Washoe Dies. How will this effect Republican Party in Washington State?

Today's Top Breaking News Headlines for Seattle and the Nation - Examiner.com: "Sign-language chimp Washoe dies at 42 Washoe, a female chimpanzee said to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died at the age of 42 at Central Washington University. Photo Spotlight This undated picture provided by Central Washington University on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007 shows Washoe, a female chimpanzee believed to be the first non-human to acquire human language. She died Tuesday night, Oct. 30, 2007 of natural causes at the research institute in Ellensburg, Wash. where she was kept, according to The Chimpanzee and Human Communications Institute at Central Washington University. She was born in Africa about 1965. (AP Photo/Central Washington University) Read more in 'Chimpanzee Who Knew Sign Language Dies'..."

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters: "'New Scientist is reporting that 'non-human primates really can understand the meaning of numerals.' The small study of two rhesus monkeys reveals that cells in their brains respond selectively to specific number values — regardless of whether the amount is represented by dots on a screen or an Arabic numeral. For example, a given brain cell in the monkey will respond to the number three, but not the number one. The results suggest that individual cells in human brains might also have a fine-tuned preference for specific numerical values.' The report itself is online at PLoS Biology, Semantic Associations between Signs and Numerical Categories in the Prefrontal Cortex.'"

One third of primate species on the brink - earth - 01 November 2007 - New Scientist Environment: "Madagascar's silky sifaka is a prime candidate to claim the unenviable distinction of becoming the first primate to go extinct in two centuries. The sifaka (pictured) is one of 25 primate species identified by a new report as being most at risk. It found that almost one-third of all primate species are in danger of disappearing for good. The last primate known to have gone extinct was Xenothrix mcgregori - a species similar to the capuchin monkey - which disappeared from Jamaica in the early 1700s. Its mantle may not pass straight to the sifaka, however, as there ware a handful of even rarer species. The golden-headed langur of Vietnam and China's Hainan gibbon each number in the dozens, while the Horton Plains slender loris of Sri Lanka has been sighted just four times since 1937. The rarest of them all is thought to be Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey ..."