Chimps beat humans
Chimps outperform humans in memory -*test*-('")s If this study is correct then it pretty much shows that our cognitive development has almost been impaired by our ability to have developed language skills. Personally, I think this is a really interesting study, even though I'm not the biggest fan of lab research on animals.

It's a very interesting study but the statement about humans droppng some of their cognitive ability to develop language is just a sound bite designed to grab media attention. The researcher is delighted that something is supporting his hypothesis but I'm sure he's not delusional enough to believe what he says. Firstly, it was only young chimps that out-performed humans, for this study, so to prove anything at all they would need to repeat it with children of equivalent age. Adult chimps were not as good as the young ones, so it may just be that both humans AND chimps lose some cognitive ability as they age. Secondly, they used one chimp and nine humans in the second experiment. I'm amazed they were allowed to publish with such a small sample of results, but then, it's a good story for the media so they can get away with it. Finally, the chimps they used live in captivity, s it's not a fair representation. Chimps in the wild may not perform nearly so well, fr a number of reasons. It's a really interesting theory that they've got, but I do hope they carry out further experiments to ascertain how valid this information really is.

Absolutely, I agree, but if you click on the link further down about the primate research in Kyoto, you'll see how much work there has been. Agreed about the age significance, but (although scientifically inaccurate) what they've done is to attempt a correlation in age comparison. If that makes sense.

Yeah, I read the link before I posted, and the original article that they published. I still think they need to carry out more research before they can draw any conclusions. Their age correlation chart is total speculation. I'm not saying they shouldn't have published, they have results so they're entitled, it's just that once it gets into the media people will believe what they read and what they're reading here isn't a true representation of what the results really mean.

Well, they say a single chromosone seperates humans from chimps/monkeys and things like that. But, the only barrier is civilisation. I think they could live in our society, then again, it could end up like Planet of the Apes. :P