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Paleontologists Discover Skeleton Of Nature’s First Sexual Predator

Paleontologists Discover Skeleton Of Nature’s First Sexual Predator

Signs of the approach of Spring

A Juvenile Anna's Humming Bird sips from a purple Snapdraggon...

Rock-throwing zoo chimp

stocked ammo in advance: study

March 10, 2009
Courtesy Cell Press
and World Science staff

Re­search­ers have found what they call some of the first un­am­big­u­ous ev­i­dence that an an­i­mal oth­er than hu­mans can make spon­ta­ne­ous plans for fu­ture events.

The re­port in the March 9 is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Cur­rent Bi­ol­o­gy high­lights a dec­ade of ob­serva­t­ions in a zoo of a male chim­pan­zee calmly col­lect­ing stones and fash­ion­ing con­crete discs that he would lat­er hurl at zoo vis­i­tors.

The chimp Santino at the Fu­ru­vik Zoo in Swe­den clutches a stone in his left hand in preparation for a launch. (Im­age cour­tesy Cell Press/Ma­thi­as Os­vath)

“These ob­serva­t­ions con­vinc­ingly show that our fel­low apes do con­sid­er the fu­ture in a very com­plex way,” said Ma­thi­as Os­vath of Lund Uni­ver­s­ity in Swe­den.

“It im­plies that they have a highly de­vel­oped con­scious­ness, in­clud­ing life-like men­tal sim­ula­t­ions of po­ten­tial events. They most prob­ab­ly have an ‘in­ner world’ like we have when re­view­ing past episodes of our lives or think­ing of days to come. When wild chimps col­lect stones or go out to war, they prob­ab­ly plan this in ad­vance. I would guess that they plan much of their ever­yday be­hav­ior.”

The chimp, named Santi­no, lived dur­ing the events at the Fu­ru­vik Zoo in Swe­den, where he was moved at age 5 af­ter hav­ing been born at the Mu­nich Zoo in West Ger­ma­ny in 1978. The stone-throw­ing ob­serv­a­tions be­gan in the late 1990s.

While re­search­ers have seen many ape be­hav­iors that could in­volve plan­ning, it gen­er­ally has­n’t been pos­si­ble to judge wheth­er they were really meet­ing a cur­rent or fu­ture need, Os­vath said.

For in­stance, when a chimp breaks a twig for ter­mite fish­ing or col­lects a stone for nut crack­ing, it can al­ways be ar­gued that they are mo­ti­vat­ed by im­me­di­ate rath­er than fu­ture cir­cum­stances.

And that’s what makes the newly de­scribed case so spe­cial, Os­vath said. It is clear that the chim­p’s plan­ning be­hav­ior is not based on a “cur­rent drive state.” In con­trast to the chim­p’s ex­treme agita­t­ion when throw­ing the stones, he was al­ways calm when col­lect­ing or ma­n­u­fac­tur­ing his am­mu­ni­tion. Zoo staff took extensive mea­sures to head off the as­saults by find­ing and clear­ing San­ti­no’s caches, Os­vath noted.

Os­vath said he thinks wild chimps in gen­er­al, as well as oth­er an­i­mals, pro­bab­ly have the plan­ning abil­ity San­ti­no dem­on­strat­ed. In­deed, ex­pe­ri­ments con­ducted re­cently with oth­er cap­tive chimps sug­gested they’re ca­pa­ble of mak­ing such plans, but some have ar­gued those find­ings may result from fac­tors parti­cular to the test set­up.

“I think that wild chim­pan­zees might be even bet­ter at plan­ning as they probably rely on it for their daily sur­vival,” Os­vath said. “The en­vi­ron­ment in a zoo is far less com­plex than in a for­est. Zoo chimps nev­er have to en­coun­ter the dan­gers in the for­est or live through per­i­ods of scarce food. Plan­ning would prove its val­ue in ‘real life’ much more than in a zoo.”

“The be­haviours al­so hint at a par­al­lel to hu­man ev­o­lu­tion, where si­m­i­lar forms of stone ma­nipula­t­ion con­sti­tute the most an­cient signs of cul­ture,” Os­vath wrote in the stu­dy. “Finds as old as 2.6 mil­lion years sug­gest that ho­minins [hu­man an­ces­tors] car­ried and ac­cu­mu­lat­e stone arte­facts on cer­tain sites, pre­sumably a case of fu­ture need plan­ning

time and again...

Martha Mccalum on fox news asked Rep. Boner and then Areola Flesher why didn't all the Bumblicans get together and take all their little earmarks out of the Omnibus bill and make a statement to the publice and each time she got nothing but political babble...and come to think about it, what with all the attention John Mccainiac is trying to muster he is not screaming at the Bums as well...Michael Steele and Rush Limpbutt can argue about minutia and enui but I don't hear them chiding their contemporaries on the right side of the aisle for their Pork and Beans gluttony either...

 

If the Bums were genuinely outraged by the size of this bill they should unilaterally withdraw all their earmarks instead of leaving them in and then voting against the bill so that their CONstituencies think they are being fiscally responsible...all the while feeding at the traugh with the best of them...

now take a moment and visit the Jimbozone.com 

HOW TO CALL THE POLICE WHEN YOU'RE OLD

George Phillips of Meridian, Mississippi was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he'd left the
light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George
opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in
the shed stealing things.    He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in
your house?"   He said "No."  Then they said "All patrols
were busy.  You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is
available."  George said, "Okay"  He hung up the phone and
counted to 30.   Then he phoned the police again. "Hello, I just called you
a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well,
you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot them." and
hung up. Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a Heli copter, two
Fire Trucks, a Paramedic, and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips'
residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.   One of the Policemen said to
George, "I thought you said that you shot them!" George said, "I
thought you said there was nobody available!"   (True Story)    I LOVE IT!
Don't mess with old people!

now take a moment and visit the Jimbozone.com 

Fridays

A husband and wife came for counseling after 20 years of marriage. When asked what the problem was the wife went into a passionate painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 20 years they had been married.

 

She went on and on and on: neglect lack of intimacy emptiness loneliness feeling unloved and unlovable an entire laundry list of unmet needs she had endured over the course of their marriage.

 

Finally after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of time the therapist got up walked around the desk and after asking the wife to stand embraced and kissed her passionately as her husband watched with a raised eyebrow. The woman shut up and quietly sat down as though in a daze.

 

The therapist turned to the husband and said' This is what your wife needs at least three times a week. Can you do this?'

 

The husband thought for a moment and replied 'well I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays but on Fridays I fish

now take a moment and visit the Jimbozone.com 

10 things you should know about Obama's plan

The plan:

1. Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.¹
   
2. Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.²
   
3. Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.³
   
4. Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.⁴
   
5. Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.⁵
   
6. Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies. ⁶
   
7. Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.⁷
   
8. Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.⁸
   
9. Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.⁹
   
10. Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.¹⁰

Pretty amazing, right? Can you pass this on to your personal network too, to make sure everyone knows how far-reaching and progressive Obama's plan is?

Thanks!

P.S. Turns out there are way more than 10 amazing things in Obama's budget and we couldn't resist sharing just a few more.

1. Stops unnecessary government subsidies to big banks, health insurance companies and big agribusinesses.^11,12,13
   
2. Expands access to early childhood education and improves schools by investing in programs that make sure every child has a qualified, strong teacher.¹⁴
   
3. Negotiates for better prescription drug prices using Medicaid's tremendous bargaining power.¹⁵
   
4. Expands access to family planning for low-income women.¹⁶
   
5. Caps the pollution that causes global warming, and makes polluters pay to support clean energy innovation.¹⁷
   

Sources:

1. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-health.html

2. "Obama Expects Fight Over $3.55 Trillion Budget Plan," Bloomberg News, February 28, 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiLyabbGqJBo&refer=home

3. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/energy_sunshine.html

4. "The Economic Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan," The New York Times, March 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/weekinreview/01glanz.html

5. "Tax Cuts," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-tax.html

6. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/energy_sunshine.html

7. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

8. "Obama unveils budget blueprint," CNN, February 26, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/26/budget/

9. "Obama budget would boost SEC, CFTC, FBI," Reuters, February 26, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE51P5RD20090226

10. "Obama's budget," Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-budget27-2009feb27,0,2535327.story

11. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

12. "Health Insurance Stocks Dive on Medicare Advantage Cuts," The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/02/26/health-insurance-stocks-dive-on-medicare-advantage-cuts/

13. "Agriculture," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-agri.html

14. "Investing Wisely in Our Children," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/education_budget.html

15. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-health.html

16. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-health.html

17. "Setting 'Green' Goals," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-energy.html

now take a moment and visit the Jimbozone.com