“Eagerly he collects wood from the ground, snaps the branches into small pieces and carefully balances them in a pile. Then, taking care not to burn himself, he gently strikes a match and gets ready for a fry-up. Like all red-blooded males, Kanzi loves messing around with a barbecue. But then, as these extraordinary pictures show, Kanzi is no man. He is a bonobo – pygmy chimpanzee – and his love of fire is challenging the way that we think about our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. For although bonobo apes and larger chimpanzees use twigs and leaves as tools, none has ever shown such skill for cooking food. Kanzi is one of eight bonobos in the care of Dr Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, one of the world’s leading experts in ape behavior and language. She believes 31-year-old Kanzi’s fascination with fire reveals a deep intelligence.” w/ photos

“Pigeons may not be so bird-brained after all, as scientists have found the birds’ ability to understand numbers is on par with that of primates. Previous studies have shown that various animals, from honeybees to chimpanzees, can learn to count when trained with food rewards. In 1998, researchers discovered that rhesus monkeys can not only learn to count to four, but can also pick up on numerical rules and apply them to numbers they haven’t seen before, allowing them to count up to nine without further training. With this finding in mind, psychologists at the University of Otago, in New Zealand, sought to find out if pigeons — another animal shown to count — have a numerical competence similar to rhesus monkeys.” w/ photo

“It takes a super-factory to provide a beverage with a famously secret formula consumed in over 99 percent of the populated world.” — NatGeo

“Bill Moyers joined George Lucas at Skywalker Ranch in northern California to talk about the ancient myths and personal values that have synthesized into Star Wars. The epic themes in Lucas’ cinematic stories are a springboard for a candid conversation about family, fatherhood, spiritual beliefs, and the importance of moral tales for every generation. Intercut with movie footage from the original trilogy as well as the prequel, The Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas and Bill Moyers provides a revealing journey in the company of the filmmaker through some of the most famous scenes of the Star Wars saga.”

“Drug companies are developing a painkiller ten times stronger than Vicodin which addiction experts fear could spark a wave of abuse. Four companies have begun patient testing on the pills which are the first to contain the addictive ingredient hydrocodone in a pure form. If approved, it would mark the first time patients could legally buy pure hydrocodone as existing products combine the drug with nonaddictive painkillers such as acetaminophen. The pharmaceutical firms claim the new drug will give doctors another tool to help patients manage pain. The companies also say patients will be more closely supervised. However addiction experts fear abusers will crush the pills into a fine powder and snort it to get high. Such practice is common with the painkiller oxycodone, currently the most-abused medicine in the U.S.” w/ photos

“The number of men seeking treatment for baldness has surged by a third in the last year – and experts say protein shakes are partly to blame. Young mining workers preoccupied with their appearance, who were also turning to Botox to keep their youthful looks, were driving the increase, according to WA’s only hair transplant surgeon Jennifer Martinick. Dr Martinick said she was booked out for more than six months and performing more than 400 procedures annually – up about 30 per cent from a year ago. She was also seeing double the number of bald men in their 20s and 30s than a decade ago and partly attributed the rise to protein shakes which caused the body to produce chemicals that caused or worsened baldness. “Lots of young guys these days are very image conscious,’ Dr Martinick said. “They are 20 or 30-something, go to the gym, some even have Botox, take protein shakes to build up muscle but don’t realize it can contribute to baldness.” w/ photo

“This of course doesn’t take into account the fact that it is totally possible that Santa distributes the gifts in advance and they are just invisible or phased out of our dimension until Christmas time at which point they become visible or phase in to our dimension.”

“Did anybody else check the corners of their mouth for undetected drool?” — 12.D.M

“Get a rare look inside Lamborghini’s ultimate factory as Italian craftsmen build the limited edition Murcielago SV.” — NatGeo

“Since the dawn of mankind we’ve been coming up with new and creative ways to kill each other – you could argue that it’s what humans do best. The infographic below takes a look at the amount of taxpayer money that goes into funding specific military equipment, ranging from ‘small’ items to the truly gargantuan in price. The graphic compares the cost of these items to things that the average American can relate to, such as median income, cost of a college education, health insurance, or the price of buying a home.” w/ photos