At this point it seems like a Planet-of-the-Apes-style uprising amongst chimps is almost inevitable. They've invented spears, gone to war with other primates and even developed a penchant for cooked food (which may or may not include human flesh). Now it seems they're hard at work nullifying out technological advantage in the inevitable conflict; with the news a chimp just took out a drone.
A Dutch TV crew were filming a zoo in Amsterdam; using a drone to get some nice shots. Part of this involved flying the drone around some captive chimps. Of course, they kept the drone safely out of reach of the chimps - or so they thought. A female Tushi grabbed a stick almost two meters long; climbed a tree to get close to the drone and then swiped it out of the air.
Clearly this is only a trial run. It won't be long before the chimps are scaling up this technology, creating a branch large enough to swat down the aeroplanes we would try and use against them during the uprising.
Some might highlight the scientific significance of this observation. Chimps do use sticks to swipe at things in trees. The fact that they were able to adapt this behaviour to take out a drone shows a significant degree of innovation and behavioural flexbility. This might go some way towards helping understand the cognitive capacaties of our chimp-like ancestors; explaining how they first developed stone tools.
However, I would suggest that this actually highlights the significance of preparing a stick-proof panic room for the chimpocalypse.
Reference (yes, this story has a scientific citaiton)
van Hooff, J. A., & Lukkenaar, B. (2015). Captive chimpanzee takes down a drone: tool use toward a flying object. Primates, 1-4.
