Complexity Digest 2005.45 - 10

05/11/10

Two Most Recent Web Cast + Podcast :

Intl. Waste Treatment Conference

Taipei, Taiwan, 05/10/30
">complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/05WasteTaipei/

[b][green]Illuminating the Shadow of the Future

Ann Arbor, Mi 05/09/23-25
Webcast">complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/05ISF/index.html

[b][red]WebcastArchive:
http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/

Money And Monkey Business, New Scientist Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: The capuchin monkeys working with economist Keith Chen and psychologist Laurie Santos know a good bargain when they see one. They use metal chips as money, buying bits of apple or cucumber from humans, and they seem to know what they're doing. When the researchers make apple cheaper than cucumber - offering more food for the same number of chips - the capuchins opt for the better-value food, as any savvy shopper would. Yet it is not the monkeys' good economic sense that Chen and Santos find most interesting. Rather, it is their tendency, on occasion, to make an irrational deal - and to do so in a distinctively human way.