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the skills to make a lethal weapon.

Ape Genius - which gives a fascinating insight into the depth of intelligence of animals who share 99 per cent of human genes

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And most important of all although they can imitate, they can't teach or build on the achievements others have made - unlike more successful humans.

But if apes have the power to reaso

n, learn skills, feel emotion and co-operate in a frenzied tree-top hunt for Colobus monkeys as chimpanzees do, why don't we have a planet of the apes?

comparative psychology,

animal intelligence

mostly concerns mammals, especially primates, cetaceans, and elephants, as well as dogs, cats, and rodents.

and fish,

began in the late 1950s

John Lilly

other animals do have minds and that humans should approach the study of their cognition accordingly.

bottlenosed dolphins

particularly monkeys

Spatial cognition

The ability to properly navigate and search through the environment is a critical task for many animals.

Research in 2007 shows that chimpanzees in the Fongoli savannah sharpen sticks to use as spears when hunting, considered the first evidence of systematic use of weapons in a species other than humans.

Language

The modeling of human language in animals is known as animal language research.

Consciousness

The sense in which animals can be said to have consciousness or a self-concept has been hotly debated; it is often referred to as the debate over animal minds.

It has been suggested that metacognition in some animals provides some evidence for cognitive self-awareness.[11] The great apes, dolphins, and rhesus monkeys have demonstrated the ability to monitor their own mental states and use an "I don't know" response to avoid answering difficult questions. These species might also be aware of the strength of their memories.

This page was last modified on 26 November 2011 at 11:42.

She brought a one-year-old African gray parrot she named Alex into her lab to teach him to reproduce the sounds of the English language.

They were simply machines, robots programmed to react to stimuli but lacking the ability to think or feel. Any pet owner would disagree.

many scientists believed animals were incapable of any thought.

controversial.

How, then, does a scientist prove that an animal is capable of thinking—that it is able to acquire information about the world and act on it?

Certain skills are considered key signs of higher mental abilities: good memory, a grasp of grammar and symbols, self-awareness, understanding others' motives, imitating others, and being creative.

chimpanzees use a variety of tools to probe termite mounds and even use weapons to hunt small mammals; dolphins can imitate human postures; the archerfish, which stuns insects with a sudden blast of water, can learn how to aim its squirt simply by watching an experienced fish perform the task.

Chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas have been taught to use sign language and symbols to communicate with us, often with impressive results.

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uch capabilities allow humans to enjoy delicious stories with layers of intrigue and gossip,

humans can commonly extend empathy over time and space

exceptions as a mental illness that afflicts humans and animals alike.

obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers ritualistically act out the same behavior again and again.

apolsky suggested two reasons not to worry

ne of the few differences between humans and chimps comes from the amount of cell division for brain cells

human behaviors stand out by reaching levels of complexity unseen in any other part of the animal world, according to a neurobiologist

What makes humans special comes in no small part from the sheer quantity of available brain power – at least 300,000 brain cells for each neuron in a fruit fly brain.

still a hard core of people who are very resistant

doing invasive experiments on animals

made a difference with the way the world views chimpanzees

Has it made a difference in the way scientists view them

It's much better to cling to the old ideas that animals are just little machines and they have stimulus and response

It's a communication

sophisticated brains

haven't during evolution developed a sophisticated spoken language

not capable of planning the distant future

can't

discuss an idea

communication is very immediate

Mike learned to use empty kerosene cans because he was very low ranking

He accidentally hit an empty 4-gallon kerosene can and noticed that other chimps ran away

Within 4 months, he'd risen to the top

never saw him fight

Only Mike capitalized on that and developed the technique and won.

Chimpanzees become sexually mature between the ages of 10 and 13

both have an insatiable appetite for play, are extremely curious, learn through observation and imitation,

The anatomy of the chimpanzee brain and central nervous system is startlingly similar to our own.

Chimpanzees and humans belong to the animal order “primates”

belong to the superfamily hominoid

Chimpanzees and humans belong to the animal order “primates”.

Large brains

opposable thumbs

flexible joints

belong to the superfamily hominoid

chimpanzees and humans share the most similar genetic makeup, sharing 98.6% of our genes.

Females show their first very small sexual swellings at age eight or nine, but are not sexually attractive to the older males until they reach age 10 or 11.

almost every young chimp gets lost from their mother at some point during their exploration.

chimps have a long childhood

Bonds

likely to persist throughout life.

This learning is the means by which certain actions are passed from one generation to the next—the beginnings of culture.

capable of intellectual performances

capable of reasoned thought

memory

symbolic representation

feel and express emotions

chimpanzees can be taught human languages

skills on computers

wide range of complex emotions

possess an almost human-like enjoyment of physical contact, laughter, and community.

chimpanzees can learn from humans

Language is believed to have played a major role:

How did a group of ground-dwelling flightless dinosaurs evolve to a feathered animal capable of flying?

used its feathered limbs, along with a long, feather-fringed tail, to glide from tree to tree.

new species, Microraptor gui

dated at between 128 to 124 million

four feathered limbs,

birds are most closely related to dromaeosaurids

dromaeosaurs were small, feathered animals with forelimbs similar to those of Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird at around 150 million years old, and feet with features comparable to modern tree-living birds.

debate over the origin of flight

Dubbed Microraptor, the crow-sized fossil is one of the smallest dinosaurs ever found

Chinese stone quarry where the fossil was discovered

Artists have historically played an important role in paleontology by helping to reconstruct the appearance and behavior of ancient animals.

For years the debate has been a standoff between two camps—those who believe dinosaurs were the ancestors of birds, and those who do not.

Believers in the dinosaur-bird connection have generally assumed that flight must have begun from the ground up, with fast-running dinosaurs that eventually got airborne as feathered arms evolved into wings,

Skeptics of the bird-dinosaur link say it would have been physically impossible for running dinosaurs to overcome gravity and get off the ground.

Larry Martin

speaks out for the minority view that birds descended from non-dinosaur tree dwellers.

Microraptor is the unexpected missing link that has reignited the debate

we are omnivorous.

same arrangement of internal organs and bones

many of the same diseases

share several important blood types

Unlike apes, our arms are relatively short and weak compared to our legs

modern human brain is 3 times larger in volume

toes became shorter and the big toe moved up into line with the others.

The pelvis

Nature very likely selected for longer legs

downside of the evolutio

we are quite similar to the African apes anatomically and genetically, especially to the chimpanzees and bonobos

minor anatomical differences between humans and apes

46 chromosomes

longer legs require less up-and-down movement while running and, therefore, reduce the amount of energy needed to move rapidly

allow humans to travel farther with the same calorie expenditure

A partial evolutionary solution to this birth difficulty for humans was fetuses being born at a less mature stage, when their bodies are smaller.  The trade off is that human newborn babies are more vulnerable.

Evolving a larger brain comes at a steep energy cost.  The human brain uses about 25% of the energy derived from the nutrients that we consume and 20% of the oxygen.

mental levels equivalent to a 3-4 year old human child

Female chimpanzees, gorillas, and other non-human primates usually remain capable of conception and giving birth even when they are very old

Dayton. Darrow was not the first choice of the ACLU, who was concerned that Darrow's zealous agnosticism might turn the trial into a broadside attack on religion

Judge John T. Raulston, the presiding judge in the Scopes Trial

  William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic candidate for President and a populist, led a Fundamentalist crusade to banish Darwin's theory of evolution from American classrooms

Judge Raulston

A jury of twelve men