Chimps also suppliment their diet w meat. They get together in groups and hunt another species of monkey (forgot the name).
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Look at the Bonobo, the Peaceful Bonobo
by Satanus 41 Replies latest jw friends
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Satanus
'Spear-hunting stuns researcher The scientists investigated the Fongoli community of savannah-dwelling chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in southeastern Senegal. The researchers saw 10 chimps fashioning spearlike tools to forcibly jab at nocturnal primates known as lesser bushbabies (Galago senegalensis), which sleep inside hollow branches or tree trunks during the day. After their attacks, the chimps sniffed or licked their weapons, as if to see whether they shed blood.
"I was flabbergasted," Pruetz said.
Previously, researchers had spotted one chimpanzee using tools to flush out mammalian prey, specifically employing a branch to rouse a squirrel. However, Pruetz and her colleague, Cambridge biological anthropologist Paco Bertolani, saw something far more complex. The chimps routinely broke off branches, trimmed them of twigs, leaves and bark and sharpened the tips of their spears with their teeth.
There was just one successful attempt in 22 recorded instances of the chimpanzee hunts with their spears. "Still, this involves significantly less energy than in chasing down monkeys, so it is not surprising that it evolved," Pruetz said.
The red colobus monkeys, which are the chimp's favored prey, are absent in the relatively dry savannahs where the chimps live, as is much prey, Pruetz said. This may have spurred efforts to catch meat by other means. Females and juveniles may especially be drawn to hunting "perhaps to exploit niches that adult males haven't, using innovation and creativity to get around competition," Pruetz said.'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17281240/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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Nickolas
I'm surprised by the frequent reference to extraterrestrials on this board. Is it as simple as credulity?
A particularly bright primate came up with relativity theory which, so far, holds unchallenged that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (c) and there are practical limitations to what speeds matter can attain. This means, for there to be extraterrestrials visiting Earth, even if they were as close as alpha centauri, space travel would require at least decades. Alpha centauri is only 4 light years away but it is a binary star system which makes the probability of any form of life in that region of space quite low, never mind life sophisticated enough for long distance space travel. The odds of the kind of goldilocks zone enjoyed by the Earth are very, very low and the probability of life becomes negatively exponential when you factor in the astronomically low odds of abiogenesis. That does not mean there aren't other earths. Even if the odds are one in a billion that might mean 50 earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, but if so they will be statistically hundreds if not thousands of light years away from us, all but ruling out the possibility of space travel within the bounds of relativity theory. SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) has after half a century failed to detect any confirmed transmission indicating intelligent life. The development and transmission of information is a prerequisite to developing even the beginnings of advanced science, and that would include space travel. Radio waves travel in space at or near the speed of light. It follows that if SETI was to discover an intelligible radio transmission, it would a) originate from a distance of at least 50 light years, b) the civilisation that transmitted it would not likely at present have advanced sufficiently for long distance space travel and c) if they had, it would take a century or more to reach us. If sophisticated extraterrestrial civilisations exist, they are very, very far away.
Bonobo musings.
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Satanus
I'm not against the possibility of alien life. It is more likely that it would be on the bacterial level. But, i am really agnostic on the subject.
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Mad Sweeney
"I'm surprised by the frequent reference to extraterrestrials on this board. Is it as simple as credulity?
It is not as improbable as you make it seem. Relativity isn't the end-all of physics research and the light barrier will either be broken or circumvented. We're going to do it and if we as dopey primates figure it out you can bet advanced civilizations have done it, too.
As for the odds of there being life elsewhere, we're finding more and more that abiogenesis is less and less unlikely and eventually I wouldn't be surprised to find that it is actually LIKELY and not only in earthlike situations.
So aliens with our current understanding of physics who live really far away aren't coming here any time soon. Thanks for clearing that up. I think we already knew that, though.
We simply don't know enough to say aliens can't come here. We do know that scientists a lot brighter than you or I are spending time, money, and other resources investigating the possibility of life in the university. Why? If it is such an absurd concept, why are they doing the research?
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VampireDCLXV
A particularly bright primate came up with relativity theory which, so far, holds unchallenged that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (c) and there are practical limitations to what speeds matter can attain......
Yes, that is our current understanding of the laws of physics ATM. That doesn't mean that there aren't as yet undiscovered loopholes. As MS just eloquently stated, relativity isn't the be-all\end-all of physics research and it might be possible for the light barrier to be circumvented. Have you ever followed any of the more current Star Trek series' at all? They at least give us a clue about what MIGHT be possible...
V665
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Satanus
Some of the moons in our own solar system are seen as targets for exploration for life. One is thought to be covered in ice, w likely, water beneath that.
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Satanus
So, if we were like the bonobos, we wouldn't bother w space exploration. Since, many of us tend toward the nonbonobo chimp, we have space exploration, and exploitation.
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Nickolas
Oh, I believe that life exists in the universe, MS. It's entirely conjectural, of course, but logic tells me that if it happened here (without the intercession of a Creator) it can and must have happened elsewhere. But the universe is a very big place and that alone complicates the question of space travel much more than the probability of abiogenesis, whether carbon based or silicon based or whatever based.
As to c, well, I bow to the thoughts of a scientist who is much, much more intelligent than you or me:
"The idea that one could go right round the universe and end up where one started makes good science fiction,but it doesn’t have much practical significance, because it can be shown that the universe would recollapse to zero size before one could get round. You would need to travel faster than light in order to end up where you started before the universe came to an end – and that is not allowed!" Stephen Hawking: A Brief History of Time
Anybody got any bananas?
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VampireDCLXV
Yes, Nickolas, Stephen Hawking IS brilliant indeed, but his musings on the subject are not the be-all\end-all of physics research either...
V665
