Groundbreaking research now has scientists talking to Apes!

At a facility called "The Great Ape Trust" in Des Moines, Iowa, Scientists are carrying on two-way conversations with Bonobo Apes, which are a close relative to the chimpanzee. The apes communicate by choosing and pressing a series of 350 different lexigrams, symbols that appear on a screen that represent specific thoughts or objects.

abcnews.go.com...

There was a documentary about this on the BBC last year but I was never able to find out any more about it because I forgot the name of institute.

I think this is a very groundbreaking story, and shows that the apes (our genetic cousins) are not as dumb as we thought. They have the ability to learn and respond to a quite complex language which has been taught to them, and I think is a clear sign that they must have some sort of rudimentary language in the wild.

Thanks for posting.

Well not sure its groundbreaking as Koko the gorilla has been speaking american sign language for a long time and its not the first experiment with a keypad and chimps and in fact ASL is much more productive and functional as they can sign anywhere and don't need a keypad