Wild Chimps May Play Dolls

Young chimps in the wild show signs of doll play, report finds
(CNN) -- It's just days till Christmas, and many young girls around the world will be thrilled to find little dolls under the tree to play with. But there's new evidence that it's not only human girls who enjoy playing with imaginary babies -- young apes may be showing the same behavior. A research paper published Tuesday has found what its authors say is the first-ever evidence that young female chimpanzees in the wild "play" with sticks as if they are dolls. "We find that juveni...

Young female chimps seen in 'doll' play
Published: Dec. 20, 2010 at 5:46 PM 300-lb. chimp runs loose in Kansas City Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Young female chimpanzees use sticks as "dolls" more than their male peers do, like human cultures where girls play with dolls more than boys do, a study says. Researchers say the observations, from 14 years of field work with the Kanyawara chimp community in Kibale National Park, suggest the first evidence of a non-human animal in the wild that exhibits sex differences in how it plays, ...

Why it's natural for girls to play with dolls and boys to love guns
Girls play with dolls because they’re programmed to, not because of any sexual stereotyping, new research suggests. Young chimps in the wild play play boy and girl games, much like their human counterparts, scientists found. Although both male and female chimpanzees play with sticks, girl chimps treat sticks like dolls copying their mothers as they care for infants. Earlier studies of captive monkeys had also suggested a biological influence on toy choice. When juvenile monkeys are offere...

Girl Chimps Make Dolls
— Photography by Delphine Bruyere, courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Young female chimpanzees treat sticks as dolls. That's according to a new paper in Current Biology. Researchers at Harvard and Bates report more than 100 cases of stick-carrying by young female chimps during 14 years of observations at Kibale National Park in Uganda. Their findings: Young females weren't carrying the sticks to forage or fight or any other discernible reason. Adults carried sticks only for other reasons. Young ...

A reversal on carbs
Most people can count Calories. Many have a clue about where fat lurks in their diets. However, fewer give Carbohydrates much thought, or know why they should. But a growing number of top nutritional scientists blame excessive Carbohydrates — not fat — for America's ills. They say cutting Carbohydrates is the key to reversing Obesity, Heart Disease, Type 2 Diabetes and hypertension. "Fat is not the problem," says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Har...

US teen birth rate at all-time low, economy cited
ATLANTA — The U.S. teen Birth Rate hit an all-time low in 2009 — a decline that stunned experts say is partly because of The Economy. The Birth Rate for teenagers fell to 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 through 19, according to a government report released Tuesday. It was a 6 percent decline from the previous year, and the lowest rate since health officials started tracking it in 1940. Experts say the recent Recession — from December 2007 to June 2009 — was a major fac...

Kenya, Uganda see terrorist link to Nairobi blast
By Humphrey Malalo and Elias Biryabarema Nairobi/KAMPALA | Tue Dec 21, 2010 1:00pm EST Nairobi/KAMPALA (Reuters) - Kenyan and Ugandan police said Tuesday an Explosion in Nairobi a day earlier may have been linked to threats of attacks by al Qaeda-linked groups. Ugandan security agencies had already said they were on high alert for strikes by Insurgents after twin Suicide bombings in Kampala on July 11, which killed 79 people watching the World Cup final on television. "We believe there's a co...

Somali Militants Suspected in Kenya Blast
A grenade Explosion at a bus depot in downtown Nairobi that killed three people is the work of Somali Militants making good on their threat to ruin Christmas for countries backing the Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu — at least, that's the assessment of Kenyan and Ugandan security officials, who are bracing for further attacks. See photographs of the World Cup bombing in Uganda The Monday night blast came just hours after officials in neighboring Uganda had warned that Somalia...

Uganda: President raps for re-election
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has launched a rap tune to kick off his campaign to be elected to a fourth term as president. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images) KAMPALA, Uganda — Seeking the youth vote in his re-election campaign, President Yoweri Museveni has released a hip hop single that has become widely popular. "You Want Another Rap?" delivered by Museveni in his indigenous Runyanole language is Uganda's first election season hit. The rap and video have been fashioned from...

Explosion at Kenya bus station leaves 1 dead
NAIROBI, Kenya - A bomb exploded at a downtown bus station in Kenya's capital late Monday as passengers boarded a bus, killing at least one person and wounding up to 39 others, police said. Suspicions centered on a Somali Militant group. The person who was killed was carrying a piece of luggage that contained the bomb, Police Commissioner Mathew K. Iteere said. It was not immediately clear if it was a Suicide Attack, Iteere said. Most of the wounded were Ugandans traveling home for Christm...

Two dead in explosion in Kampala-bound Kenya bus
By James Macharia Nairobi | Mon Dec 20, 2010 4:12pm EST Nairobi (Reuters) - Two people were killed on Monday when a bag exploded as it was about to be loaded onto a Kampala-bound bus in the Kenyan capital, an incident police said bore the hallmarks of a Terrorist strike. Ugandan security agencies said earlier on Monday they were on high alert for a possible attack after their intelligence reports indicated Al-Qaeda-linked groups could be planning to hit Uganda during the festive season. Polic...

Bomb on Kenya-to-Uganda bus kills 1
(CNN) -- An explosion that ripped through a Uganda-bound bus in Kenya on Monday killed one person and injured 26 others, a Kenyan police spokesman said, crediting Security Guards with potentially preventing even more carnage. The guards confronted six people who seemed to be ordinary passengers as they tried to board the bus about 7 p.m. in Nairobi, Kenyan national police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said. The passengers resisted the guards' attempt to examine their luggage. As the altercation heated...

