This image highlights the fibers in an owl monkey’s hippocampus, a brain structure that lies at the heart of our ability to learn and remember. The red and white fibers are entering the hippocampus. “There is clearly extraordinary three-dimensional structure to the connections of the hippocampus, which is presumably important in coding information,” says Wedeen. “Only in a few instances do we know what the organization of these fiber bundles is.”
New Scientist has an article on a forgotten Russian experiment to produce an ape/man mix.
In November, Ivanov returned to Guinea, captured his chimps and with considerable difficulty eventually inseminated three of them. By now, he had a second experiment in mind: to inseminate women with chimp sperm. Knowing that no local woman would agree, he planned to do this under the pretext of a medical examination, but the French governor forbade it.
None of the three chimps conceived. Disappointed, Ivanov headed home with 20 chimps to stock a new ape nursery in the subtropical Soviet republic of Abkhazia. He knew now that his best chance of creating his hybrid was to find Soviet women willing to carry half-ape babies in the interests of science. In the event, only four chimps made it to Abkhazia and so while the nursery set about acquiring more apes, Ivanov looked for volunteers.
At least five women volunteered. But although the nursery did get hold of an assortment of apes, they never flourished, and by the time Ivanov was ready to proceed the only adult male left was Tarzan, a 26-year-old orang-utan. Ivanov pressed on until fate dealt his project a fatal blow. Tarzan had a brain haemorrhage. "The orang has died, we are looking for a replacement," Ivanov cabled the woman he had lined up to receive Tarzan's sperm. More chimps arrived in 1930 - but Ivanov fell victim to the widespread purge of scientists and was exiled to Kazakhstan. He was released the next year but died soon after.
Now that we've found them, I can only hope we will leave them alone.
A first ever ape census in northern Congo found 73,000 of the gorillas in that country's Ntokou-Pikounda region and 52,000 more in the Ndoki-Likouala area.
The Ndoki population includes an obscure group of nearly 6,000 gorillas living in close quarters in isolated swamps near Lac Télé.
"We knew there were apes there, we just had no idea how many," said WCS's Emma Stokes, one of the lead researchers in the two-year project.
The gorillas have thrived thanks to their remoteness from human settlements, food-rich habitats, and two decades of conservation efforts in one of the world's poorest countries, Stokes said.
Read article here.
Researchers say that few primates mate in a face-to-face position, known technically as ventro-ventral copulation; most primate species copulate in what's known as the dorso-ventral position, with both animals facing in the same direction. Besides humans, only bonobos have been known to frequently employ ventro-ventral mating positions. On a few occasions, mountain gorillas have been observed in ventro-ventral positions, but never photographed. Western gorillas in captivity have been known to mate face-to-face, but not in the wild, which makes this observation a noteworthy first.
REGENT’S PARK The tails of these silvery marmosets show up clearly as the monkeys’ coldest body part in this picture taken by a photographer using a thermal imaging technique at London Zoo.
While the warm parts of the marmosets’ bodies show up as red or yellow, the tails, which retain little warmth, appear green. The imaging technique has helped zookeepers to home in on the different tactics zoo animals use to conserve energy.
