Scientists at the center of a multimedia maelstrom announced Tuesday that a 47-million-year-old fossil may represent the common ancestor of all primates, ranging from humans and apes to lemurs.
One of the largest great ape research centers in North America needs more than $1 million to recover from damage suffered in Iowa's record June floods.
Mopie looked the picture of ape fitness: His shoulders were broad and imposing, his silver-haired back sculpted and muscular, his biceps bulging as wide as a wrestler's thighs when he scratched his head.
It was both the king of the swingers and a tree-walker. A new study of an extinct ape suggests it had the hands to both swing from branches and walk along them on all fours. But no one knows whether it was an evolutionary dead end or a key step in the evolution of the tree-dwelling lifestyle led by modern orang-utans.
The eight bonobos at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa howled Tuesday as they watched two trumpeter swans dip into a lake for the first time. Who can blame them? Not only will the apes get new neighbors, they'll get a chance to name the rare birds. "They were very excited," said scientist Karyl Swartz. "It's something new in their environment."
Whales may share our kind of intelligence, researchers say after discovering brain cells previously found only in humans and other primates.
Happy the elephant in front ofthe test mirrors (Image: Joshua Plotnik, Frans de Waal, Diana Reiss)
Scientists find it easy to explain why we resemble the African apes so closely by pointing out that gorillas, chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor.
Great apes laugh like humans when they are tickled, claim scientists, in a study that suggests the origins of laughter can be traced back more than 16 million years.
Called Anoipithecus brevirostris, this short-faced ape was recently discovered in 11.9 million-year-old (Middle Miocene) strata in Spain.
Researchers who tickled 25 juvenile apes – including three human infants – and recorded the sounds they made say that laughter seems to be shared by all great apes. That would mean laughter dates back some 10 to 16 million years, to our common ancestor.
This video may be too graphic for some. It is not that graphic by the BBC. Another tape shows some apes and one having escaped from a trap. Other animals are also taken. The protected species act does not help them there.
This is from a talk by Jane Goodall. She says that China is trying to take over the forests in Africa for the wood, etc. They are doing it by bribing the countries. The apes are already in danger from plundering and war.
A stunning series of animal pictures from around the world.
Some genes just won't stay dead. Between 40 million and 50 million years ago, a slice of DNA called IRGM stopped functioning in the ancestors of modern-day monkeys.
The 2 percent genetic difference between us and primates is comprised mainly of muscle and insanity. Hollywood has made its own case for why we should fear the furry ones.
Travis' mom, was gunned down in 2001 by a teenager after she and two other primates escaped their Missouri ranch and wreaked havoc on the tiny town of Festus leading to a trial that ended with the conviction of the chimps killer.
Monkeys and apes have a sense of morality and fairness, new research has found. Scientists have discovered that the furry swingers can tell right from wrong, offer selfless help and empathise with fellow animals in times of trouble.
A restaurant in Japan has some unusual waiting staff on its books - two macaque monkeys. Yatchan and Fukuchan serve customers hot towels and drinks, and are given soya beans as tips.
Stéphan Reebs reported in the September 2008 issue for Natural History Magazine,
For decades, people referred to the non-coding bits of DNA between genes as junk DNA. Then, in the eighties scientists discovered that some of that junk DNA served an important purpose.
July 18, 2008 -- All four great apes -- humans, chimps, gorillas and orangutans -- have vocal tract air sacs evolved for calling out to others over long distances.
If you caught your son burning ants with a magnifying glass, would it bother you less than if you found him torturing a mouse with a soldering iron? How about a snake? How about his sister?
Spain's parliament recently passed a resolution granting legal rights to apes. Reaction has been mixed. If apes are given the right to humane treatment, it just might become harder to deny that same right to their human cousins.
Al Jazeera aired this report a few days ago on the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax, Virginia (whose textbooks were revealed to be teaching hatred of non-Muslims).
By Martin Roberts MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for...
Great apes should have the right to life and freedom, according to a resolution passed in Spanish parliament, in what could become the first national legislation to enshrine human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos.
Chimps and orangutans plan for the future just like us. They are capable of exercising self-control to postpone gratification and to imagine future events via "mental time travel," according to new research from Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden...
The appearance of the hyoid bone in the humanoid fossil record occurred possibly 800,000 years ago.
I know who I am and I know that I know who I am. In the language of psychology, this means I am a conscious being, someone who thinks rather than reacts. Someone who takes in her surroundings and processes that information, milling it over in the mind, thinking about it.
"Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad.