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Before Alan B. Shephard, John Glenn, and the rest of the Mercury astronauts made their famous flights, America's space program used a different sort of test pilot-chimpanzees. Possessing a combination of intelligence and physical toughness, they were the perfect subjects. And so, in January 1961, a three-year-old chimp named Ham was rocketed into space, propelling the United States one step closer to the goal of manned space flight. Ten months later, another chimp, named Enos, soared into orbit. Both chimps were instant worldwide celebrities. But what happened to Ham, Enos, and NASA's specialized chimpanzee colony after they faded into history?

David Cassidy and Patrick Hughes tell the story of these brave "astrochimps," revealing how they were trained for space flight, and how NASA rewarded the colony-which was retired in 1997-for their long and dependable service.

DVD INCLUDES:

Documentary on Ham, his flight, the other astrochimps, and their early exploration of space. ... Read more

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This innovative book challenges the perceived view, based largely on long observation of artificially fed chimpanzees in Gombe and Mahale National Parks, Tanzania, of the normal social behavior of chimpanzees as aggressive, dominance seeking, and fiercely territorial.In polar opposition, all reports from naturalistic (nonfeeding) field studies are of nonaggressive chimpanzees living peacefully on home ranges in fluid, open, nonhierarchical groups.This research has been largely ignored and downgraded by most of the scientific community.By utilizing the data from these studies, the author is able to construct a model of an egalitarian form of social organization, based on a role relationship of mutual dependence among many charismatic chimpanzees of both sexes and other more dependent members.This highly and necessarily positive mututal dependence system is characteristic of both undisturbed chimpanzees and humans who live or lived by the "immediate-return" foraging system. ... Read more

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Experience and research in the African jungles at the end of the 19th Century. With illustrations from photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Last Ape
Written by one of the world's principal specialists on the pygmy chimpanzee, this is the first comprehensive work on the last of the African great apes to be studied in the wild. Also the rarest of the great apes. It is found only in the tropical forest region of central Zaire. The Wamba Forest is the site of the longest continuous field study of the pygmy chimpanzee, and this book is a richly illustrated, first-hand account of the author's observations and experiences in Wamba from 1974 to 1985.

The pygmy chimpanzee differs taxonomically and physiologically from the familiar "common" chimpanzee seen in zoos and circuses. It is smaller, darker, and slimmer, stands more upright, and is far more active sexually throughout its life. There are also great differences in its behavior and its social and ecological relationships. Throughout, the author compares the two species, giving the reader an appreciation of their contrasting habits.

Pygmy chimpanzees are thought by some to be the closest living relatives to ancestral homo sapiens. As such, they are broadening our understanding of human and prehominid evolution. On the basis of individual survival, they are the most successful of the higher primates.

In most primates, "competition" determines how individuals and groups subsist and leave descendants, and dominate or subordinate rank determines relationships between individuals. But by pursuing sexual and quasi-sexual behavior during interactions - between individuals of any age or sex and with remarkable frequency - pygmy chimpanzees conceal the operation of rank and live peacefully together in large groups. Their sexual behavior also promotes food sharing, reduces tension between males and females, and indeed matches our own in complexity and bonding importance.

After the first chapter, "Why Study Chimpanzees?," the author presents chapters on distribution, social groups and social patterns, food, the behavior of individuals, sexual behavior, and social behavior and social relationships. He concludes with a summary chapter, "Why Are Pygmy Chimpanzees interesting?"

The book includes 8 maps and 78 striking photographs that depict the wide behavioral repertoire of the pygmy chimpanzee.
--- from book's dustjacket ... Read more

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This study follows a baby chimpanzee as it takes its first steps on a journey through life in the African forest. It learns to play and communicate with the others, search for food and keep watch for leopards and snakes. There is general information about threats facing these primates. ... Read more

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From an evolutionary perspective, understanding chimpanzees offers a way of understanding the basis of human nature. This book on cognitive development in chimpanzees is the first of its kind to focus on infants reared by their own mothers within a natural setting, illustrating various aspects of chimpanzee cognition and the developmental changes that accompany them. The subjects of this book are chimpanzees of three generations inhabiting an enriched environment as well as a wild community in West Africa; and phenomena such as face recognition, concept formation, object manipulation, tool manufacture and use, decision making, learning, communication, self-awareness, intentionality, understanding others’ minds, cooperation, deception, altruism, and reciprocity observed within these groups are reported herein. Unique approaches both in the field and in the laboratory go hand in hand to illustrate the cognitive world of our closest living evolutionary relatives.