Explosion at Kenya Bus Station Leaves 1 Dead
NAIROBI, Kenya -- A bomb exploded at a downtown bus station in Kenya's capital late Monday as passengers boarded a bus, killing at least one person and wounding up to 39 others, police said. Suspicions centered on a Somali Militant group. The person who was killed was carrying a piece of luggage that contained the bomb, Police Commissioner Mathew K. Iteere said. It was not immediately clear if it was a Suicide Attack, Iteere said. Most of the wounded were Ugandans traveling home for Christmas, R...

UN Urges Governments to Respect Reproductive Rights
This fall, three UN treaty monitoring bodies urged the governments of Ecuador, Uganda and Nicaragua to take steps to promote, protect and fulfill reproductiv rights. The treaty bodies made these powerful recommendations largely in response to the comprehensive advocacy strategy developed by the Center and its partners. A shocking number of girls in Ecuador face Sexual Harassment and abuse in schools, often at the hands of teachers or school administrators. The number of girls who report experie...

Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill: U.S., Western Donors Keep Quiet
Updated: Dec. 9, 2009, 6:45 p.m. E.T. The late-November afternoon sun bore down on the park in downtown Kampala, and all along the benches, Ugandan office workers took their siestas. There could have been no less likely setting for criminal conspiracies to topple an East African state. Still, the doctor's voice dropped a notch when an office worker in a brown suit settled in close by. The medic shifted a battered fedora over his eyes. "I am the gay doctor," the physician whispered to me, makin...

Uganda MP urges death for gay sex
A Ugandan MP has proposed creating an offence of "aggravated Homosexuality" to be punishable by death. Ruling party MP David Bahati wants the death penalty for those having gay sex with disabled people, under-18s or when the accused is HIV-positive. Homosexual acts are already illegal, but the Anti-Homosexuality Bill proposes new offences and urges the toughening of existing penalties. Earlier versions of the bill were widely criticised by rights groups. The BBC's Joshua Mmali, in t...

Kenya, Uganda see terrorist link to Nairobi blast
Nairobi/KAMPALA (Reuters) - Kenyan and Ugandan police said Tuesday an Explosion in Nairobi a day earlier may have been linked to threats of attacks by al Qaeda-linked groups. Ugandan security agencies had already said they were on high alert for strikes by Insurgents after twin Suicide bombings in Kampala on July 11, which killed 79 people watching the World Cup final on television. "We believe there's a connection between the threats we're getting from Al-Shabaab and other al Qaeda affiliated ...

The Global Gay Rights Battlefields - By Max Strasser
The Multilateralist: Morning multilateralism, Dec. 20 Don't Ask Don't Tell might be finished in the United States but, in many countries, the fight for gay equality has far bigger challenges to overcome. Homosexuality is already a crime in Uganda, but a bill introduced to parliament last year would seriously up the ante. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill would legislate new criminal offenses and step up the punishment for existing ones. "Aggravated homosexuality," an offense that includes ...

Kenya blast 'caused by grenade'
Q&A: Who are Somalia's al-Shabab? A bomb Explosion at a bus station in Nairobi was caused by a grenade carried by a man believed to be Tanzanian, Kenya's Police Commissioner has said. Mathew Iteere said the suspect had been boarding a bus to Uganda but became nervous due to security checks, causing him to drop the grenade. The man is believed to have been one of the three people killed in Monday's blast, which wounded 39 others. Ugandan police have said al-Shabab Militants may...

Kenya and Uganda boost security after grenade blast linked to Al Shabab
Kenyan and Ugandan officials have linked the blast to Al Shabab, the Somali Militia that took credit for a July Suicide bombing that killed 79 at two restaurants in Kampala, Uganda....

Today's Unsurprising Amanda Admission...
For the record, I don’t think I even met anyone who went to Harvard until I was like at least 25. An Aside: In truth, though, after reading Matthew Yglesias over the past few years, if I read some Amanduh prose without knowing the source, I'm pretty sure I'd chalk it up to a Harvard grad....

Harvard, Yale open up to ROTC plans after 'don't ask, don't tell' vote
Source: CNN The presidents of Harvard and Yale universities have expressed interest in ROTC programs after Congress voted to Repeal the Military's Controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that has banned Openly Gay and Lesbian service members. The universities' statements come five months after Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, then a Supreme Court nominee, came under criticism by Republican senators who complained that she actively tried to block military recruiters from Harvard Law School...

Harvard Puts Lie To Kagans DADT Claims
From CNN: Harvard, Yale open up to ROTC plans after ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ vote December 21, 2010 (CNN) — The presidents of Harvard and Yale universities have expressed interest in ROTC programs after Congress voted to Repeal the Military’s Controversial "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy that has banned Openly Gay and Lesbian service members. The universities’ statements come five months after Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, t...

Schools lift ROTC ban after don't ask vote
Published: Dec. 21, 2010 at 8:13 AM Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Two Ivy League schools say they'll welcome back the ROTC program now that the U.S. Congress repealed a ban on gays and Lesbians openly serving in the Military. The decision to reinstate the Reserve Officers' Training Corps ends a 40-year standoff between Harvard University and the Armed Forces that began over the Vietnam War and remained as university administrators, faculty and Students objected to the military's "don't ask,...

The College Diploma Fraud
For more than a half-century, government has tried to close racial gaps in educational attainment. Sad to say, those gaps have proven intractable. Nevertheless, the impulse remains as heartfelt as ever (perhaps due to its financially lucrative character), but the emphasis is now shifting from actual learning to equality of graduation rates. President Obama has spoken of adding 5 million graduates to the Workforce by 2020, and credential-mania is now all the rage. This shift is a disaster in the ...