Rule number one of monkey fight club is you turn on the humans!

A news story in the California Chronicle reports:

MONKEYS trained in the art of taekwondo turned on their handler – kicking his head in.

LoWung, 42, taught the martial art to primates so they could entertain crowds at a shopping centre in Nshi, China.

But shoppers found it even more entertaining when one sharp monkey floored him with a kick to the head.

Read the full story here.

An excellent article about what your Christmas card list has to do with your brain size. Actually, not just yours, but everyone’s:

… according to anthropologist Robin Dunbar, Ph.D., the social relationships that were forged during the dawn of humanity still influence everything from Christmas card lists to Facebook networks. … Dunbar, head of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford, says the size of the human neocortex puts a limit on the size of our social networks–a limit that can be seen in examples throughout history.

Now, I’m waiting to see the corresponding research from psychologists determining what kind of psychosis you have if your Facebook friend group VASTLY outnumbers 150. You know who you are! Actually, I wonder if these new digital social groups even fit (neocortex-wise) into the same part of the brain as our regular social groups.

By Maggie Koerth-Baker writing at Boing Boing. You can find Maggie’s site here. Chimp pic by tiswango.

A new study in Nature reveals a mutation in a common gene that may help explain why humans developed the ability to speak, while chimps did not. The article also mentions physical differences similar to those mentioned in Marvellous Hairy, as Nick morphs from full human to part monkey:

Frances Vargha-Khadem, head of developmental cognitive neuroscience at the University College London, who wasn’t part of the research, said the study “is very much in line with what we had always suspected.”

Ms. Vargha-Khadem has studied people with other inherited mutations in the gene and their speech and language problems. People with a certain mutation have subtle physical differences in the lower part of the jaw, the tongue and roof of the mouth, and she suspects chimps do, too.

That physical part is important because “you can’t produce the dance unless you have the feet to do the dance,” she said.

Read the full story at the Globe and Mail. Photo by King Chimp.

Or, more accurately, wading through shallow waters? It is a compelling idea, even if there isn’t a lot of evidence to support it, and I think it’s a shame that mainstream science hasn’t taken it a little more seriously. Just because it’s hard to disprove doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a go at it, surely! This fellow seems to have no problems poking holes in the theory.

Cute video explaining that, yes, even monkeys have a sense of fair play. I love the look on the monkey’s face at the first instance of cheating: gobsmacked!

You can find it here if the embedded video busts.

I believe this video is trying to demonstrate the results of the research reported at the New Scientists here: envious monkeys can spot a fair deal:

Monkeys invest less energy in a task if they see other monkeys receiving better rewards for the same effort, researchers report. They say that their experiment provides new evidence that non-human primates can feel envy. The findings could also help explain why humans have such a keen sense of fairness, according to experts.

Though, I’d say from the evidence, humans have a pretty high tolerance to unfairness!