Friday, February 23, 2007

Closer Than We Ever Dreamed

It won't be much longer, my friend.
In what could be the bombshell news story of the year, a team of researchers in Africa found out that chimpanzees make their own spears and use them while hunting.
Here is what the Tribune wrote about the development:
The chimps were repeatedly seen using their hands and teeth to tear the side branches off long straight sticks and peeling back the bark and sharpening one end of the sticks with their teeth, the researchers report in Thursday's online issue of the journal Current Biology. Then, grasping the weapon in a "power grip," they jabbed into tree-branch hollows where bush babies — small monkey-like mammals — sleep during the day...
Lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University in Ames said it reminded her of the shower scene in "Psycho."
In case you're not yet overwhelmed with pride and jubilation: THE APES ARE MAKING THEIR OWN FUCKING SPEARS AND THEN THEY ARE HUNTING WITH THEM!!!
Ahhh... It brings a tear to our eye and a hot piping to our ass, seeing our little 4-thumbed cousins finally getting some credit. We are blown away.
Absolutely blown away.
While it was a widely-known fact that monkeys throw rocks and use shells as tools in their lives, never before has anyone witnessed apes creating and using their own tools. What a breakthrough! While it is true that the apes were not very good at using the spears, the simple fact that they are capable of this kind of activity is impressive enough.
So, 30 years from now, you know what we can expect:
Monkey butlers for everybody!
We can see it now: A team of highly trained monkeys for every citizen. Monkeys wash your windows, do your laundry, change your oil, keep pesky squirrels out of your trees. It would be heaven on Earth. What kind of monkeys would they be? Squirrel monkeys? Spider monkeys? Capuchins? Marmosets?
And how would we dress them? There would certainly be hats, but would there be name tags? Shoes? Walkie-talkies?
As usual, our friend Casey over at monkeydaynews was all over this story like stink on a monkey.

Yo no soy marinero.

In other news, a beaver was spotted in New York City today. This is important, because beavers have not been seen in NYC for about 200 years. And apparently, this is a big deal because the city flag has some sort of amphibious rodent on it.

So when citizens spotted the beaver swimming in the Bronx River, they did what anybody would do: They named the beaver Jose.

Now, dear reader, you may be wondering why that beaver story even got a mention. Well, we'll level with you: We don't really have a good answer to that question. All we can say in our defense is this: Some of the crap you find in the news is much more pointless.

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