"Cheating yeast help group"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/15/2010 03:24 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 3:08 PM -0400 9/15/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>At 9/15/2010 02:52 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>>"New results show that yeast populations grow better when a few
>>>individuals cheat the system"
>>
>>1)  Do "yeast" form its plural like "moose"?
>
>Evidently

Your excerpt has the phrase "a few individuals".  What do we call one
individual yeast?  Or is it impossible to eat -- er, identify,
isolate, refer to -- just one, and the best we can do is "a
few"?  The yeast uncertainty principle?  :-)

>>2)  This sounds like an article Natalie Angier of the NYTimes might
>>write.  (See her on bogarting monkeys.)
>
>As in "Monkey see, monkey do, monkey bogart"?  Or as in "Don't bogart
>that monkey"?

"For Monkeys, a Millipede a Day Keeps Mosquitoes Away"
Natalie Angier, Dec. 5, 2000.
http://tinyurl.com/2f8rc6o
or
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/05/science/for-monkeys-a-millipede-a-day-keeps-mosquitoes-away.html?scp=5&sq=angier%20monkey&st=cse

A group of capuchin monkeys has discovered that a chemical excreted
by a type of millipede acts as a repellant against not just annoying
but parasitic mosquitos.  The monkeys gather, one rubs the millipede
on itself and passes it on to the next.  But there are some monkeys
who "bogart" the joint, refusing to share.

>>3)   As mechanisms that help the species survive we have deception in
>>addition to altruism.
>>
>>4)   And to the species using deception, previously including
>>primates, we must add yeasts.  (I have two tales of chimpanzees
>>exercising deceit, but one is not fit for delicate ears.)
>i.e. blushing ears?  (of which there are obviously many on the list)

You have coerced me into telling tales.

(a)  A lower-ranking bonobo spied a succulent fruit that the higher
ranking chimp had not.  But he saw that he was being observed by the
other, and if he looked at or moved towards the prize the
higher-ranking chimp would discover the location and appropriate the
fruit for himself.  So he looked away from the fruit until he saw the
other male no longer watching him, and grabbed the fruit for himself.

(b)   A lower-ranking male found himself with a [spoiler alert:
explicit sexual content follows] erection, perhaps in desire of a
female favored by a higher-ranking male who was nearby.  He placed
his hands over his male organ, one assumes to keep the higher-ranking
male ignorant of his passions.

Both tales, I think, from Frans de Waal's books.

Joel

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