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Chimps Have a Built-In GPS
destinyland writes "European researchers have discovered that chimpanzees have a built-in mental GPS, keeping 'a geometric mental map of their home range, moving from point to point in nearly straight lines.' Using GPS, two primatologists followed 15 chimpanzees for 217 days, and determined that the apes were 'using a mental map built around geometric coordinates.' They're not just identifying landmarks in their surroundings, and in fact, even when swinging through trees, the chimps planned out their route several trees in advance. Here's the paper in the journal Animal Behavior."
Does it run Linux?
they sh*t everywhere and you'd have to feed it bananas for directions.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
I must have missed all the Chimp satellite launches, when did they happen?
Few people know this, but he actually knows what the next three days of Slashdot articles are going to be. Even breaking news articles, he's already taken it into account and written it up ahead of time. He knows what you are going to submit before you do.
So can someone please explain to me our cousin species can manage to navigate such dense forest with such high precision while many of my highly-intelligent ex girlfriends managed to get lost so easily on short walks.
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
I already knew this. Why do we spend such money on research? Think about it, have you ever had a chimp ask you for directions?
At least only one of those apply to my tomtom
They have JPS: Jungle Positioning System
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The animal had gone to the back of the house, climbed to the upper story and come into the house through a little window high in the shower cubicle of the upstairs bathroom. Then it walked back down the stairs and into our room.
Of course it has a map. What it doesn't know is that I am going to strangle it if it keeps pulling tricks like that.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
...a fancy way of saying "remembering where stuff is relative to other stuff"?
Yeah, I was thinking that this is just a bit of "dead reckoning," combined with old salty pirate skills:
"Arrrgh, when yee see the rock, that looks like the skull of a monkey, turn left, take twenty paces, and the treasure is buried below. But beware the curse . . ."
I guess she's got "cat GPS" and/or is "using internal distance transform maps"...
Just to be on the safe side, see if your cat can perform the same trick, while wearing a tinfoil hat. And please get back to us if she can. Maybe those felines are up to something behind our backs.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The G stands for genital. They know where they are by using their genital's relationship to their surroundings.
I have participated in such an experiment. It's called being in the infantry.
No, that's far too much effort. What actually happened was the cat read your mind, realised that you knew a plausible route by which it could get in, and so after being put out it just sat comfortably until you were out of sight and then teleported back onto your bed, knowing that you would never suspect anything.
Cats put the kind of effort into being lazy that the most hardened work ethic afficionado could only dream of.
With this built-in GPS, would chimp-mounted lasers be more accurate than shark-mounted ones?
Yes, but the chimps tend to drown when you throw them in the water. Something about their density and not having gills.
The last time the chimp community lost GPS signals they all started crashing into each other and exploding. It was a real tragedy.
Rumour has it Microsoft's Ballmer was repeatedly spotted running into walls and throwing chairs.
They have a magic box in their heads and it speaks to them! "Next branch, swing left"
It speaks as a British woman.
Yeah, evolution has its dead ends as well.
*ducks*
Defining Statistics and Social Research