Chimpanzees Stick to Gender Stereotypes
The nature vs nurture debate is one of science’s longer-running questions, and it doesn’t seem likely it will be settled any time soon. But a newly-published study shows the issue isn’t confined to the human race.
Sonya Kahlenberg of Bates College, Maine, and Richard Wrangham of Harvard University have published an article in Current Biology showing evidence of a gender divide among young chimpanzees. It’s the first time such a study has been carried out involving chimps in the wild rather than in captivity.
The study, which was carried out over 14 years, considered the way chimps in Kibale National Park in Uganda used sticks for four main activities: to probe holes that might contain water or honey; as a weapon (either thrown, used to strike, or simply brandished); for play; and as a simple object to carry around.
The study found that young females (data shown below with circles) were much more likely to simply carry a stick than males (shown with triangles), but that the divide largely disappeared once the chimpanzees reached their teens.
The researchers’ theory is that the stick carrying is the equivalent to human children carrying dolls. One point backing that idea is that those chimpanzees that simply carried sticks were much more likely to keep hold of them in day-nests than those who used sticks for other purposes. Another was that among females who carried sticks, the practice consistently ceased when they gave birth for the first time.
That latter point may be the most important. Other case studies have shown that young female chimpanzees are much more likely to ape (sorry…) their mother’s behavior than males are, but by definition that can’t be the explanation here. That suggests that young chimps may be learning the action — and that it should be a female action — purely from social norms among their peers, a practice that has normally only been associated with humans.
Male chimps did have their own use for natural resources: as well as being slightly more likely to use sticks as weapons, they were considerably more likely to use leaves to wipe their genitals after copulation.
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WiiPad Slim Plus 7 inch Android tablet giveaway
The WiiPad Slim Plus is a 7 inch Android tablet with an ARM11-based processor and Google Android 2.1 operating system. It’s hardly a state of the art machine, but it comes with the Android Market preloaded and can run many (but not all) modern third party Android apps.
It gets pretty lousy battery life, has resistive touchscreen display, and a pretty lousy button layout. But as I stated in my recent review, it’s actually a much better device than most of the 7 inch tablets available in its $150 price range.
But if that still seems like a lot of money to spend on an imperfect product, I’ve got a deal for you: I’m giving away the demo unit WiiPad sent me to review.
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below. This contest will run through 12:01AM on Wednesday, December 29th.
Because I’m footing the bill for shipping, this contest is limited to US residents. If you live in another country and are willing to cover the costs of shipping, feel free to enter anyway, but I’ll only cover domestic shipping. If you’re selected as winner, I’ll contact you via email, Twitter, or Facebook, so make sure to use valid credentials when you login to leave a comment. If I don’t hear from you within 24 hours I may choose another winner.
WiiPad Slim Plus 7 inch Android tablet giveaway is a post from: Liliputing
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