Latest Nim Chimpsky Stories
While both humans and chimpanzees start out life with key portions of their brains underdeveloped, the rapid growth in these cognitive and decision-making areas that occur in human children are not characteristic of young chimps, a new study has discovered.According to Sindya N. Bhanoo of the New York Times, researchers from Kyoto University in Japan discovered that both species "start out with undeveloped forebrains" but that "the human brain increases in volume much more...
Scientists, wondering for years how long ago our so-called prosocial behavior evolved, have recently found that chimpanzees also have a significant favoritism for prosocial behavior, which is in contrast to previous studies that positioned chimps as reluctant altruists that led to the widely held belief that human altruism evolved in the last six million years only after humans split from apes. In a new paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS),...
Researchers say that evolution of human longevity led to both a large brain and brain shrinkage. A team of researchers sought to find out if a chimpanzee brain shrinks as much as a human's brain does with old age. Chet Sherwood, an anthropologist at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and a team of scientists from seven other U.S. universities used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the space occupied by various brain structures in adult humans and chimpanzee. They...
A study released today gives insight into the evolutionary origins of consciousness. Researchers have long understood that chimpanzees are self-aware and can anticipate the impact of their actions on the environment around them, AFP is reporting. An ability once assumed to be uniquely human, several species of primates and dolphins are able to recognize themselves in a mirror, which would suggest a sophisticated self-awareness. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal...
U.S. lawmakers proposed bills on Wednesday that would ban medical researchers from using chimpanzees in the U.S."Scientists worldwide have halted chimpanzee experiments, because these intelligent creatures suffer immensely and are poor models for researching human diseases," Elizabeth Kucinich, director of government affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, said in a statement. Her research ethics group has campaigned for the bills now being pushed in the...
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Urban Barns Foods Inc. (URBF.OB) ("Company" or "Urban Barns"), a leading authority on sustainable development of fresh fruits and vegetables announced on March 8, 2011 that it has reached an agreement to acquire Non Industrial Manufacturing Inc. (NIM), a developer of a proprietary vertical growing system and related technologies. Today the company announced that recent test results categorically proved that NIM's growing systems...
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Urban Barns Foods Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: URBF) ("Company" or "Urban Barns"), an authority on sustainable development of fresh fruits and vegetables, has acquired a 100% ownership interest in Non Industrial Manufacturing Inc. (NIM), a Canadian Manufacturer of Vertical Farming Equipment. The terms and provisions of the acquisition of NIM provided that Urban Barns acquire from the shareholders of NIM 100% of the total issued and...
PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- This Sunday January 16, NIM is featuring Daisy Khan at its upcoming 28th Annual Interfaith Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Khan, who heads the American Society for Muslim Advancement and along with her husband Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf the development of the Muslim Community Center "Park51" near Ground Zero. The event is being held for the first time in Center City at the Arch Street Presbyterian Church (1724...
Study suggests nonhuman animals also have metacognitive abilities - they know about what they have seenGreat apes "“ orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas "“ realize that they can be wrong when making choices, according to Dr. Josep Call from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Dr. Call's study was just published online in Springer's journal, Animal Cognition.In a series of three experiments, seven gorillas, eight chimpanzees, four bonobos...
When we notice somebody pointing at something, we automatically look in the direction of the gesture. In humans, the ability to understand this type of gesturing (known as declarative communication) may seem to be an automatic response, but it is actually a sign of sophisticated communication behavior. Numerous studies have tried to determine if great apes (for example, chimpanzees and bonobos) are able to understand declarative communication, but results have been mixed.Psychological...
