Making a monkey out of me

Two primate related stories caught my eye in the Sun Times.

First, there's the story of a monkey problem in the New Dehli subway. It seems that one of our evolutionary cousins got into the train system and was scowling at passengers. I know of some more evolutionarily advanced primates that have indulged in some much more disruptive behavior on our own public transportation system.

To rid the subway of the monkey problem, the authorities hired a man with a trained langur to patrol the trains. A langur, pictured at left, is a primate that allegedly has as one of its talents the ability to scare off monkeys. It doesn't look so scary to me, but then again I'm not a monkey -- just related to them (more on that in the next part of this post).

India battles monkeys on subways

NEW DELHI -- It's primate versus primate in New Delhi's metro system.

In an effort to keep monkeys out of subways, authorities have called in one of the rare animals known to scare the creatures -- the langur, a fierce-looking primate used around South Asia to chase off troops of mischievous monkeys, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

In Kansas, the see-saw battle for control of the school board swung back in favor of those who want to teach Evolution. It's the fourth time that control has changed hands, with the pro-science board members outnumbering Intelligent designers 6 to 4 after the latest round of elections. At this point, the board should get the feeling that the voters are monkeying with them. Maybe they need to hire a langur or two to keep them in line.

Kansas see-saws back to pro-evolution stance

BY JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. -- Upcoming changes to the state school board mean Kansas is likely to return to evolution-friendly education standards -- yet remain mired in a fight over how the theory is taught in classrooms.