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Washington, January 3 (ANI): Bonobos value social networking so much, they share food with a stranger before they do with an acquaintance, according to research

In a series of experiments, Jingzhi Tan and Brian Hare of Duke University found that bonobos would voluntarily forego their food and offer it to a stranger in exchange for social interaction.

The authors found that the bonobos' behavior was at least partially driven by unselfish motivations, since the animals helped strangers acquire food that was out of reach even when no social interaction was possible as a result of helping them. However, their generosity had its limits: Animals would not share food in their possession if no social interaction was possible.

Though the study subjects were all bonobos that had been orphaned by the bushmeat trade in Congo, they showed no significant psychological differences from bonobos that had been raised by their mothers. According to the authors, their results reveal the evolution of generosity in these apes, our closest living relatives. They suggest that the behavior may have evolved to allow for the expansion of individual social networks.

Lead author Tan adds, "Our results show that generosity toward strangers is not unique to humans. Like chimpanzees, our species would kill strangers; like bonobos, we could also be very nice to strangers. Our results highlight the importance of studying bonobos to fully understand the origins of such human behaviors." (ANI)

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Bonobos share food with strangers in exchange for friendship

Mumbai, Jan. 3 -- Even as thousands of youngsters across the country have united in protest against the brutal Delhi gangrape, social networking sites have proved to be a mobilising factor for the nationwide outrage.

Through events, community pages and messages on websites like Facebook and Twitter, the word has been spread about protests in the city and thousands have come to the streets to demand stricter laws for crimes against women.

On December 31, an event organised in Dadar to reclaim safety for women and decry the gang rape was publicised primarily on Twitter.

After the December 16 incident, Navi Mumbai youth Soumil Shetty created a Facebook page 'Know the India we are,' where he urges people to take to their video cameras, raise questions, voice their anger and then upload the video for the world to watch.

He believes that the common man should question everyone, from policemen to politicians. Many social media users have contributed to or visited the page.

According to Shetty, it is important to go beyond staging a protest and demanding change.

"It is time we know what the reality is. We are all living in our own comfortable cocoons," he said.

"Punishing rapists is not enough. We must know why such crimes are happening. Change begins when we become alert."

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.

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Social media feeds protests fire

By Rodger Mullen Staff writer

Like many teens, Christopher Bell is a regular on Facebook and other social media sites.

So are Christopher's parents, and that has a bearing on what he posts.

"Sometimes I'll find something funny and start to post it and go, 'Ooh, maybe this humor is not appropriate,' " said Christopher, a 15-year-old sophomore at Massey Hill Classical High School.

Facebook, once the exclusive bastion of college students, has exploded in popularity since its founding. Today, high-schoolers and even younger students are likely to be "friends" with their parent, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Along with Facebook, other social media sites such as Twitter have proliferated. Thanks to the Internet, a private thought can become part of the public domain in an instant.

While that has its advantages in immediacy, it also comes with obvious drawbacks. That's particularly true for young people and their parents, who may find it difficult to know where to draw the line between openness and discretion when posting online.

According to Common Sense Media, which specializes in issues concerning children and media, about 73 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds have at least one social networking profile. Facebook's minimum age for an account is 13, though about 7.5 million children under 13 are on Facebook, Common Sense Media says.

"A lot of parents say, the only way I'm going to know what is going on in my child's life is to go on Facebook," said Caroline Knorr, parenting editor at Common Sense Media.

Morris Hargrove is the father of Adriana Hargrove, a Massey Hill junior. Hargrove said he has a Facebook page and checks his daughter's occasionally. Hargrove said he believes social media can be a positive force. He said he sometimes posts encouraging messages, such as congratulating his daughter for making the honor roll.

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Social Networking: Friending your folks

Summary: New social networking site Grom Social is created 'by kids for kids'. and is poised to attract young social networkers away from Facebook with its focus on safety and parental approval.

There are over 1 billion Facebook accounts which leaves it little space to grow. Facebook needs to attract millennials to continue to grow as it stated in its IPO last year. So perhaps it is about time that Facebook had a competitor which is also aiming to capture the youth market.

However, some parents are concerned about exposing their children to adult content. They also have concerns about privacy and unsuitable language. Some are unhappy about their children using the site.

Zach Marks was one of these children who were prevented from using Facebook by his parents. He lied about his age to create an account on Facebook. He quickly became addicted as Facebook consumed all of his time. He began to accept friend requests from adults that he did not know.

A friend of the family told Zachs father about Zachs activities. He had over 600 friends and was exposed to adult content, conversing with adults in a fashion that no 11 year old boy should be doing said Darren Marks, Zachs father.

Zach had to deactivate his account, and a second Facebook account that he activated. The 11 year old then started to look around for another suitable social networks for kids that were safe and cool.

Not being able to find any suitable sites he decided to create his own site, Grom Social: a Facebook for kids.

According to the site a Grom is A promising young individual who is quick to learn. The term is usually applied to boarders or surfers. Grom Social is specifically aimed at children under the age of 16.

Zachs parents, Darren and Sarah Marks are part of the Grom Social team and make sure that the site meets rigorous standards. Members over 16 years old are marked as adult and must be approved by an existing child's parent or legal guardian.

The site has filters in place and live monitoring as well as adult forum monitors. Emails are sent to parents / guardians to advise them of their childs contacts and which topics their child is interested in.

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Grom Social site for kids could halt Facebook's growth

All across Silicon Valley, the past year was filled practically to the brim with killer quotes out of the mouths of (reality TV show) babes, billionaires and budding entrepreneurs.

We had deep thoughts from CEOs playing musical chairs, embarrassing mea culpas from corporate chieftains and whining from startup celebrities with too much twittering time on their hands. All in all, we couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Here are some of our favorite sound bites from a well-chewed year.

"Silicon Valley is high school, except it's only the smart kids, and everyone has a lot of money." -- Kim Taylor, entrepreneur and cast member of "Startups: Silicon Valley," Bravo's critically disdained reality TV show

produced by Mark Zuckerberg's sister Randi and highlighting the lives of aspiring tech superstars

"Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don't own your photos -- you do." -- Kevin Systrom, co-founder of the popular and now Facebook-owned photo-social app, in a blog post apologizing to outraged users for the insensitive way the service announced updates to its terms of service agreement.

"I believe Larry Ellison will bring a new and fresh perspective to the island and its people." -- David Murdock, the Los

Angeles billionaire who controls Dole Food Co. on his sale to Oracle (ORCL) founder Larry Ellison of pretty much the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai. Estimated price tag: $500 million???

"The wealth from our family came from Microsoft, so why would we invest in a competitor?" -- Melinda Gates, philanthropist and wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, on British radio in reference to her kids having asked her for Apple (AAPL) products. Instead, she said, they will be receiving "Windows technology."

"The thing that surprised me is that the job is really fun ... and the baby's been easy. The baby's been way easier than everyone made it out to be. I've been really lucky that way." -- Newly minted Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa

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Best Silicon Valley Business Quotes of 2012