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Great ape language

Since the early 1960 until the present day a lot of effort was made to teach and research the ability of different apes to communicate with different forms of language. Sign language, lexigrams, and mimicry of human speech have all been used to teach chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans to communicate with humans and each other. Great ape language, according to some researchers, is defined as the ability to use communication tools, but this is not consistent with some definitions of language.
American sign language was the most common tool used in the majority of experiments. Probably the most popular ape to learn and communicate with the sign language was gorilla named Koko, who was featured in a number of documentaries and was visited by some famous people like Robin Williams. There are numerous videos of Koko using sign language not only to name some object but also to make simple sentences and express her emotions. Koko is also believed to be involved in teaching another male gorilla Michael, who later told the most touching story from his childhood about the death of his mother.
A lot of scientists are skeptical of the researches and the conclusion, that a human language can be taught to animals who didn't develop this skill during their evolution (like teaching a penguin or an ostrich to fly). It's also not clear from the videos if Koko or any other ape is actually constructing a new sentence or just throwing some random words together to get a treat. One can also see from the video that Koko sometimes just repeats the gestures of her opponent.
A more clean and scientific approach is to use lexigrams on a screen or as plastic tokens as a form of language and to hide the researchers face behind a mask, so that the animal won't be able to read the mimic and guess what he's been asked to do.
Kanzi, a bonobo, is also a widely known ape who was taught to communicate with a lexigram board. Kanzi is believed to understand more human words than any other ape and showed the best result so far in both understanding complex sentences or requests (like "Could you please take the tv set outdoors?") as well as constructing complex answers.
Although it's still debatable if apes can be taught human language and if they can actually use it in a same way as we do, we can be certain that humans are capable of speaking chimp language. Maybe this is what future researches should be focused on.

When immune system goes rogue

Immune system is a system of the body that protects it from all foreign substances from the outside (viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc.) and controls the destruction of failed or outdated cells (for example, it is immunity that protects us from tumour formations). In order for immune cells not to destroy the cells of their own body, there is immunological tolerance.

Most healthy poisons in the world

While plants do their best to scare away those who want to eat them by producing all sorts of complex poisons and toxins, ironically, some of them are now used by humans only because of those very poisons.

Banana republic the beginning

One of the co-founders of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) was Minor Cooper Keith. He built a railroad in Costa Rica and planted many banana trees along the way to feed the workers. When the government could no longer fund the project, Keith had to come up with something to pay back the huge loan he had received. He decided to start using the newly built railroad to export bananas to the United States.

Appendix - a secondary immune organ

Although appendix is no longer used by humans for digestive purposes it still contains a high concentration of lymphoid tissue. Lymphoid tissue is essential for the immune system and may help encourage the growth of some types of beneficial gut flora.

How to survive if you're slow as a sloth?

A sloth can move slowly, but movement is not his primary defense method. Camouflage is a great way to go undetected. And this is where sloths have become experts over a long period of their evolution.