With a foreword by Jane Goodall.

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The Real Chimpanzee encapsulates the fascinating behaviour of wild chimps and discusses the differences observed in different populations across the species, and across the many levels of their social behaviour. It tells the story of why sex competition in a forest chimpanzee population made the females of the group highly social and gave the males a high level of within-group solidarity, making them very xenophobic towards outsiders. Christophe Boesch brings back to the table the debate over ecological pressures and social organization, and the influence they have over issues such as the evolution of warfare, co-operation, altruism and the position of females. Writing for undergraduate and graduate students, he presents insightful views to give readers the background information to understand the struggle for survival of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, and through this find some keys to the ever-so-intriguing question of what makes us human. ... Read more

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Chimpanzees 2011 Wall Calendar features 24 awe-inspiring photographs of Dr. Goodall's beloved chimps playing, eating, climbing, and being supercute! From alpha males to irresistible baby chimps, this collectible wall calendar will keep a smile on your face all year round.

Known worldwide and the recipient of many achievement awards, Jane Goodall is not just the world's most recognizable and respected environmentalist and wildlife activist, she is also the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, author of 25 books, and a living legend.

* The perfect gift for all nature and animal lovers.

* Proceeds from the sale of this calendar benefit the Jane Goodall Institute.

* In 2011, the world will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Goodall's groundbreaking work in Gombe National Park. ... Read more

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You get the whole journal. Title refers to only 2 of the articles found in this issue. ... Read more

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Chapters: Apes From Language Studies, Famous Apes, Famous Chimpanzees, Famous Gorillas, Famous Monkeys, Koko, Ham the Chimp, Nim Chimpsky, Kasakela Chimpanzee Community, Bubbles, Travis, Great Ape Language, Britches, Cheeta, Gibraltar Barbary Macaques, Jiggs, Oliver, List of Apes, Monkeys in Space, Washoe, Gargantua, Chantek, Snowflake, Kanzi, Bobo, Pogo, H'angus, J. Fred Muggs, Maggie the Monkey, Jambo, Michael, Titus, Congo, Charles the Gorilla, Rally Monkey, Ah Meng, Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey, Colo, Lucy Temerlin, Bokito, Guy the Gorilla, Max, Babec, Gordo, Enos, Panzee and Panbanisha, List of Monkeys, Bedtime for Bonzo, Binti Jua, Jenny, Nonja, One Small Step: the Story of the Space Chimps, Willie B., Lana, Ramu, Ken Allen, Sultan, Loulis, Sam, Sarah, Julius, Massa, Santino, Gregoire, Pankun, Jumoke, Bonnie, Vicki, Nonja, Gua, Nyota, Manis, Tonda, Natasha, Ai, Ayumu, Toto, Azy, Phoebe B. Beebe, Matthew Hiasl Pan. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 316. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt:Ai (born in 1976) is a female chimpanzee currently living at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University (acronym KUPRI). She is known for being the principal subject of the Ai project , a research program started in 1978 which is aimed at understanding chimpanzee cognition through computer interface experiments. The Ai project includes tests for numerical competency, color-to-symbol matching ability, and audio-to-image matching and recognition. Over the years, the Ai project has grown to include a 14 member community of chimpanzees (including Ai's 9 year old son, Ayumu ) who reside in a state of the art facility at KUPRI.See also (online edition) Websites (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at Azy , (pronounced AY-zee) is a 33-year-old male orangutan . He was born at Smithsonian s National Zoological Park ... ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Bili Ape, also Bondo Mystery Ape, is the name given to a large primate that inhabits Bili Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The apes nest on the ground like gorillas but have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees, according to a National Geographic report. While preliminary genetic testing with non-nuclear DNA indicate a close relationship with the Eastern Chimpanzee Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii subspecies of the Common Chimpanzee, a range of behaviors that are more closely related to those of gorillas have greatly intrigued primatologists from around the globe. The mixture of traits has led to questions of taxonomic classification. Initial results from mitochondrial DNA analysis of fecal samples indicate that the 'mystery ape' is a chimpanzee, although it may be a fifth sub-species. ... Read more

