Showing posts with label chimpanzee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chimpanzee. Show all posts

April 3 - Happy Birthday, Jane Goodall

Posted on April 3, 2020


Born in London, England, on this date in 1934, Jane Goodall is that rare thing: a global treasure.

When she was a child named Valerie Jane, Goodall received a stuffed chimpanzee rather than a teddy bear. Some of her mother's friends were horrified by this toy and wondered if it would give the little girl nightmares, but Goodall developed an early love for animals and is now considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees!

Her old toy chimpanzee still sits on Goodall's bedroom dresser.

As a young adult, Goodall went to a friend's farm in Kenya. At her friend's suggestion, she telephoned Louis Leakey, the famous archaeologist and paleontologist (and husband to paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey) to schedule a discussion about animals. She didn't know it, but Louis Leakey was sure that studying the great apes - gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees - could help us learn about humans (since we are also great apes!), and he was actually looking for a chimpanzee researcher.

But he didn't telI Goodall that right away. Instead, he offered her a job as a secretary. He soon sent her to Tanzania and later funded her research in Gombe Stream National Park. 

(Leakey also eventually asked Dian Fossey to study gorillas and Birute Galdikas to study orangutans as well.)


Here are a few interesting facts about the beginning of Goodall's chimpanzee research:

As I mentioned, Goodall was quite young when she first went to Africa. By the time she was heading to Gombe Stream National Park, she was 26 years old. The chief warden of the national park was worried about her safety but was satisfied when Goodall's mom arranged to accompany her.

(Her mom! I was assuming that the warden was mostly worried about wild animals, so I was surprised that her mother was the guardian that made this venture safe.)

Even more interesting, Goodall didn't have a college degree! Not yet, at least. In 1962, when Goodall was old-for-undergraduate-college at age 28, Leakey funded her attendance at the highly-respected University of Cambridge. Like I said, she was old for undergraduate work - and Cambridge didn't make her do that! Instead, she was allowed to study for a PhD in ethology (the study of animal behavior) even though she had no BA or BSc. She earned her doctorate in just three years.

Goodall was actually the eighth person in the history of Cambridge allowed to study for a PhD without first having obtained a Bachelor's Degree. 

But that was just the start. Goodall became legendary in primatology (the study of primates) and conservation, animals-rights, and humanitarian movements. She was named a U.N. Messenger of Peace and became an honorary member of the World Future Council. She was named a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (like being knighted and dubbed "Sir Whatever" - but for women). 



Goodall was even honored by the Walt Disney Company with a plaque on the Tree of Life at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park, in Orlando.

And more than 40 films have been made about her!

I could go on and on with the honors heaped upon Jane Goodall, but instead will link to the website of the Jane Goodall Institute.


By the way, I got to hear Goodall speak live, once. And I loved the fact that Goodall points out that, when she dreamed about living with and studying animals, people told her, "'How can you do that? Africa is far away, we don’t know much about it. You don’t have any money in your family. You’re just a girl.’”

Jane Goodall didn't let the nay-sayers stop her, and neither should you!






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January 24 - Mobile Recycling Day

Posted on January 24, 2019


For some reason, I couldn't confirm the actual date for the 2019 Mobile Recycling Day, but it's such an important topic, I decided to take a chance on the limited sources I could find:

 The Jane Goodall Institute is sponsoring an effort to recycle and reuse electronic devices in order to minimize impact on already threatened habitats - habitats that happen to be important for chimpanzees - and also to minimize the wars between groups who want to control the lands where we've found important metals and minerals used in creating electronics.

 Also, if people throw used or broken electronic devices into landfills, toxic metals that they contain cause environmental problems.

 The late-January date for this special day is perfectly designed to be well after all the various gift-giving holidays of November through early January. The people of the world are asked to gather electronics that are no longer going to be used in their homes - especially cell (mobile) phones - and send them to one of JGI's recycling partners. 
Do you have a pile of old cell phones that
you don't know what to do with?
Today's your lucky day!

 We're also asked to spread the word!

 This is important because it's actually not that easy to dispose of e-waste; just turning old devices over to anybody who uses the words "recycle your e-waste" doesn't guarantee that the electronics will be dealt with in a responsible way. Loads of recyclers just send old electronics in containers to developing nations where there aren't laws to protect workers; the workers are asked to remove the metals and otherwise mine the waste for valuable materials in ways that guarantee that they will be breathing in toxic fumes or will be otherwise poisoning their own bodies. 

 ECO-CELL, the JGI institutes recycling partner in the US, actually refurbishes phones whenever possible. These phones are then sold or donated to conservation non-profits (Non-Governmental Organizations). This is an example of reuse rather than recycling, and that is especially valuable when we're talking about e-waste.

 Apparently ECO-CELL recycles whatever cannot be fixed in ways that take into consideration workers' health and the environment.

 If you live in the U.S., check out this link from the Jane Goodall Institute website linked to above.
Here's a glimpse of what we're trying to protect...



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Pioneer in the study of memory Hermann Ebbinghaus's birthday









Beginning of the Sundance Film Festival
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November 29, 2012 - Anniversary of the Launch of the First U.S. Satellite with an Animal

Enos, a five-year-old chimpanzee, wasn't the first animal to orbit the Earth. That honor belongs to a Soviet dog named Laika, who was launched and achieved orbit in 1957. (It is a dubious honor, since Laika wasn't expected to survive and indeed did die in orbit. Still, Russian officials recently unveiled a monument to Laika, who was a stray dog that Soviet scientists found and trained for spaceflight; many stray dogs no doubt have shorter lives and worse deaths.)

Enos also wasn't the first animal to be launched into space by U.S. scientists. In 1947 scientists launched fruit flies into space, and these insects survived cosmic radiation and other spaceflight conditions.

Enos wasn't even the first chimp in space! That honor goes to Ham, who was launched into a sub-orbital spaceflight in 1961. He wasn't just a passenger; he pushed levers as he had been trained to do—and he was only a smidge slower than usual, down on Earth, so he proved that humans could perform tasks on a spaceflight.

No, Enos wasn't the first this or that or this other, but he was the first animal to achieve orbit on a U.S. spacecraft, and he was the first ever chimpanzee to achieve orbit.

Enos had more than 1,250 hours of training for his flight, including aircraft flights on which he encountered a certain amount of g force. And on this date in 1961, Enos flew into space on board Mercury Atlas 5. He was to complete three orbits.

Enos and the Mercury spacecraft completed the first orbit in one hour and 28 seconds. They completed a second orbit, but they were then brought back to Earth because the spacecraft was not maintaining altitude as it should.

Enos had a luckier ending than poor Laika. He survived splashdown and, when removed from his capsule, rescuers say that he jumped for joy and ran around the deck of the recovery ship, shaking their hands.

Here's an old movie clip about Enos and his flight. Unfortunately, we have no film of a joyful Enos shaking people's hands. 

This much longer movie about chimp astronauts doesn't focus on Enos at all, but gives you a good idea of what training he had to undergo. 







Also on this date:



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