Wild gorillas using tools. The Thurman Fire. Tom outs Michael Chiarello. New articles.

Wild gorillas seen using tools for first time (Reuters) and Wild gorillas seen to use tools (BBC).

Two female gorillas have been photographed using sticks as tools to get through swampy areas, the first time the apes have been seen doing so in the wild, researchers reported on Thursday.

‘This is a truly astounding discovery,’ said Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study….

One time I was visiting an ape exihibit at a primate center, in which you could get much closer to them then in a zoo setting. A female gorilla was sitting on the ground next to the outer bars, and as I stood nearby, watching, she took two sticks and began rubbing them together.

I expect she was trying to teach the poor hairless ape a thing or two. ;)

b.la: The Thurman Fire. Photos at my flickr page.

Sirens scream through town every so often, alternating with the heavy drones of fire-fighting planes overhead. There’s another fire out in the I.E. which isn’t on that CDF info page as yet — it’s near Angeles Oaks in the San Bernardino Mountains, and has forced the closure of Highway 38. And since 330 is also closed for road work at the moment, Highway 18 is the only way up or down from Big Bear on the San Bernardino side of the mountains….

Tom outs Michael Chiarello. The bastard. Chiarello, that is, not Tom.

Tom’s a bastard for picking the coolest place to propose. ;D

New:

• O’Reilly: Re-revisiting emacs In which our hero turns back toward the feared emacs and re-evaluates his previous utterance.
• b.la: Fire season is definitely here