Product Description
From an early age, humans know a surprising amount about basic physical principles, such as gravity, force, mass, and shape. We can see this in the way that young children play, and manipulate objects around them. The same behavior has long been observed in primates - chimpanzees have been shown to possess a remarkable ability to make and use simple tools. But what does this tell us about their inner mental state - do they therefore share the same understanding to that of a young child? Do they understand the simple, underlying physical principles involved? Though some people would say that they do, this book reports groundbreaking research that questions whether this really is the case. Folk Physics for Apes challenges the assumptions so often made about apes. It offers us a rare glimpse into the workings of another mind, examining how apes perceive and understand the physical world - an understanding that appears to be both similar to, and yet profoundly different from our own. The book will have broad appeal to evolutionary psychologists, developmental psychologists, and those interested in the sub-disciplines of cognitive science (philosophy, anthropology). The book additionally offers for developmental psychologists some valuable new non-verbal techniques for assessing causal understanding in young children. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Groundbreaking, Definitive Research
The book is exceptionally well written, and the research behind it is powerful and compelling.I first came across Povinelli's work in a special Scientific American issue on intelligence, where he debated his former mentor, Gordon Gallup, on the nature and extent of chimpanzee self awareness.I was wowed by the strength and elegence of his reasoning then, and again in his previous book, "What Young Chimpanzees Know About Seeing", perhaps all the more so because his conclusions run so completely counter to what I had been conditioned to think about chimps from depictions in popular culture.

This book is even better and more full of revelations than his previous work.I couldn't put it down.On top of that, it is an outstanding example of the rigorous application of scientific method, and could provide many terrific examples for teachers trying to teach the scientific method to students.

"Folk Physics for Apes" is probably the best scientific book I've read, beating out tough competition from "The Selfish Gene" and "The Extended Phenotype" (R. Dawkins), "The Dinosaur Heresies" (R. Bakker), as well as other top notch books on the nature of mind, like "An Anthropologist on Mars" (O. Sacks) and "The Rediscovery of the Mind" (J. Searle).

Simply the best! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (30)

Jane Goodall's Observations on Chimpanzees
A really fine volume. Jane Goodall describes her study of chimpanzees at the Gombe Stream in Tanzania. She and her team has studied these animals over a long period of time. This covers the social behavior of the chimpanzees in the earlier years of the study.

The story occurs at several levels. One, simply, is the interaction of individuals with their own personalities--Flo, David, Goliath, Faben, Merlin, Passion, and so on. Another level is the group/society. What is the structure of the society studies?

The book covers the life cycle of chimpanzees in this environment-- from infant on. It explores relations with other species. It looks at the variety of behaviors that characterize chimpanzee society--reproduction, feeding, hierarchy, predation, and so on. The book also addresses the challenges facing chimpanzees as humans encroach further.

In the end, a riveting book, well worth reading.

Classic
My wife is slowly navigating this book as it is a slower paced read.Awesome story, though.

A Scientific Classic
In her own words, Jane Goodall writes of her landmark studies of wild chimpanzees at the Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania. Starting out in 1960, Goodall, a student of legendary anthropologist Louis Leakey, set out for Tanzania to set up the first long-term research study on chimpanzees in the wild.

Overcoming political strife, harsh living conditions, lacks of funding, and the initial mistrust of the animals themselves, Goodall's work grew into a remarkable long-term scientific achievement. Goodall went on to devote more than forty years of work to the study of what many believe is mankind's closest evolutionary relative.

This book covers her early years, setting up the camp, establishing a rapport with the animals, and learning about chimpanzee society and behavior. She describes her own experiences as well as the experiences of several chimps that she had the experience of following closely as they lived and grew in the Gombe Stream Reservation.

Goodall names the animals, and relates story after story of their personalities and their conflicts. She uncovers the dominance hierarchy of chimp society, and traces the changing leadership of the community. Goodall was the first to observe tool-making behavior in Chimpanzees, and she relates the excitement of that early discovery.

