- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says 'very violent' Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Guardians maul Tigers, miracle Mets rally in MLB series openers
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Madrid beat Villarreal but Carvajal suffers knee injury
- Madrid beat Villarreal to move level with Liga leaders Barcelona
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- French rugby player on rape charge whistled but 'serene' on return
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Toddler among 3 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Kovacic stars as Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Thousands march for Palestinians ahead of Oct 7 anniversary
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
- Careless Leverkusen held to Bundesliga draw
- O'Brien's 'superstar' Kyprios posts landmark win on Arc weekend
- Toddler crushed to death in migrant Channel crossing
- Liverpool suffer Alisson injury blow
- Habosi helps Racing beat Vannes before Auradou's playing return
- Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
- Israel readying response to Iran missile attack
- Schutt, Mooney help Australia beat Sri Lanka in Women's T20 World Cup
- Liverpool extend Premier League lead with win at Palace
- Djokovic 'shakes rust off' to make third round of Shanghai Masters
- 'Imperfect' PSG fighting on all fronts - Luis Enrique
- Struggling Pakistan look to thwart adaptable England
- Child 'trampled to death' in asylum seekers' Channel crossing: minister
- Gauff fights back to set up Beijing final against Muchova
- Guardiola claims Premier League won't delay season for Man City
- Israel to mark October 7 attack as Gaza war spreads
Monkey monikers: Like humans, marmosets give each other names
Naming others is considered a marker of highly advanced cognition in social animals, previously observed only in humans, bottlenose dolphins and African elephants.
Marmoset monkeys have now joined this exclusive club, according to a new study published in Science on Thursday.
The diminutive primates use loud, high-pitched calls to assign each other "vocal labels," as shown in research conducted by a team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"We are very interested in social behavior because we think that social behavior is essentially what drove us humans to be so special compared to other animals," senior author David Omer told AFP.
"We don't run fast, we don't fly, we don't excel in anything else besides being social and all our achievements as a society are our societal achievements."
Marmosets are ideal subjects to study the evolution of social behavior and language in humans, he explained, because they exhibit similar traits, living in small monogamous family groups of six to eight individuals that cooperatively rear their young.
Led by graduate student Guy Oren, the researchers recorded natural conversations between pairs of marmosets separated by a visual barrier, as well as interactions between the monkeys and a computer system that played back pre-recorded calls.
They discovered that marmosets use "phee calls" -- very high-pitched vocalizations, as loud as power tools -- to address one another. Notably, the monkeys could recognize when such calls were directed at them and were more likely to respond when addressed by their name.
- Machine learning advances -
The ten marmosets they tested came from three separate families, and the research also revealed that members within a family group used similar sound features to code different names, akin to dialects or accents in humans. This held true even for adult marmosets that weren't related by blood, suggesting they learned from others within the family group.
Marmosets are relatively distant relatives of humans. We last shared a common ancestor around 35 million years ago, while the split between ourselves and chimpanzees could have happened 5-7 million years ago.
Rather than genetic proximity, Omer attributes the acquisition of vocal labels by marmosets to "convergent evolution," or the idea that they evolved similar traits in response to comparable environmental challenges.
For marmosets, vocal labeling may have been crucial for maintaining social bonds and group cohesion in the dense rainforests of South America, where visibility is often limited.
How and when humans first began talking is a matter of debate, but until recently many scientists had dismissed the idea we could look to other primates for clues. Omer stressed the latest research was yet another blow to that long-standing opinion.
"We can still learn a lot from non-human primates about the evolution of language in humans," he said.
The team's statistical analysis of the marmosets' calls was made possible by recent advancements in computational power and machine learning, he added. Looking ahead, one exciting avenue for future research could be leveraging AI to further decipher the content of marmoset conversations.
G.Stevens--AMWN