Monday, April 14, 1997Neighborhood groups to unveil alternate
plan
A coalition of Westwood neighborhood groups will present their
idea for a new revitalization plan for Westwood on Tuesday.
The plan, titled "Westwood Village Commons," will be unveiled at
a public meeting hosted by Councilman Mike Feuer, and is the
community’s response to the Village Center Westwood proposed by
developer Ira Smedra.
"Westwood Village Commons" will include an open-air
European-style market, upscale retail stores, a conference center,
outdoor cafes, live theater, a park with a children’s play area , a
branch library and a post office.
The unveiling will mark the first time in Los Angeles that a
community has shaped its own vision for a development. The plan has
the support of the Holmby-Westwood and Westwood Hills Property
Owners Associations and Friends of Westwood.
Animals talk, and lie, too
Animals have elaborate languages which can identify food,
distinguish between threats  and are even used to tell lies,
say scientists meeting in San Francisco.
Peter Marler, a UC Davis researcher considered one of the
world’s top animal communications experts, told the conference at
the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park that animals
lie for the same reasons many humans do  sex.
Researchers in Africa have observed male vervet monkeys
attracting females by uttering the vervet word for "food," Marler
said.
Just as some human females discover that their blind date’s BMW
is a rusting Chevy and his "high-powered job" is the night shift at
a fast-food restaurant, the female vervet rushes up to the male and
discovers the "food" is a twig or leaf.
When they’re not trying to pick up a mate, vervets have an
elaborate way of distinguishing between various threats, Marler
said.
The vervet monkeys utter one type of cry when threatened by a
snake; another when attacked by a leopard; and yet another when
assaulted by an eagle, he said,
That way, Marler explained, their fellow vervets will know where
to hide: say, in a tree, far above the snake; or in a bush, where
the eagle can’t reach them.
For centuries, scientists have wondered whether the animal
world’s cacophony of clucks, tweets, woofs, meows and
cock-a-doodle-doos are primitive forms of language.
Or are they just meaningless grunts, peeps and squeals that
creatures utter automatically?
The contentious science of "animal communication" peaked in the
1970s. Back then, scientists claimed they had trained primates how
to communicate with sign language.
But critics analyzed videotapes of the training sessions and
claimed the primates didn’t really "understand" what they were
"saying." Afterward, the field withered and federal research funds
largely dried up.
Nowadays, most animal communication experts’ goals are far more
modest. Instead of trying to "talk" via sign language with animals,
they passively observe animals in the laboratory or the field and
tape-record their utterances. Observations and experiments with
recorded cries offer "great, compelling hints" that the monkeys’
cries aren’t simply dumb reflexes, Marler said. Rather, they’re the
equivalent of human words that refer to specific objects in the
environment.
It raises the $64,000 question: If certain animals utter
"words," can they assemble those words into "sentences"?
This is "the most difficult (issue in animal communication
research), the one I feel most timid in approaching," Marler
acknowledged. On the one hand, he is "virtually certain" there is
no evidence that animals can assemble words into sentences.
On the other hand, tape recordings of certain bird calls show
they contain an intricate internal structure. That structure
includes "a simple library of six (musical) note types" that the
bird rearranges into a complex variety of songs," he said.
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.