Maggie: Hey Guys. We Are Here at Chimp Haven in Louisiana, Hanging out with Our Closest

Maggie: Hey guys. We are here at Chimp Haven in Louisiana, hanging out with our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. And we are going to find out what makes them so smart and so special coming up in the show. I am Maggie Rulli and Channel One News starts right now.

Tom: Can't wait to see it Maggie. But first, let's take a look at today's top stories.
There is fierce fighting taking place in Iraq, in the city of Ramadi, just 70 miles west of the capital, Baghdad. Reports say that the terror group ISIS may be close to taking control.

ISIS has overrun three villages close to Ramadi, blowing up a police station during the attack. The battle has been going on for several months with parts of the surrounding towns already under ISIS control.
Further north, ISIS fighters also broke into Iraq's largest oil refinery and Iraqi officials say fighting inside that facility continues on.
The ISIS offensive comes as the U.S. military recently claimed that American led airstrikes and Iraqi ground forces have made significant progress, recapturing the city of Tikrit and retaking more than a quarter of the territory seized by ISIS in Iraq last year.
U.S. airstrikes have continued this week over the city of Ramadi.
And the number of high school and middle school students using e-cigarettes is on the rise. According to a new study teens using e-cigarettes has tripled over the past few years.

Last year, two million teens about 13 and a half percent of high school students used e-cigarettes. That's up from 4.5 percent in 2013 and 1.5 percent in 2011.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the study, calls it alarming. The report shows that the use of e-cigarettes has become so popular that teens are now giving uptraditional cigarettes and all other tobacco products.
While e-cigarettes don't contain tobacco or create smoke, they usually contain the drug nicotine. According to the CDC, nicotine can harm brain development in teens and get them addicted.

Alright coming up, we are swinging from the trees to take a closer look at the intelligence ofanimals who are almost human.

Today as we look into animal intelligence, we will check out a creature whose genealogy is not much different from yours or mine. Maggie Rulli meets up with mankind’s closest relative.

Maggie: Commercials have them dancing, all dressed up for work, even getting the office blues. Chimpanzees sometimes seem more like a long lost uncle, than an animal.
Mark Lewis: It’s almost like talking to a person. They respond to us in different ways.
Cathy Spreatz: When you look into the face of a chimpanzee, you’re sort of looking in the mirror.
Amy Fultz: I think we think they're intelligent because we recognize us in them.
Maggie: Well they are humans closest living relatives, sharing at least 96 percent of our DNA, meaning chimps are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas.
How smart are chimps?

Erin Loeser: Chimps are incredible smart. We get outsmarted on a daily basis.
Maggie: More than 200 chimpanzees currently live at Chimp Haven, a sanctuary in Keithville, Louisiana.

Most of the chimps came here after years, often decades of being used for medical research. Although considered endangered in the rest of the world, the U.S. has fewer protections on chimps so they can be used in testing.
Scientists started using chimpanzees in U.S. labs in the 1920s, after they noticed the similarities between chimps and humans. This work helped to develop vaccines and better understand various diseases that also affect humans.
These chimps here are currently living with HIV and hepatitis. They were infected with the viruses while they were being studied at a research facility.
The more chimps were used to advance medicine, the more we also learned about their intelligence.
Amy Fultz: There’ve been so many different studies that have shown that chimpanzees can recognize themselves, they can problem solve in so many different ways. There’ve been studies that have even show that chimpanzees can do some very basic math.

Maggie: Amy Fultz is a behaviorist at Chimp Haven. And she hasobserved the hundreds of chimps that have come through here over the past twenty years.
Do you think that there are similar emotions to what humans have?

Amy: I do. I feel like we form friendships with some of the chimpanzees that we work with, and they form friendships with each other.

People ask me what do you mean by that when you say friendships? What do we do with our friends? We hang out together, we eat together.

