Word: aping
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Well, I love animals. I have to have them in my life, dogs in particular. I just find them endlessly interesting and funny and moving. In the Al Jolson story, the first story I wrote, I had followed ape language experiments for many years—I just was interested in them. And I got to meet Coco in California many years ago, the gorilla who was taught sign language and that was a truly life-changing experience, sitting down with this gorilla who could communicate with me. Yeah, it was extraordinary. So, I’d heard about this...
...despite being "so close to the split," says White, the surprising thing is that she bears little resemblance to chimpanzees, our closest living primate relatives. The elusive common ancestor's bones have never been found, but scientists, working from the evidence available - especially analyses of Australopithecus and modern African apes - envisioned Great-Great-Grandpa to have looked most nearly like a knuckle-walking, tree-swinging ape. But "[Ardi is] not chimplike," according to White, which means that the last common ancestor probably wasn't either. "This skeleton flips our understanding of human evolution," says Kent State University anthropologist C. Owen...
...making her roughly twice as heavy as Lucy. The structure of Ardi's upper pelvis, leg bones and feet indicates she walked upright on the ground, while still retaining the ability to climb. Her foot had an opposable big toe for grasping tree limbs but lacked the flexibility that apes use to grab and scale tree trunks and vines ("Gorilla and chimp feet are almost like hands," says Lovejoy), nor did it have the arch that allowed Australopithecus and Homo to walk without lurching side to side. Ardi had a dexterous hand, more maneuverable than a chimp's, that made...
...Hare and others raises is why chimpanzees--who are in most ways much smarter than dogs--lack the ability to read gestures. Hare believes that the chimps' poor performance is one more piece of proof that the talent is rooted not in raw intelligence but in personality. Our ape cousins are simply too distracted by their aggression and competitiveness to fathom gestures easily. Chimps can cooperate to get food that they can't get on their own, but if there's the slightest chance for them to fight over it, they will. For humans to evolve as we did, Hare...
Thus as the May 2010 presidential election approaches, Uribe is focused on changing the Constitution so he can run for a third term while the other candidates are vowing to ape his security policies while failing to focus on the blind spots - like the alarming number of displaced persons. "People think things are going so well so they would rather not admit there's a problem," says Rojas, of Codhes. "It's the politics of sticking your head in the sand...