Could Nim do this?
Back in the 1970s, a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky took part in a Columbia University research study called "Project Nim."
Project Nim was led by Herbert Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia who was attempting to find out if a chimpanzee could learn to communicate using American Sign Language.
"Everyone knows that words are learned one at a time," but something happens when children begin to combine words and create true language, Terrace says.
Ask Frans de Waal
Over at the Freakonomics blog, the primatologist Frans de Waal answers readers questions on ...how polygamist sects mimic the mating systems of animals, and why bonobos eat after sex, amongst other things.
Chimpanzees aren’t endangered because they’re on TV
This week in Science - The inappropriate use and protrayal of Chimpanzees:
In 2005, a survey (see the table, left side) was conducted at the Regenstein Center for African Apes (RCAA) at the Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago, IL). (...) The final question of the survey asked respondents to select which of three great ape species (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans) were considered endangered in the wild. Of those choices, 95% of respondents thought gorillas were endangered, 91% thought orangutans were endangered, but only 66% believed chimpanzees to be endangered. (...) Respondents were informed that, in fact, all three great apes were classified as endangered and then asked for a reason why they thought a particular ape was not considered in this category. No prompting with answers was provided, and all responses were recorded by the interviewer. Of the 250 respondents who were willing to provide explanations for their choice, the most common reason for the category chosen (35%) was that chimpanzees were commonly seen on television, advertisements, and movies and, therefore, must not be in jeopardy.
Dear Zoo Visitor…
Dear Zoo Visitor:
Sorry to hear about your disappointment during your visit, but, yes, “sexual” behavior is normal for bonobos in the wild, including juveniles. In fact, most behaviors, obviously all those involving juveniles, that involve two or more bonobos in “sexual” activity are not really sexual in the sense of procreation, rather they are social. “Homosexual” behavior in bonobos like what you may have witnessed is not analogous to that seen in humans, regarding either intentions or anatomy. It appears that much of the sexual activity is a form of bonding, appeasement and displacement that replaces some of the grooming and aggression seen in other species.
Distinct genomic signatures of adaptation in pre- and postnatal environments during human evolution
Uddin et al in today's PNAS:
The human genome evolution project seeks to reveal the genetic underpinnings of key phenotypic features that are distinctive of humans, such as a greatly enlarged cerebral cortex, slow development, and long life spans. This project has focused predominantly on genotypic changes during the 6-million-year descent from the last common ancestor (LCA) of humans and chimpanzees.
Here, we argue that adaptive genotypic changes during earlier periods of evolutionary history also helped shape the distinctive human phenotype. Using comparative genome sequence data from 10 vertebrate species, we find a signature of human ancestry-specific adaptive evolution in 1,240 genes during their descent from the LCA with rodents.
We also find that the signature of adaptive evolution is significantly different for highly expressed genes in human fetal and adult-stage tissues. Functional annotation clustering shows that on the ape stem lineage, an especially evident adaptively evolved biological pathway contains genes that function in mitochondria, are crucially involved in aerobic energy production, and are highly expressed in two energy-demanding tissues, heart and brain.
Also, on this ape stem lineage, there was adaptive evolution among genes associated with human autoimmune and aging-related diseases. During more recent human descent, the adaptively evolving, highly expressed genes in fetal brain are involved in mediating neuronal connectivity. Comparing adaptively evolving genes from pre- and postnatal-stage tissues suggests that different selective pressures act on the development vs. the maintenance of the human phenotype.
Paper: Distinct genomic signatures of adaptation in pre- and postnatal environments during human evolution, (doi)
Mobile DNA elements in primate and human evolution
Roughly 50% of the primate genome consists of mobile, repetitive DNA sequences such as Alu and LINE1 elements. The causes and evolutionary consequences of mobile element insertion, which have received considerable attention during the past decade, are reviewed in this article. Because of their unique mutational mechanisms, these elements are highly useful for answering phylogenetic questions.
We demonstrate how they have been used to help resolve a number of questions in primate phylogeny, including the human-chimpanzee-gorilla trichotomy and New World primate phylogeny. Alu and LINE1 element insertion polymorphisms have also been analyzed in human populations to test hypotheses about human evolution and population affinities and to address forensic issues. Finally, these elements have had impacts on the genome itself. We review how they have influenced fundamental ongoing processes like nonhomologous recombination, genomic deletion, and X chromosome inactivation.
From: Mobile DNA elements in primate and human evolution (abstract).