QUIRKY WORLD ... Chimps have all the brainpower to get cooking

CONGO: They’re not likely to start barbecuing in the rainforest, but chimpanzees can understand the concept of cooking and are willing to postpone eating raw food, even carrying food some distance to cook it rather than eat immediately, scientists said yesterday.

The findings, based on nine experiments conducted at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary in Republic of Congo and published Proceedings of the Society B, suggest that chimps have all the brainpower needed to cook, including planning, causal understanding, and ability to postpone gratification.

They do lack the ability to produce fire. But if they were given a source of heat, chimps “might be quite able to manipulate [it] to cook”, said developmental psychologist Felix Warneken of Harvard University, who conducted the study with Alexandra Rosati.