Chimpanzees Go Through Menopause, Too (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Bebo@literature.cafe to c/science@beehaw.org

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It is not obvious why selection should favor menopause or the continued survival of individuals that can no longer reproduce. The famous Grandmother Hypothesis had been used to explain the evolutionary significance of menopause. A new study conducted on the Ngogo chimpanzees community of wild chimpanzees in Uganda challenges this hypothesis. Science 27 Oct 2023 Vol 382, Issue 6669 DOI: 10.1126/science.add547

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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd just like to drawn attention to this sentence from the accompanying Nature article.

Scientists doggedly followed post-reproductive Ngogo females to collect samples of urine as it showered from the trees.

So, if you're wondering why we hadn't found out yet, learning this involved camping deep in an uninhabited rainforest and waiting for an elderly chimp to drain her bladder on you.

[-] Bebo@literature.cafe 4 points 1 year ago

It's funny to think to what extent researchers have to go to gather data. I will draw your attention to a journal article I came across recently. I am linking to my post as well as the article itself. I think you will find it interesting. It's called "hydrodynamics of defecation" published in Soft Matter.

The article: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/sm/c6sm02795d#!divCitation

The post: https://literature.cafe/post/3089296