Tots More Socially Cognitive Than Apes

Toddlers may act up like little apes, but researchers who compared the species concluded a 2-year-old child still has the more sophisticated social learning skills.

In one test, preschoolers who wanted a toy hidden in a trick tube intently copied a scientist's movements to retrieve the prize. Chimps watched the lesson, but then mostly tried to smash or bite open the tube. When it came to simple math, however, the apes seemed to know more than the youngsters, apparently "adding" how many tasty raisins researchers had hidden.

In a novel study, scientists lured 106 chimpanzees, 32 orangutans and 105 toddlers to sit through five hours of testing over several days. Researchers were trying to tell which innate abilities are distinctly human.

"Human children are not overall more intelligent than other primates, but instead have specialized skills of social cognition," concluded the lead researcher, Esther Herrmann of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "They learn in a way that chimpanzees don't learn."

But the findings, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, conflict with other research that suggests the great apes, humans' closest relatives, are quite good at social learning, too. In fact, a second study in the same journal suggests chimps and monkeys have some capacity to infer someone's intentions by their actions. That is pretty complex, human-like thinking.

In that work, the animals sought out food containers that a researcher had grasped purposefully, not just tapped, or a container that he had touched with his elbow when his hands were full, but not one elbowed when his hands were empty.

The chimps and monkeys expected someone to behave rationally and adjusted their own actions accordingly, according to the lead researcher, Justin Wood of Harvard University.

"That shows quite a subtle social understanding going on in these animals," said Dr. Frans de Waal of Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center, a well-known expert in primate cognition who was not involved in the research published Friday.

Scientists to create human-animal embryos

Plans to allow British scientists to create human-animal embryos are expected to be approved tomorrow by the government's fertility regulator. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority published its long-awaited public consultation on the controversial research yesterday, revealing that a majority of people were "at ease" with scientists creating the hybrid embryos.

Researchers want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs, in the hope they will be able to extract valuable embryonic stem cells from them. The cells form the basic building blocks of the body and are expected to pave the way for revolutionary therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and even spinal cord injuries.

The consultation papers were released ahead of the authority's final decision on the matter, which will mark the end of almost a year of intense lobbying by scientists and a fervent campaign by organisations opposed to research involving embryonic stem cells.

Using animal eggs will allow researchers to push ahead unhindered by the shortage of human eggs. Under existing laws, the embryos must be destroyed after 14 days when they are no bigger than a pinhead, and cannot be implanted into the womb.

Opponents of the research and some religious groups say the work blurs the distinction between humans and animals, and creates embryos that are destined to be destroyed when stem cells are extracted from them.

Two research groups based at King's College London and Newcastle University have already applied to the HFEA to create animal-human embryos, but their applications have been on hold since November last year amid confusion over whether the authority was legally able to issue licences.

If the authority approves the research, the applications will go forward to a committee, with a decision on both due within three months.

Professor Ian Wilmut, whose team cloned Dolly the sheep, is waiting for the HFEA's decision before applying to create hybrid embryos to study motor neurone disease with Professor Chris Shaw at the Institute of Psychiatry in London.

The consultation, a £150,000, three-month mix of opinion polls, public meetings and debates, found participants were initially cautious of merging animal and human material, but became more positive. "When further factual information was provided and further discussion took place, the majority of participants became more at ease with the idea," the HFEA's report says.

Most support was expressed for the creation of so-called cytoplasmic hybrid embryos, in which a human cell is inserted into an empty animal egg. Other hybrid embryos, such as those created by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice versa, were less well supported.

In December, the government sparked a revolt by scientists, patient groups and medical researchers when it published a white paper containing proposals to outlaw almost all research into animal-human embryos. The research has since been backed by Nobel prizewinners, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Commons science and technology committee, and the government's chief science adviser, Sir David King.

In May, the government withdrew its opposition in a draft fertility bill and now seeks to outlaw only embryos created by mixing sperm and eggs from humans and animals. The bill will be put before parliament before the end of the year.

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said: "The HFEA's consultation reveals welcome recognition of the potential of this research, [with] 61% of the general public agreeing with the creation of human-animal embryos, if it may help understand diseases, with only a quarter opposed to this research."

Source : Guardian

Low Credit for Kenyan Scientist

A Kenyan scientist claimed he was the discoverer of two fossils raising key questions on human evolution and said locals rarely received the credit they deserve for their finds.

Fredrick Manthi Kyalo displayed his discovery, the well-preserved 1.55 million-year-old top of a skull from a Homo erectus, during a press conference at the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi.

"I found this particular specimen the day of my birthday," on August 5 2000, he told reporters.

The discovery revealed by the journal Nature yesterday challenges some widely accepted evolutionary theories by suggesting that Homo habilis and Homo erectus coexisted rather than coming one after the other.

"What I want to say is that for a long time, this has been the case (...) that Kenyans are given very low credit. We are here to begin to change that," said Manthi Kyalo.

"This is a row that we are beginning," he added.

The Nature journal said the fossils were discovered by Fred Spoor of University College London and his colleagues.

The discovery in Kenya’s Lake Turkana region was also widely credited to Meave and Louise Leakey, two white Kenyan anthropologists of British origin who headed the paleontological research project.

Manthi Kyalo, who also displayed the other half of the discovery, a 1.44 million-year-old upper jawbone from a Homo habilis much younger than most fossils of this species, cried foul.

"Yes, I’ve been given a low credit for that," he said. "We are here to make the Kenyans aware" that one of them "has found this very important fossil."

The find was described as very significant by the Nature magazine.

"They (the fossils) show that two ancestral human species seem to have lived cheek-by-jowl in the same area, much as gorillas and chimpanzees do today," it said.

Other scientists have contested Nature’s interpretation of the discovery.

Source : Sunday Times