• Health
  • Science
  • U.S.
  • Technology
  • Business
  • World
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Sports

Building a Better World

News and information

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Our Team

Scientists are having a huge fight over whether chimps have accents

November 3, 2015 By Dan Taylor

Scientists are having a huge fight over whether chimps have accents

Scientists are clashing over how chimps communicate in a series of disagreeing papers.

Scientists in the UK and the U.S. are fighting with each other over a controversial subject: do chimpanzees have accents?

A study in the UK initially argued that chimps can adjust their grunts to communicate with new chimps, which they supposedly discovered after a group of chimps was sent from a Dutch safari park to the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, according to a BBC report.

They reported that they were making different noises for the same thing when they encountered a different group of chimps that had been in Edinburgh for a while, but a new study published in the journal Current Biology claims that’s bunk. The study, led by Dr. James Higham of New York University, said there were problems with the study’s methodology and how it interpreted the facts — leading Dr. Simon Townsend of Warwick University, the lead on the original study, to shoot back that they did their research, while thanking the other team for their critique and claiming he welcomes disagreements as they are good for science, the report states.

The fundamental thing they disagree with are whether the chimps behavior and vocalizations change when the chimps moved from the Netherlands to Scotland. The original team believes they changed their call for apples from an excited high-pitched tone to a lower-pitched one. However, the skeptical team says that the calls actually appear quite similar to them.

Since it’s down to interpretation of the data, this is a debate that’s not likely to go away anytime soon.

Sharing

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Filed Under: Front Page, Science

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow Us

Facebookrss

Search:

Recent Posts

  • NASA’s InSight spacecraft makes important course correction May 26, 2018
  • Scientists outraged at latest Trump decision May 15, 2018
  • Huge uproar erupts over major incident at Utah park May 13, 2018
  • Incredible moon discovery stuns scientists May 12, 2018
  • Authorities shocked by discovery about common painkiller May 6, 2018
  • Outrageous crocodile experiment stuns scientists May 5, 2018
  • Great Barrier Reef is too quiet, scientists say May 1, 2018
  • Massive Hiroshima bomb discovery shocks scientists May 1, 2018
  • Earth will be slammed by massive asteroid April 29, 2018
  • Teens are doing something incredibly alarming in schools April 29, 2018
  • Huge discovery in Tasmania stuns scientists April 28, 2018
  • Shocking discovery in New Jersey stuns authorities April 22, 2018
  • Huge volcanic explosion could wipe out the United States April 21, 2018
  • Huge controversy erupts over world’s hottest pepper April 15, 2018
  • SpaceX is about to do something astonishing April 15, 2018

Copyright © 2022 Jones Kilmartin Group, LLC · Metro Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress