Nosey by nature: chimpanzees and children share a strong curiosity about the lives of others

From playgrounds to primate sanctuaries, a new study suggests both chimpanzees and humans share a deep curiosity about the social world around them

University of Portsmouth

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Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda

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Credit: Dr Laura Simone Lewis

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• Children and chimpanzees prefer watching social interactions over individuals alone

• Some gave up treats just to watch social videos

• Our curiosity about others may have deep evolutionary roots

Ever find yourself people-watching in a cafe, or tuning into reality TV just to see who’s arguing with who? You’re not alone - and it turns out, you might have more in common with chimpanzees than you think.

In a new study comparing social curiosity in chimpanzees and children, a team of international researchers have found that both are deeply interested in the interactions of others, even when it comes at a cost. 

The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, suggests that being curious about social behaviour isn't just a human quirk - it’s shared with one of our closest primate relatives.

Lead author, Dr Laura Simone Lewis at the University of California in Santa Barbara, said: “After years of observing both children and chimpanzees sometimes jumping up in the middle of research games to observe their peers, the research team was inspired to pursue a new social avenue in the blossoming field of curiosity research.”

Previously, little was known about the developmental and evolutionary roots of social curiosity, defined as the motivation to gain information about the actions, relationships, and psychology of others. 

Now, the research team has found that chimpanzees and young children prefer to watch videos of social interactions compared to videos of a single individual, and young children and male chimpanzees even pay a material cost to gain social information.

“This means social curiosity emerges early in human development and is shared with one of our closest living cousins, the chimpanzees”, added Dr Lewis. “Our strong interest in the lives of others - think gossip magazines and celebrity shows - seems to have deep evolutionary roots in our great ape lineage.”

The study involved three experiments and was carried out at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda and at sites in California, including the Oakland Zoo and the Lawrence Hall of Science. 

Dr Esther Herrmann from the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology co-authored the research. She said: “This study tells us that curiosity about what others are doing - what you might call being a bit nosey - starts young and runs deep. It’s probably something that helps not only us but also our closest living relatives to survive and thrive in complex social groups.”

What they did

To measure social curiosity, researchers built two special ‘curiosity boxes’ - wooden structures that held tablets playing different videos. In each experiment, chimpanzees and 4 to 6-year-old children could choose between opening one box to watch a social interaction (like grooming, playing or arguing) or opening the other box to watch a video of just one individual acting alone.

In the first experiment, both species consistently spent more time watching the social scenes. In the second, participants had to choose between a reward (jackfruit seeds for chimps, marbles for kids) and the chance to watch a social video. Some - especially younger children and male chimpanzees - chose the video over the treat.

The final experiment tested whether individuals preferred watching positive interactions (like grooming or play) or negative ones (like conflicts). While chimpanzees didn’t seem to show a strong preference either way, human children did: as they got older, boys were more interested in the negative interactions, while girls leaned towards the positive ones.

The study is one of the first to test social curiosity directly in both humans and chimpanzees using the same setup. It suggests our interest in what others are doing - who’s cooperating, who’s falling out, who’s worth keeping an eye on - may be something we inherited from a common ancestor millions of years ago.

And that curiosity might be more than just entertainment. Watching how others interact helps us understand relationships, avoid trouble, and figure out who we can trust.

Dr Herrmann added: “This kind of social curiosity is actually really important for learning about our environment, making decisions, and building relationships.”

The researchers suggest future studies could explore how social curiosity develops in younger chimpanzees and across different human cultures, as well as compare adults from both species. They also recommend testing other great apes like bonobos and orangutans, and examining how factors like familiarity or relationship type (friends vs. strangers) affect curiosity. These insights could help uncover how social curiosity evolved and why it varies across age, gender, and species.

About the Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology

The Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Portsmouth is dedicated to understanding how and why minds evolve. Researchers at the Centre study behaviour, cognition, emotion, and social development across humans and other animals.

Projects from the Centre include:

• A study showing how chimpanzees and orangutans adjust their facial expressions during play based on who they’re playing with

• A study suggesting predicting the preferences of others is a skill observed in human children, but not in great apes

• Research exploring how dogs recognise and respond to human emotional expressions

• A study providing evidence that young chimpanzees are capable of vocal functional flexibility; a known building block in human language development

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Journal

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI

10.1098/rspb.2024.2242 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Chimpanzees and children are curious about social interactions

Article Publication Date

24-Jun-2025

 

Wildfires threaten water quality for up to eight years after they burn

A study of 100,000 water samples from 500 river basins found elevated levels of contaminants persist for years after a fire

University of Colorado at Boulder

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Years after wildfires burn forests and watersheds, the contaminants left behind continue to poison rivers and streams across the Western U.S. — much longer than scientists estimated. 

A new study, published today in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, analyzed water quality in more than 500 watersheds across the Western U.S., and is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire quality.

The research was led by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“We were attempting to look at notable trends in post-wildfire water quality across the entire U.S. West, to help inform water management strategies in preparing for wildfire effects,” said Carli Brucker, lead author and former CU Boulder and Western Water Assessment PhD student. 

The results showed contaminants like organic carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment can degrade water quality for up to eight years after a fire. Water managers can use this data to help them plan for the future and respond appropriately when wildfires strike. 

CIRES Fellow and Western Water Assessment Director Ben Livneh was the principal investigator and co-author of the study. Much of his research focuses on hydrology, or water supply, on a continental scale. When he realized he could use the same approach to understand large-scale trends in water quality, he was excited to test the method.

“There’s been a lot of work, for example, in the National Climate Assessment and the International Panel on Climate Change talking about changes in global water supply,” said Livneh, associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering. “But those assessments point to this gap in water quality assessments in a continental scale context, whereas people like me in physical hydrology have been thinking about the continental scale challenges for a while.” 

Researchers have long known that fire ash and soil destruction contribute to degraded water quality. Yet, past research has largely been limited to state and municipal studies — cities and towns test water quality in local streams and rivers following large fires.

For the new study, the team analyzed more than 100,000 water samples from 500 sites: half from burned river basins and half from unburned. They measured levels of organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment as well as turbidity, or cloudiness, of each sample. 

To understand wildfire-driven impacts, the team built data-driven models to measure how much contaminants changed in each basin before and after wildfires. In the final step, they compiled data to find the average across the burned basins for each pre- and post-wildfire year, and then compared those to the unburned basins.

The results showed watersheds take longer to recover after wildfires than previous studies found. Organic carbon, phosphorus, and turbidity are significantly elevated in the first one to five years post-fire. Nitrogen and sediment show significant increases up to eight years post-fire. Fire-driven impacts were worse in more forested areas. 

“It can take two years, up to eight years, for the effect to be fully felt,” Livneh said. “Sometimes it can be a delayed effect, meaning, it's not all happening right away, or sometimes you need a big enough storm that will mobilize enough of the leftover contaminants.”

Each watershed in the study felt the impacts differently. This is likely tied to where the fire struck — a fire closer to the river would be worse than an upstream fire. Different soils, vegetation, and weather also change the impact in each watershed, making it difficult to plan for the future. 

“There's a huge amount of variability in sedimentation rates,” said Brucker, who now works as a consultant. “Some streams are completely clear of sediment after wildfires, and some have 2000 times the amount of sediment.” 

Despite variability across river basins, the study provides concrete numbers that give insight to water managers across the Western U.S. Researchers hope the results provide better direction on informing future planning efforts for increasing wildfire resilience. 

“I'm hoping that providing concrete numbers is very impactful to water managers,” Brucker said. “You can’t fund resilience improvements on general concerns alone. Water managers need real numbers for planning, and that’s what we’re providing,” Brucker said. 

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Journal

Communications Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43247-025-02427-6 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Wildfires drive multi-year water quality degradation over the Western U.S.

Article Publication Date

23-Jun-2025

 

Killer whales groom each other using tools made from kelp

Cell Press

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Two killer whales engaging in "allokelping."

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Credit: Center for Whale Research, NMFS NOAA Permit 27038.png

Primates, birds, and elephants are all known to make tools, but examples of tool use among marine animals are much more limited. Reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 23, a team of whale experts has found widespread tool manufacture and usage in an endangered population of resident killer whales living in the Salish Sea—part of the Pacific Ocean between British Columbia and Washington. The whales fashion tools from kelp and use them for grooming purposes. 

“We found that southern resident killer whales regularly use lengths of bull kelp during social interactions, apparently as a tool to groom one another,” says Michael Weiss (@CetaceanMike) of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, WA. “To find that the whales were not just using but also manufacturing tools, and that these objects were being used in a way never before reported in marine mammals, was incredibly exciting.” 

Weiss and his team discovered this unexpected whale activity while conducting aerial observations of southern resident killer whales, which are a critically endangered whale population with fewer than 80 individuals left found in the Pacific Northwest. The team has been monitoring the whales since 2018 to learn more about their foraging and social behavior.  

“While there are other killer whales around the world, the southern residents represent a genetically, ecologically, and culturally distinct population,” says Weiss.  

Through the high-resolution footage collected by their aircraft, the researchers found that the whales created tools by breaking off the ends of bull kelp stalks. They then pressed pieces of kelp against a partner and rolled the kelp between their bodies for long periods of time. 

The researchers observed this behavior in whales across all social groups, both sexes, and all age classes. They found that whales were more likely to groom closely related whales or similarly aged partners. They also saw some evidence that whales with more molting or dead skin were more likely to engage in grooming, suggesting it may have a hygienic function. 

“What I find most remarkable is that despite this apparently being a common behavior—we see it most days we fly our drone over these whales—it hadn’t yet been discovered in this population despite nearly 50 years of dedicated observation,” says Weiss. “To me, this demonstrates not just the power of new observation methods but also how much we still have to learn about these animals.” 

It remains unclear whether this grooming behavior is entirely unique to this population or more widespread among other whale populations and species. Regardless, the discovery opens new avenues for understanding tool use in marine mammals and demonstrates that tools can be used in a wide array of contexts, say the researchers.   

“This finding highlights yet another way these whales’ society and culture is unique and the importance of recovering the southern resident killer whale population,” says Weiss. 

A pair of killer whales, one of which has kelp in its mouth.

A killer whale with kelp in its mouth.

Credit

Center for Whale Research, NMFS NOAA Permit 27038

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This research was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council, the Orca Fund, the Wild Fish Conservancy, the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, and the Earthwatch Institute. 

Current Biology, Weiss et al., “Manufacture and use of allogrooming tools by wild killer whales.” https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00450-6

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.  

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Journal

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.021 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Manufacture and use of allogrooming tools by wild killer whales

Article Publication Date

23-Jun-2025

 

Some of your AI prompts could cause 50 times more CO2 emissions than others

Researchers found some LLMs create four times the amount of CO2 emissions than other models with comparable accuracy. Their findings allow users to make informed decisions about their own LLM use

Frontiers

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No matter which questions we ask an AI, the model will come up with an answer. To produce this information – regardless of whether than answer is correct or not – the model uses tokens. Tokens are words or parts of words that are converted into a string of numbers that can be processed by the LLM.

This conversion, as well as other computing processes, produce CO2 emissions. Many users, however, are unaware of the substantial carbon footprint associated with these technologies. Now, researchers in Germany measured and compared CO2 emissions of different, already trained, LLMs using a set of standardized questions.

“The environmental impact of questioning trained LLMs is strongly determined by their reasoning approach, with explicit reasoning processes significantly driving up energy consumption and carbon emissions,” said first author Maximilian Dauner, a researcher at Hochschule München University of Applied Sciences and first author of the Frontiers in Communication study. “We found that reasoning-enabled models produced up to 50 times more CO₂ emissions than concise response models.”

‘Thinking’ AI causes most emissions

The researchers evaluated 14 LLMs ranging from seven to 72 billion parameters on 1,000 benchmark questions across diverse subjects. Parameters determine how LLMs learn and process information.

Reasoning models, on average, created 543.5 ‘thinking’ tokens per questions, whereas concise models required just 37.7 tokens per question. Thinking tokens are additional tokens that reasoning LLMs generate before producing an answer. A higher token footprint always means higher CO₂ emissions. It doesn’t, however, necessarily mean the resulting answers are more correct, as elaborate detail that is not always essential for correctness.

The most accurate model was the reasoning-enabled Cogito model with 70 billion parameters, reaching 84.9% accuracy. The model produced three times more CO2 emissions than similar sized models that generated concise answers. “Currently, we see a clear accuracy-sustainability trade-off inherent in LLM technologies,” said Dauner. “None of the models that kept emissions below 500 grams of CO₂ equivalent achieved higher than 80% accuracy on answering the 1,000 questions correctly.” CO2 equivalent is the unit used to measure the climate impact of various greenhouse gases.

Subject matter also resulted in significantly different levels of CO2 emissions. Questions that required lengthy reasoning processes, for example abstract algebra or philosophy, led to up to six times higher emissions than more straightforward subjects, like high school history.

Practicing thoughtful use

The researchers said they hope their work will cause people to make more informed decisions about their own AI use. “Users can significantly reduce emissions by prompting AI to generate concise answers or limiting the use of high-capacity models to tasks that genuinely require that power,” Dauner pointed out.

Choice of model, for instance, can make a significant difference in CO2 emissions. For example, having DeepSeek R1 (70 billion parameters) answer 600,000 questions would create CO2 emissions equal to a round-trip flight from London to New York. Meanwhile, Qwen 2.5 (72 billion parameters) can answer more than three times as many questions (about 1.9 million) with similar accuracy rates while generating the same emissions.

