Our long lost cousins

Imagine a relative who thinks sex is like a handshake. Who organises orgies with the neighbours, doesn’t mind if their partner sleeps around, and firmly believes females should be in charge of everything. Imagine there was a whole tribe of these relatives – crazy yes? But definitely a lot of fun.

Bonobo share 98.7% of our DNA, equal to our more famous cousins, chimpanzees. But unlike chimps, we know hardly anything about them. Part of the reason for this is that there's been civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the last 10 years and bonobos don't live anywhere else. The other reason is that to see wild bonobos, you have to be prepared to canoe for 4 days up the Congo River through malaria infested swamps.

Luckily for us, in the capital of Kinshasa is a 35 hectare forest with over 50 orphans. Because we study psychology, Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary is a perfect place to play our fun problem solving games that will hopefully help us find out how we became human.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Going to Congo

video

22 comments:

Fred said...

Hello Vanessa

Welcome. Looking forward to your posts from Lola Ya Bonobo.

Is Brian around too?

Vanessa Woods said...

hey fred!

looking forward to seeing you and your lovely francaphone wife! How's the police training going for her? and the judicial business for u?

will you be in kinshasa when we're there?

xxness

Fred said...

We'll both be around, yes. Both up to different things now, which we can tell you about.

You're welcome to stay with us if by some misfortune you have to spend a night in town on your way through.

I think B still has my number.

x

Jensta said...

Hiya Ness! Looking forward to hearing 'bout all ur adventurez! Have a fabulouz n safe trip n don't forget tha aeroguard ;-) Jensta x

Vanessa Woods said...

thanx jen,

i take baths in aeroguard when i'm there.

Anonymous said...

I prefer the smell of 'Rid'. Love the site.

Evan xx

Lucas said...

I'm curious, you say you are measuring emotions. what types of controls are you using. My biggest question is how you know whether stress or happiness is greater. Who are you working under? I'm wondering because I'm getting close to applying for grad school. Looking for possibilities. Thanks, for what you've done for my closest relatives

Vanessa Woods said...

Hey Lucas,

Jerome Kagan from Harvard did a wonderful series of studies with kids. He found that in high reactive kids, their temperature changes more than in low reactive kids. Richard Davidson at Wisconsin and Ned Kalan found that there are brain assymetries in humans and monkeys in response to stimuli of positive and negative valence.

In other words, you're stressed and the right ear temp goes up. You're happy and the left ear temp goes up. It's a little bit more complicated than that, but that's the general idea.

In terms of controls, we're comparing 2 groups and their reactions to each other.

I'm working under Brian Hare of Duke University. He's looking for graduate students that speak french.

Aidan Woodward said...

Dear Vanessa,

My name is Aidan Woodward and i work for Tigress Productions, a company specialising in making blue chip natural history documentaries for channels including the BBC.

I would very much like to talk to you about possible filming ideas involving your work.

My email is:
aidanwoodward@tigressproductions.co.uk

Would it be possible to drop me an email with your contact details in Kinshasa - an email and a telephone number - so that i may contact you directly.

All the best and i look forward to hearing from you.

Aidan

Aidan Woodward
www.tigressproductions.co.uk
London
England
+44 207 4344411

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