As complex as their language is, Campbell’s monkeys can only communicate things that they see or experience in the present. Link
Comments Off 
Two male squirrel monkeys were given gene therapy and now the normally color blind animals are able to distinguish between shades of red and green in color vision tests. In normal situations, female squirrel monkeys can see a full range of colors, but males cannot see red or green.
Is this the beginning of the end of monkey sexual discrimination? Only time will tell.
(Links open in a new browser window/tab)
 |
Amazing one-man Looping Song by an Indie Musician
The description of this video says he made it all in one take- and it really makes a great song in the end. Give it a minute for the looping to kick in. |
 |
The Big Bang explained in Two Minutes
Here’s a really nice concise explanation on how the big bang worked – has nice accompanying CGI that helps in the explanation. |
 |
The Sophisticated Hunting Methods of Wild Owls
Amazing, specialized hunting machines – that poor lemming never had a chance. |
 |
Pit Bull Viciously Attacks News Anchor With Love and Slobber
News anchor Randene Neill is repeatedly and savagely licked, almost to death, by a pit bull named Ginger. So much for the pit bull’s nasty reputation. |
 |
Monkeys in a swimming pool
They’re actually great little swimmers, and they stay underwater too. |
For more the web’s most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.
The Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey has a permanent display called “Musical Machines & Living Dolls”, featuring over 700 antique automata, including quite a few fancily-dressed mechanical monkeys from France.
Though largely lost on passing schoolchildren and tourists at the Morris Museum, these monkeys were once a scathing critique on French aristocracy. There is a monkey on a early sort of bicycle called a velocipede, a monkey harpist, a monkey violinist, two small monkey musicians, and an incredible monkey dandy under a large glass dome. All are dressed in fine silks with hair done up in the style of French Royalty. These automata were a post-French-revolution joke on the former rulers and current dandies of France. So popular was the theme of foolish aristocratic monkeys that it was common in French homes, and whole rooms were decorated around the theme.
Read more about the mechanical monkey fad at Curious Expeditions. Link
The Vervet Monkeys of St. kitts are known to raid local bars for a drink or two. Studies have found that the percentage of alcoholism in these monkeys matches the percentage of the human population – most drink in moderation, 12% are steady drinkers, 5% drink to the last drop and some are even teetotalers!
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by dradell.
These pigmy marmoset monkeys are fantastic samples of animals rarely seen in the wild. Their bodies are about 5-6 inches tall and they have claws instead of nails.
I know all animals are beautiful in a “life is beautiful, so are the creatures living it” kind of way, but this Snub-Nosed Monkey is the creepiest thing ever. The lack of lips, the slits for nostrils, it looks like a skull. Gross!
