This Chimp Will Rock You

April 2, 2009 by The Loki Man · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Uncategorized 

He is a warrior Chimp! New Santino the Chimpanzee shirts at The Loki Store.

Santino: Chimp Warrior 2 shirt
Santino: Chimp Warrior 2 by LokiMan

Santino: Chimp Warrior 2 shirt
Santino: Chimp Warrior 2 by LokiMan

Santino: Chimp Warrior

Cool video regarding Santino the Chimp. Read our post about him here.

Monkey Apocalypse Shirt shirt
Monkey Apocalypse Shirt by LokiMan

Santino & The Chimp Apocalypse shirt
Santino & The Chimp Apocalypse by LokiMan

The Face of the Chimp Apocalypse

Is this the face of the chimp apocalypse so chillingly predicted in the classic film Planet of the Apes?

santino_mugshotSantino the Chimp

His name is Santino and he lives at the Swedish Furuvik Zoo.  Santino likes throwing things at the zoo visitors that gawk at him everyday, and his keepers do eveything they can to stop the violent behavior.  But recently, the zoo staff discovered stockpiles of ammunition (mostly rocks) all over Santino’s enclosure, as if he were preparing for battle.  The discovery has excited researchers studying animal intelligence since it suggests premeditation and forward thinking on Santino’s part, activities that require high intelligence and that are hard to prove in our animal neighbors.  But if Santino has planned this little rebellion in his cage, what could other animals we’ve angered or annoyed be planning?  If these disgruntled creatures need a leader, they might look to Santino.  The idea frightens organization like Homo Sapiens Against Animal Intelligence, which was created by its founder Jerry Bombadil in large part because of his concerns of the Planet of the Apes becoming a reality.

Read more about Santino here and here.

What do you think?  Could Santino be the face of the chimp apocalypse?

Check out our Chimp Apocalypse shirts and gear at The Loki Store.

Monkey Apocalypse Shirt shirt
Monkey Apocalypse Shirt by LokiMan

Santino & The Chimp Apocalypse shirt
Santino & The Chimp Apocalypse by LokiMan

The Wolbachia Bacteria Invasion Remains Ignored

The bacteria Wolbachia is widely regarded as the most succesful intracelluar bacteria in the world, and it is also one of the most common.  Projections estimate that Wolbachia might live in almost a fifth of the world’s total insect population.  Wolbachia cause several frightening symptoms in their victims, especially males.  These symptoms include feminization (the alteration of a male into a female), asexual reproduction in female hosts, male sexual sterilization, and death.  However, we still understand very little about the manner in which Wolbachia causes these symptoms, or how it is so successful as a reproductive parasite.  This is highlighted by recent research presented University of California and Universite Lyon researchers at the Public Library of Science.  Read their report here.

Wolbachia mainly affects insects, but this should be of little comfort since insects greatly affect us.  In fact, it is estimated that there could be nearly 10 quintillion insects living on earth at any given moment (that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects).  If almost 20% of these are infected, that’s 2 quintillion Wolbachia host insects.  The human population of earth is estimated at a pitiful 6.76 billion in comparison.  If Wolbachia ever evolved to take human hosts, the results could be disastrous.  We could become a maleless planet of asexually reproducing freaks.  The possibility lends credibilty to the potential for a scenario similar to that in the popular book series Y: The Last Man, which is currently being developed into a major motion picture. But despite our knowledge of Wolbachia, nobody talks about this. Theorists theorizing that Wolbachia is positioning itself for global takeover are drowned out by the status quo. One theorist, Joanna Mendolsen, believes Wolbachia’s success could be attributed to a unique group intelligence shared by the Wolbachia bacterium as a whole that guides it’s invasion of insect species.

“The bacteria infection of insects could just be practice for a larger scale invasion of the human population,” says Dr. Mendolsen. She adds, “We might never know the hows or whys. Understanding the motives of bacteria is a totally unexplored realm of psychology.”

We’ll have to wait and see what happens. At least the Russians have produced a documentary about Wolbachia. Unfortunately it has only received about 200 views on youtube. Watch below (narration and subtitles in Russian).

Intelligent Monkey GPS

A recent study by researchers based at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig reveals that monkey’s have an unbelievable internal GPS system that allows them to navigate flawlessly across maze-like jungle paths.  Read about the study here, at New Scientist.

As many of you know, we’ve been covering intelligent monkey news at The Loki Times ever since we launched our website.  In fact, we kicked off our website with this post about Cyborg Monkeys.  The subject fascinates our researchers and writers, but terrifies Jerry Bombadil, founder of the extremist group Homo Sapiens Against Animal Intelligence.

HSAAI T-Shirt #2 shirt
HSAAI T-Shirt #2 by LokiMan

Bombadil fears a Planet of the Apes scenario more than anything.  This new data about internal monkey GPS systems has shaked him to the core.  The following is Bombadil’s response to inquiries from our news team: “Monkey GPS?!?!  That’s just great, freakin’ wonderful.  Son of a bitch!” *click*

Jerry later called back to apologize, saying “We were worried about the government being able to track our every move, but now we should worry about these monkeys.  They can find you…anywhere.”

Let us know what you think.  Monkey GPS: Impressive, or Terrifying?

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