Games Primates Play
Dario Maestripieri
Even decked out in cultural finery,
people make monkeys of themselves.
Maestripieri, a veteran monkey
investigator, builds a fascinating and
occasionally disturbing case for fundamental similarities in the social shenanigans of people, apes and monkeys
due to a shared evolutionary heritage.
Maestripieri spies unspoken primate
customs lurking in mundane human
encounters. In a crowded elevator,
people instinctively stand still and avoid
eye contact, keeping their distance
when only two remain. An ingrained
need to defuse potential aggression
when confined with strangers drives
this behavior, Maestripieri argues. He
has observed similar behavior in pairs
of female macaques put in a small cage.
To break the ice, the monkeys bare their
teeth to signal fear and friendliness
before grooming each other. It’s a short
jump, he says, from caged macaques to
two people in a high-rise elevator chatting nervously about the chance of rain.
Maestripieri also describes the evo-
The Race for What’s Left
Michael T. Klare
Had T.S. Eliot been around to read this
book, he might have said: This is the
way the world ends, not with a bang
but a shortage.
Klare offers some grim realities:
“Because most of the world has already
been scoured for readily accessible
resource reserves, the only hope for
finding more oil, natural gas, minerals
and farmland will
lie in extending the
search to previously
inaccessible or
inhospitable areas.”
challenges. But the facts point to ines-
capable economic and environmental
costs. The dangers of deepwater drill-
ing, for example, were made clear by the
lutionarily deep appeal of nepotism.
In female-run macaque societies, big
shots’ daughters are guaranteed privileged lives while daughters of bottom-feeders eke out a miserable existence.
Maestripieri relates this behavior to
his own run-ins with kin favoritism in
Italy’s military and universities.
Both people and macaques often hurt
competitors if they
can get away with it,
Maestripieri says,
but play nice in pub-
lic. So it goes among
scientists: Senior
researchers attack
rivals and young
challengers in anony-
mous peer reviews. This would improve
instantly with open review, he predicts.
Other research described in the book
finds commonalities in primate cooperation and friendship, as well as in power
plays, playing favorites and other dark
social arts. In the end, Maestripieri’s
theme is hard to deny: Monkey business
is everyone’s business. — Bruce Bower
Basic Books, 2012, 336 p., $27.99
2010 BP oil spill. And Klare notes that an
area the size of Nebraska has been leased
for exploratory drilling off Greenland.
Energy extraction on land isn’t much
easier. Tapping oil from tar sands and
natural gas from shale rock is proving
costly. Easy-to-get nickel and coal deposits are largely mined out, and many
minerals are tucked away in remote
or unstable areas — Bolivia (lithium),
Niger (uranium), Afghanistan (copper)
and, in West Africa, Guinea (bauxite).
Reading this book, it’s hard not to
think about postapocalyptic fiction in
which resource scarcity leads to social
disorder. Think Margaret Atwood,
Cormac McCarthy and most recently
Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.
Yet novelists often skip over the messy
parts along the road to dystopia. It’s
scary to think that Klare, far from crying wolf, might be providing the sordid
details in real time. — Nathan Seppa
Taking Sudoku
Seriously
Jason Rosenhouse
and Laura Taalman
A look at the popular
puzzles reveals the
fundamental mathe-
matical concepts at play. Oxford Univ.,
2011, 226 p., $21.95
Charles R. Knight
Richard Milner
The wildlife artist and
his classic illustra-
tions of the ancient past come to life
in this illustrated volume. Abrams,
2012, 180 p., $40
A Tour of the Senses
John M. Henshaw
A blend of research
findings and real-world
anecdotes about peo-
ple’s sensory experi-
ences enlivens this
historical view of the science behind
perception. Johns Hopkins Univ.,
2012, 272 p., $29.95
Language:
The Cultural Tool
Daniel L. Everett
A linguist who spent
three decades among
the Pirahã people of
Amazonia presents
language as a human tool that can
be reinvented or lost over time.
Pantheon, 2012, 351 p., $27.95
The Epigenetics
Revolution
Nessa Carey
A look at the emerging
field of epigenetics
shows how chemical
changes to DNA affect
everything from cat color patterns to
human health. Columbia Univ., 2012,
352 p., $26.95
How to Order To order these books or others,
visit www.sciencenews.org/bookshelf. A click on
a book’s title will transfer you to Amazon.com.