The chimps feed near each other, protect each other in a fight, even sleep near each other. Teenagers have sleepovers all the time. So they sleep near their friends.
Maggie: While we watch a large group interact, Amy points out a classic example of intelligence, tool use. The animals are using sticks to reach food that’s buried deep inside the termite mound.
Amy: It tells us that they are intelligent and they are able to modify things to use them for different purposes.
Maggie: The chimps also rely on highly developed language skills to communicate, something that we hear plenty of during feeding time. We are told those noises are pant grunts and food barks.
Amy: Chimps have over 32 human recognized vocalizations and probably more that we don’t necessarily know what they’re saying to each other and that we’re learning about.

They also communicate by touch, so hugging or reaching out to greet each other, very similar to humans.
Maggie: As our understanding of a chimp’s intelligence evolve, some people question if they even should be tested on.Are they too intelligent to be test subjects?
Cathy: Science had really advanced to the point where it was determined that chimpanzees, by and large, were no longer necessary to try to cure human disease. Quite honestly, using human subjects is really the best way to find a cure for a human being.
Maggie: The National Institute of Health, or NIH, announced in 2013 that it would phase out testing of nearly all of the chimps owned by the federal government, keeping only 50 just in case they were ever needed.

Do you think the decision from the NIHwas a game changer?
Cathy: Well, I think it was everything.

Maggie: The announcement is part of a larger trend worldwide. Most other developed countries already have bans or severe limitations on chimp research.And in addition to the NIH, many American drug companies have pledged to stop or limit their bio-medical testing on chimps.
Because of their high intelligence, some are even pushing for chimps to get a special label, "personhood," giving them similar rights to humans. A trend Cathy and the rest of Chimp Haven cannot wait for, as the remaining chimps in federally custody will all find a home at Chimp Haven over the next few years.
How important is Chimp Haven?

Cathy: Oh, Chimp Haven is everything. It is so important. As soon as we have space for them then they will be retiring here at Chimp Haven. This is their final place.
Mark Lewis: And that’s the reason we're all here. It’s because they're smart animals and they need to be taken care of, and we try to do our best with that.
Maggie: Maggie Rulli, Channel One News.

Tom: Very cool Maggie.

And over the past couple of weeks we have been checking out some the pics you guys have been sending in using the #coolcreatures; from snakes to horses, and even two adorable goats. And you can check out a slideshow of our favorites over at Channelone.com.
Coming up, we will show you a Next Big Thing that will brighten your day.

An invisible spray that keeps bikers safe. But before we peddle into this week's Next Big Thing, let's see what you thought about last week's idea.

We told you about cardio theatres, running in front of the big screen as the movie rolls on.

So, is it the Next Big Thing?
Sixty percent of you said yes, I will run a movie marathon. Forty percent of you said no, I will sit with my popcorn please.

This week, riding a bike at night is getting a bit brighter and safer with a new high-tech paint.

It is not exactly a glow-in-the-dark spray, but it works pretty much like that. LifePaint is Volvo's retro-reflective temporary paint that is currently on trial in the United Kingdom.
And once the paint dries, it is looks a lot like the safety tape and the reflective panels sewn into biking and jogging jackets.
Every year thousands of cyclists in cities around the world are involved in accidents, often hit by a car.
Mike Clemson: I end up getting nearly hit at least once a day.
Isabelle du lPessis: In terms of cycling at night, I feel way less visible, sometimes I choose not to cycle home at night. It's a lot more dangerous.
Tom: Once the paint is applied, it is invisible by day but lights up at night in the glare of headlights.

So, is glow paint the Next Big Thing? Head on over to Channelone.com to vote.

And that is going do it for us today. But before we go, here's another happy birthday shoutout from a former Channel One reporter who also had the chance to hang out with chimps when he was here.

Derrick Shore: Hey everybody. I am Derrick Shore. I was a Channel One reporter from 1999 to 2005. Now, I’m a reporter for KCET in Los Angeles.

I grew up watching Channel One. It certainly helped to shape my perspective of the world and I will never forget my Channel One family. So it’s a great honor for me to wish you a very happy 25thbirthday and keep up all the great work.

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