In spite of her obvious affection for the animals she is studying, Goodall does not hold back when it comes to describing the brutality of some aspects of chimpanzee biology and society. She observed first-hand the devastating results of a polio epidemic on the local chimps, and she doesn't shrink from dealing with issues of aggression, neglect, and bullying that she oberved.

She candidly discusses her own mistakes as well, pondering on the compromises that she made early on to get close to the animals while raising the possibility that she could be altering their behavior by her use of feeding stations and close direct interaction.

Goodall's writing style is vivid, intense, and loaded with little details that bring the reader right into her world alongside the chimpanzees. She captures good scientific observations without losing her talent for storytelling, and draws readers into the lives of the chimpanzees whose lives she follows.

The book is supplemented by four sections of photographs by Goodall's husband and fellow researcher Hugo van Lawick, and it also includes an appendix with illustrations of chimpanzee facial expressions and behaviors. Stephen Jay Gould writes an excellent introduction to this edition, focusing on the importance of Goodall's work and on the importance of observational technique in the sciences.

This is a true classic of scientific writing, and a must-read for anyone interested in the study of animal societies in the wild.

Reading again after 35 years
Excellent book and some amazing insights into the simularities between chimps and humans. All the pictures are a great bonus.

Story of a good beginning
Jane Goodall does an excellent job in describing how she started her career as a zoologist and humanitarian worker. She gives excellent descriptions of how chimpanzees interact as family members, how they feel like people do - and what people can learn from them. Her book makes us readers aware of how close animals can come to how human beings feel and act, and that man is by no means far superior to animals. It also gives us an incentive to appreciate animals and to respect them. Obviously, Jane Goodall observes and then accurately narrates. Even in the shadow of man, animals develop healthy, and man needs to respect that. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from The Hastings Center Report, published by Hastings Center on January 1, 1989. The length of the article is 443 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The heart of the matter. (using primate hearts as human heart transplant bridges) (Case Studies) (column)
Author: Strachan Donnelley
Publication: The Hastings Center Report (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 1989
Publisher: Hastings Center
Volume: v19Issue: n1Page: p26(3)

Article Type: column

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! An apeis any member of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates. Due to its ambiguous nature, the term apeis less suitable as a means of describing taxonomic relationships. Under the current classification system there are two families of hominoids : the family Hylobatidae consists of 4 genera and 14 species of gibbon, including the Lar Gibbon and the Siamang, collectively known as the lesser apes. The family Hominidae consisting of chimpanzees, gorillas, humans and orangutans collectively known as the great apes. A few other primates, such as the Barbary Ape, have the word apein their common names (usually to indicate lack of a tail), but they are not regarded as true apes. Except for gorillas and humans, all true apes are agile climbers of trees. They are best described as omnivorous, their diet consisting of fruit, including grass seeds, and in most cases other animals, either hunted or scavenged, along with anything else available and easily digested. They are native to Africa and Asia, although humans have spread to all parts of the world. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Skeptic (Altadena, CA), published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2007. The length of the article is 2320 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Bonobos, left and right: primate politics heats up again as liberals and conservatives spin doctor science.
Author: Frans B.M. De Waal
Publication: Skeptic (Altadena, CA) (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 13Issue: 3Page: 64(3)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Gorillas are the largest of the living primates. They are ground-dwelling and predominantly herbivorous. They inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and (still under debate as of 2008) either four or five subspecies. The DNA of gorillas is 98%?99% identical to that of a human, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the two chimpanzee species. Gorillas live in tropical or subtropical forests. Although their range covers a small percentage of Africa, gorillas cover a wide range of elevations. The Mountain Gorilla inhabits the Albertine Rift montane cloud forests of the Virunga Volcanoes, ranging in altitude from 2,200?4,300 metres (7,200?14,000 ft). Lowland Gorillas live in dense forests and lowland swamps and marshes as low as sea level. ... Read more

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Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) are the only two species of the genus Pan, and are humans' nearest relatives. This book is an extensive review of the most recent observations from field studies on the diversity of Pan social behavior, with contributions from many of the world's leading experts. A wide range of social behavior is discussed including tool use, hunting, reproductive strategies, conflict management, demographic variables and ecological constraints. In addition to interspecies behavioral diversity, this text describes exciting new research into variations between different populations of the same species. ... Read more