Strollerderby : monkeys

Attack of the Monkey Children

Brett Singer — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:00:00 GMT

When your children get older and (finally!) move out of the house, what are your plans?

a)   Move to a smaller place
b)   Turn their room into a casino
c)   Adopt a monkey

No, I didn't make that last one up. Amazingly, there are people that, when confronted with so-called "empty nest" syndrome, decide that the thing to do is to adopt a monkey.

Now, before you think, "aw, how cute, a monkey as a pet" or even, "what a horrible idea, having a monkey as a pet", you need to know one thing: many of these monkeys are not treated as pets. They are treated as children. They call them – monkids.

Tonight at 10pm on ABC, "Primetime: The Outsiders" will profile Lori and Jim Johnson, a couple of lunatics humans from Orlando, Florida who have a capuchin monkey named Jessy as a…pet child. Lori had "adopted" the primate prior to marrying Jim; Lori told ABC News that "living with Jessy was 'all part of the deal' and that [Jim] 'signed up for both' when he married Lori." I know love is hard to find, but if a woman tells me on the first date that she has a monkey that she dresses in children's clothing, that said monkey eats at the table with her, and that she treats said monkey as if she were her daughter, including referring to the monkey as "my daughter", I'm thinking there's no second date, much less a wedding. But hey, who am I to judge? Check out these pictures. They certainly look happy. Well, "mom" does. Hard to tell how the monkey feels about all this.

This story was actually reported on by the Orlando Sentinel back in April; here's the story, and video (via BoingBoing). According to the Sentinel, there are 15,000 people in the U.S. who own/live with/adopt monkeys, despite the fact that the practice is illegal in 20 states. There's even a magazine that caters to monkey owners/adopters/parents (sheesh, what exactly do you call these people?)

For a slightly different take, let's be sure to mention Angelle Sampey, a successful professional motorcycle racer with a monkid. According to ABC News, she wanted to have kids, but didn't feel that she could while pursuing a pro racing career. "I can't race and, you know, bear a child… And I thought adopting a monkey as a surrogate child would be a good thing to do." So no empty-nest for her; the monkey is instead of a human child.

Myself, I think I'd just get a dog.

So tonight at 10pm, ABC. Have fun.

images: abcnews.com

Your baby is ugly

New Cure For Sleep-Deprivation On The Horizon?

Amy S.F. Lutz — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:29:00 GMT

For the nine months I nursed my twins, I lived in an almost constant state of sleep-deprivation. And I tried everything I could think of: caffeine, showers, the old-fashioned, self-administered series of slaps to the cheek. I could have used the help of researchers at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, who recently announced they reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys with a chemical naturally occurring in our own brains.

Orexin-A (also known as hypocretin-1) is a peptide that regulates sleep. People with normal amounts of this peptide are able to stay alert and awake. Sleep-deprivation prevents the brain from secreting the necessary levels of Orexin-A, which causes a drop in cognitive functioning. But monkeys who were given Orexin-A after being kept awake for up to 36 hours performed similarly on tests as monkeys that weren't sleep-deprived.

Researchers haven't announced when this discovery might translate into an actual medical treatment for sleep-deprivation in humans. But I am encouraged by the nasal spray delivery system they used with the monkeys, which sounds a lot easier than dissolving amphetamines in coffee and shooting the whole mess directly into my eyeballs, which is pretty much the only thing that worked for me before.

Book of the Week: "Goodnight, Me" by Andrew Daddo

Gwynne Watkins — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:15:00 GMT

When I visited the zoo with a friend this spring, she was totally delighted by her newborn's resemblance to the baby monkeys. At the time, I thought this was a little weird. But now I have to admit that there's something endearing about babies' monkey-like traits -- and that something is totally captured by Goodnight, Me (Bloomsbury 2007). The book, written by Andrew Daddo and illustrated by Emma Quay, follows the bedtime ritual of the world's cutest baby orangutan. On every page, he says goodnight to a different body part -- "Goodnight, feet!" -- and gives it a little acknowledgement -- "Thanks for holding my legs together, knees!" Just as he's coaxed all his body parts to sleep, a mom-or-dad orangutan comes in to kiss him goodnight. Goodnight, Me is a can't-lose bedtime book; the adorable primate (drawn with pastels) is rendered large on each page, so his charming expressions will mesmerize even the littlest readers. And it's nicely gender-neutral: is the ape a boy or girl? Is the parent a mom or dad? You and your child can draw your own conclusions.

Who's Smarter? Babies and Chimps Go Head to Head

Karen Murphy — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:39:00 GMT

Some really really smart people got together and decided, hey, people aren't so touchy anymore about that evolution stuff, so let's find out who's smarter, a chimpanzee or a toddler?

So guess who won?

C'mon, guess!

They took 106 chimpanzees, 32 orangutans and 105 toddlers who were about 2 1/2, and got them all to perform tasks that were divided between physical and social cognition (that must have been a lot like herding cats). Physical cognition deals with inanimate objects and what they do, and social cognition is more about what you think people will do.

So now guess who won? Guess!

Yep, the monkeys won the first round and the humans smashed the monkeys in the second. I rather think it was a bit unfair, actually. How can you judge a monkey on tasks requiring him to relate himself to people? Because people, they're unpredictable.

It's sad they had to rig a test like this just so the toddlers would win, but there you have it. It's a sad day in chimpland.