(Photo: Jonas Löwgren)
Nine chimpanzees who grew up in a Dutch safari park would issue what BBC News calls “an excited, high-pitched” sound when asking for apples. In 2010, when they arrived at their new home in a zoo in Edinburgh, Scotland, they found that phrase ineffective. Scottish apes apparently use “a disinterested grunt.” But within 3 years, these chimpanzees were grunting the Scottish way. This indicates that chimpanzees can use grunts as human words--changeable expressions representing concepts:
The findings, reported in the journal Current Biology, suggest that when chimp grunts refer to objects, they can function in a surprisingly similar way to human words - instead of simply being governed by how the chimp feels about the object.
Indeed, our ability to learn new "words" from our peers might date back to a shared ancestor with chimpanzees, some six million years ago.
Of course, we'll only know that they're true Scotsmen if they wear their kilts regimental style.
-via Adrienne Crezo
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The awe of it quickly dwindles once you're there b/c everything looks exactly like everything else except for the big spots.
Doesn't help that all of the tourist trap stores really sucks away any kind of romantic atmosphere the place might have.
Venice does NOT suck, I went there twice, and sure if you go with a tourist/romantic mind it's no good, too much souvenir shops, and way too much tourists in the known spots. You have to get away from the usual circuit and discover the city and the islands by yourself. If you're not interested in architecture, history, food or beauty don't bother, visit Paris or something like that...
It awed me for about an hour, and after that, I just wanted to leave. We did break away from the tourist-y areas but that didn't help much either b/c it still all looked exactly the same as everything else.
*shrugs*
I thought Verona was a much better area to visit. Hated the fake Romeo & Juliet spots my DH insisted that we see though.
Trieste(sp?) was the best place we went to in Italy. Well, the castle there? Not sure what it's called. Very pretty w/ the giant garden that we got to walk through.