T T heir relationship began innocently enough. He started to pay extra attention to her, and her attraction to him grew over time. One day, however, the dynamic changed. While she was peacefully sitting having a meal, he attacked her without warning. The unprovoked abuse continued, yet she stayed with him, still feeling the attraction and too afraid to go anywhere else. Later, his presence benefitted their youngsters.

Such is a typical story of a wild, female chacma baboon, which in many ways is a tale that mirrors those of certain chimpanzees and human domestic abuse survivors the world over, a new study published in the journal Current Biology indicates. Males of all three species may use long-term sexual intimidation to control their mates, suggesting that this mating strategy has a long history in primates, including humans.

The behavior has often been reported in our species, and has been documented in male chimps over the past decade. The new study focuses on chacma baboons, which are among the largest of all monkeys.

What is interesting is that the forms of sexual violence reported in chacma baboons may resemble some common patterns of sexual intimidation in humans, namely domestic violence, in the sense that they are similarly expressed in the context of long-term relationships between one male and one female, which are otherwise characterized by close spatial proximity and sometimes high levels of affiliation, said senior author Elise Huchard of the University of Montpelliers Institute of Evolutionary Sciences.

There is nothing paradoxical in forming a strong bond with someone, and displaying aggression in the context of such relationship, added Huchard. Conflict is an integral part of social life in every species including humans, and it's often with those people that you often see that you may have a conflict.

Huchard, lead author Alice Baniel, and co-author Guy Cowlishaw studied wild chacma baboons at Tsaobis Nature Park, a semi-arid environment in Namibia. The study occurred over four different periods from 20052014, during which time the researchers documented 222 chases or attacks led by males.

The researchers observed that males often formed social bonds with particular fertile females, which they then attacked and chased repeatedly usually without provocation in the weeks preceding her ovulation and prior to their mating.

It can also be that there is an event triggering the attack, such as a rival approaching or vocalizing, or the proximity of another baboon group, Huchard said. The latter case is typical: males often chase and attack some females of their own group when meeting another group, and they generally target sexually receptive females in such occasions.

RELATED: Human Hands More Primitive Than Chimp Hands

Some of the females were badly injured in the attacks, with certain individuals suffering premature deaths after repeated bouts of injuries.

The prior studies on sexual intimidation in chimps found that fertile females have higher levels of cortisol, a hormone indicative of stress. Increased stress can alter immune response. It can also disrupt reproduction and growth.

If a female baboon does give birth to offspring sired by the male, his behavior somewhat changes.

Several studies (on baboons) have shown that its often the male who has been monopolizing a female during her conceptive estrus who becomes her friend when she gives birth, Huchard explained. The female follows the male everywhere with her newborn, and the male essentially tolerates her presence; however, studies have shown that males defend their female friend's offspring against predators or infanticidal attacks, which are not uncommon in baboons.

She continued, Male-female bonds progressively dissolve as infants grow towards independency, and are often finished when a female becomes fertile again, when her juvenile is fully weaned.

A common factor among primates that practice long-term sexual intimidation is that the species tend to have males that are larger than the females. Such size differences, in turn, appear to be driven by patterns of male-to-male competition. This can happen when there are several adult males for each sexually receptive female within a population.

Since sexual coercion can stunt a victims growth, it might even further drive sexual size dimorphism, helping to keep the vicious cycle going.

Not all primate species have males that engage in long-term sexual intimidation, though. In lemurs, for example, it is common that females are larger than males. Even among baboons, chimps, and certainly humans, not all males practice sexual coercion.

There is increasing research to show that animals are capable of innovations, rational decisions, self-control, empathy, strategic behavior, etc., Huchard said. So, it's possible that male baboons are just driven by their sexual hormones, but it's also very possible that their actions are strategic and adjusted to the social context.

In humans, the intensity and frequency of long-term sexual intimidation by males vary widely across cultures. This points to a strong cultural component affecting the behavior.

Its even possible that there is a cultural basis for baboon sexual intimidation, as for human sexual intimidation, Huchard said. Thats a question for future research, but it wont be an easy one to answer.

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Sexual Violence Among Baboons Shows Links to Human Behavior ... - Seeker

ANDERSON, Calif. - A mutual response of CAL FIRE Shasta and Tehamaunits brought a three and a half acre fire near the Coleman National Fish Hatchery under control Wednesday night.

CAL FIRE said the fire broke out around 8:30 p.m. one mile away from the hatchery. Crews utilized five engines, two watertenders, two air tankers, a helicopter and two bulldozers to bring it under control.

No structures were damaged and there were no reports of injuries.

Crews said dry river bottom vegetation caught fire. An official at the scene said the fire was caused by human behavior, but the exact cause has not been determined, pending an investigation.

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CAL FIRE: Human behavior causes fire near Coleman Fish Hatchery - KRCRTV.COM

In BriefA study has found that it would be fairly simple to programautonomous vehicles to make similar moral decisions as humandrivers. In light of this, the question becomes whether we wantdriverless cars to emulate us or behave differently. Programming Morality

A new study from The Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrck has found that the moral decisions humans make while driving are not as complex or context dependent as previously thought. Based on the research, which has been published inFrontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience,these decisions follow a fairly simple value-of-life-based model, which means programming autonomous vehicles to make ethical decisions should be relatively easy.

For the study, 105 participants were put in a virtual reality (VR) scenario during which they drove around suburbia on a foggy day. They then encountered unavoidable dilemmas that forced them to choose between hitting people, animals, and inanimate objects with their virtual car.

The previous assumption was that these types of moral decisions were highly contextual and therefore beyond computational modeling. But we found quite the opposite, Leon Stfeld, first author of the study, told Science Daily. Human behavior in dilemma situations can be modeled by a rather simple value-of-life-based model that is attributed by the participant to every human, animal, or inanimate object.

Alot of virtual ink has been spilt online concerning the benefits of driverless cars. Elon Musk is in the vanguard, stating emphatically that those who do not support the technology are killing people.His view is that the technology can be smarter, more impartial, and better at driving than humans, and thus able to save lives.

Currently, however, the cars are large pieces of hardware supported byrudimentary driverless technology. The question of how many lives they could save is contingent upon how we choose to program them, and thats where the resultsof this study come into play. If we expect driverless cars to be better than humans, why would we program them like human drivers?

As Professor Gordon Pipa, a senior author on the study, explained, We need to ask whether autonomous systems should adopt moral judgements. If yes, should they imitate moral behavior by imitating human decisions? Should they behave along ethical theories, and if so, which ones? And critically, if things go wrong, who or what is at fault?

The ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) remains swampy moral territory in general, and numerous guidelines and initiatives are being formed in an attempt to codify a set of responsible laws for AI.The Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society is composed of tech giants, including Apple, Google, and Microsoft, while the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure has developed a set of 20 principles that AI-powered cars should follow.

Just how safe driverless vehicles will be in the future is dependent on how we choose to program them, and while that task wont be easy, knowing how we would react in various situations should help us along the way.

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Study Finds That Human Ethics Could Be Easily Programmed Into Driverless Cars - Futurism