How chimpanzees are just like humans: They laugh at jokes to bond even if they are not funny

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Having a giggle: Chimpanzees appeared to use laughter to strengthen social bonds, just like humans


Chimpanzees mimic the laughter of their playmates even if they do not find the situation as funny, scientists said today.

Research by Dr Marina Davila-Ross, of the University of Portsmouth, has shown that the apes do not just ape the expressions of their social partners.

The psychologist said the chimpanzees appeared to use laughter to strengthen social bonds, just like humans.

She said this showed that great apes had a more complex social use of expressions than previously thought.

Dr Davila-Ross said: 'Humans clearly use laughter as an important response in a wide range of social situations, but it is particularly interesting that chimpanzees seem to also use laughter to respond in such distinct ways.


Research: Dr Marina Davila-Ross's (right) study examined laughter in 59 chimpanzees living in four groups in the chimpanzee sanctuary Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage in Zambia


'Great apes' ability to manage the sounds they make seems to be much more limited than humans and other animals, and even parrots.

'Nonetheless, their laughter might be partly managed and partly automatic.

'They do not just mimic the expressions of their playmates; they respond with their expressions in more complex ways than we were aware of before.


Play time: Dr Davila-Ross added that the apes had to be part of the fun to start laughing and would not just laugh by hearing other apes laughing nearby


'We found their responsive laughter shows a similarity to the conversational laughter of humans.

'Both are shorter than spontaneous laughter and both seem designed to promote social interaction.

'These sorts of responses may lead to important advantages in co-operation and social communication - qualities that help explain why laughter and smiles have become integral tools of emotional intelligence in humans.'

'Since then, the ability to control laughter must have drastically increased, along with its adaptive advantages, which explains why laughter has become a highly sophisticated, ubiquitous tool of co-operation and social communication in humans.'


source: dailymail

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Apestronaut! Meet Ham, the chimp recruited by the U.S. 50 years ago to help beat Russia in the space race

By BILL MOULAND

The right stuff: Ham is bolted into his capsule on top of the rocket that will blast him over 150 miles into space


He may sound like a comic book character from the age of Dan Dare, but Ham the astro-chimp had a serious purpose.

One of a squadron of 40 chimpanzees specially trained by the U.S. to make a monkey out of the Soviet Union’s attempt to win the space race, Ham made history 50 years ago as the first chimp to be launched into space.

With the Russians inching ever closer to the Holy Grail of sending a human into orbit, the Americans decided to use a three-year-old chimp — in the style of a gas-detecting canary in a mine — to find out whether humans would be able to survive in space.

The Soviet Union had previously sent dogs into space, but the U.S. chose chimps because of their similarities to humans.

Originally from Cameroon in Africa, and once the star attraction at a Florida zoo, Ham was purchased by the United States Air Force to boldly go where only fruit flies, rhesus monkeys and a dog called Laika had gone before.

Laika was a Russian hound who became the first animal to orbit the earth in November 1957 aboard the Sputnik 2 satellite. She survived for seven days before her oxygen ran out.

The difference with Ham — whose name was taken from the initials of the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center in New Mexico, where he was housed — was that he would not only go up into space, but also come down again safely.


Laid back: Ham appeared just as relaxed while preparing for take-off (left) as he did having come back down to earth


He and his fellow chimps were prepared for the flight for two-and-a-half years, and taught to complete simple tasks in response to lights and sounds. Pushing a lever within five seconds of seeing a flashing blue light earned him a banana pellet; failure gave him a mild electric shock to the soles of his feet.

Teams of white-coated scientists put the apes to the test on machines that measured the stresses they could cope with in terms of gravity, velocity and heat. They were even fed the diet of banana capsules that would sustain them in space.

On January 31, 1961, Ham was launched on Mission MR-2 — but almost immediately there was a hitch. The flight path was a degree higher than it should have been, meaning the craft reached an altitude of 157 miles above the earth — higher than the planned target of 115, and oxygen levels began to drop.

For six minutes of the flight, Ham was weightless as the capsule sped across the sky at around 5,000mph.

It splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean 16 minutes and 39 seconds later, and when rescuers reached it, Ham gratefully accepted an apple and half an orange.


Testing time: Ham, wearing his military dog tags, undergoes medical tests


He was unharmed by his adventure, and went to live at the National Zoo in Washington for 17 years. He died at North Carolina Zoo at the age of 25.

The space race didn’t end with his flight, though. Although the Americans could claim they had put a primate into space, the Russians argued that the flight was only sub-orbital — in other words, it hadn’t gone right round the world.

On April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin entered the history books when he became the first man in space aboard Vostok 1.

The Americans followed a month later on May 5 when Alan B. Shepard became their first astronaut. By then, Ham already had his feet up.


source: dailymail

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