The researchers said that their results may be impacted by the choice of hardware used in the study, an emission factor that may vary regionally depending on local energy grid mixes, and the examined models. These factors may limit the generalizability of the results.

“If users know the exact CO₂ cost of their AI-generated outputs, such as casually turning themselves into an action figure, they might be more selective and thoughtful about when and how they use these technologies,” Dauner concluded.

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Journal

Frontiers in Communication

DOI

10.3389/fcomm.2025.1572947 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Energy Costs of Communicating with AI

Article Publication Date

19-Jun-2025

 

Some studies might not paint full picture of how plants respond to climate change

Michigan State University

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Open top chambers are kept beneath rainout shelters at the Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research Site.

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Credit: Kara Dobson

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Scientists may be underestimating how plants will respond to rising global temperatures when they study hot summers but not warming winters, Michigan State University ecologists found. 

An MSU team synthesized data from 126 simulated warming experiments from across the globe to provide insights into how plants respond to a hotter climate. In their findings, now published in Global Change Biology, they learned that experiments with warming only during summer months showed less-pronounced results than year-round experiments. This could mean that summer-only experiments don’t account for the important effects of winter warming and may provide conflicting results.  

The study also unveiled a lack of research on the effects of warming on non-native species, potentially hindering scientists’ ability to understand how these species respond to climate change. The authors identified knowledge gaps in current studies, suggesting that future warming experiments should last longer to allow for multiple seasons and years of warming. 

“This important global synthesis of warming effects on plants across many ecosystems can be used to inform models of future impacts,” said Phoebe Zarnetske, an author and professor in MSU’s Integrative Biology department and Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, or EEB, Program. “We hope to inspire more experiments to fill knowledge gaps of climate change impacts on plants and their communities.”  

Zarnetske is also principal investigator of the Spatial and Community Ecology Lab (SpaCE Lab), whose long-term and year-round warming experiment at Kellogg Biological Station’s Long-Term Ecological Research, or LTER, Site was one of the 126 sites in the meta-analysis. Its first seven years were summarized in a recent publication.

Understanding global changes 

Around the world, researchers are working together through coordinated efforts, such as the LTER network, to better understand how plants respond to global changes across different environments.  

In their latest paper, the MSU team analyzed studies that used open-top chambers to investigate how temperature increases caused changes in plant traits and plant community properties. They also explored how the severity of changes varied based on location, experimental methods and plant identity.  

“Experiments that simulate warming are critical for helping scientists uncover the processes driving these changes,” author and integrative biology and former EEB Ph.D student Kara Dobson said.  

The scope of the analysis allowed researchers to identify global trends in plant responses and predict what may happen in the future as temperatures continue to climb. 

The results were striking. MSU’s team found that plants in temperate regions with hot summers and cold winters show more pronounced responses to warming than those grown in more tropical regions with less extreme variations in temperature.

Previous studies have suggested that non-native plants could benefit from future climate conditions, potentially increasing the likelihood that they spread or become invasive. Meanwhile, non-vascular plants have often shown negative responses to warming, raising concerns that they could decline globally as climate conditions continue to change. However, this study highlights the lack of research on the effects of passive warming on non-native and non-vascular species, especially compared to their native and vascular counterparts.

Including a broader variety of plant types in climate research, as well as coordinating these experiments across different environment and over long periods of time, will help us understand which species are likely to thrive – or struggle – in a warmer future. 

“This study is unique in terms of the size of the dataset we collected,” Dobson said. “It brings together data from experiments across the globe and from all continents, including Antarctica.” 

Funding for this research comes from the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Program, the Kellogg Biological Station-LTER and the MSU College of Natural Science. 

By Caleb Hess 

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Michigan State University has been advancing the common good with uncommon will for more than 170 years. One of the world’s leading public research universities, MSU pushes the boundaries of discovery to make a better, safer, healthier world for all while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 400 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges. 

For generations, Spartans have been changing the world through research. Federal funding helps power many of the discoveries that improve lives and keep America at the forefront of innovation and competitiveness. From lifesaving cancer treatments to solutions that advance technology, agriculture, energy and more, MSU researchers work every day to shape a better future for the people of Michigan and beyond. Learn more about MSU’s research impact powered by partnership with the federal government.  

For MSU news on the web, go to MSUToday or x.com/MSUnews. 

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Journal

Global Change Biology

DOI

10.1111/gcb.70306 

Article Title

A Global Meta-Analysis of Passive Experimental Warming Effects on Plant Traits and Community Properties

Article Publication Date

23-Jun-2025