Visual Nomads

Wow, this is actually kinda scary in a way. Chimps have learned to break sticks off, sharpen them with their teeth, and use them to hunt with.

Spear-wielding chimps snack on skewered bushbabies

In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen living in caves and hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate.

Many chimpanzees trim twigs to use for ant-dipping and termite-fishing. But a population of savannah chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) living in the Fongoli area of south-east Senegal have been seen making spears from strong sticks that they sharpen with their teeth. The average spear length is 63 centimeters (25 inches), says Jill Pruetz at Iowa State University in Ames, US, who observed the behavior with Paco Bertolani, of the University of Cambridge, UK.

And the method of procuring food with these tools is not simply extractive, as it is when harvesting insects. It is far more aggressive. They use the spears to hunt one of the cutest primates in Africa: bushbabies (Galago senegalensis).

Along the same lines, scientist have been able to give a chimp a robotic arm which he controls with his brain.

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I know what you’re thinking… 2 posts in 1 day? Normally I’m lucky if I can post 2 in 1 week. What can I say? I find myself with a lot of time on my hands lately.

For some reason the progress bar doesn’t work on this one. Deal with it.

This is another clip I found on Foo‘s site.

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Here is another one on how those damn carnies make their money.

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I like to watch a little YouTube in my abundance of time off, and one of the series I like to watch is from the UK about hustling. They tell you all the little tricks people use to hustle people and explain how its done. Its pretty interesting.

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