What drives technology?

  • May 23, 2016
What drives technology?

Gates Cambridge Scholar to speak at Hay Festival on her research on bonobos and chimpanzees.

Insights into what drives cultural diversification in our closest living relatives will in turn shed light on how cultural differences emerge and are maintained between adjacent groups in human societies.

Dr Kathelijne Koops

A Gates Cambridge Scholar will be talking about her research on bonobos and chimpanzees at the prestigious Hay Festival next week.

Kathelijne Koops will be speaking at the international literary festival at 2.30pm on 2 June. Her session, Chimps, bonobos, humans, will address what chimpanzees and bonobos can tell us about our extraordinarily complex human cultures, focusing specifically on what drives technology.

Kathelijne, a researcher at the University of Zurich and Harvard University, will investigate this question by studying our closest living relatives, the great apes.

She has published extensively on bonobo and chimpanzee culture and tool use, most recently in PLOS ONE. That study revealed gender bias in chimpanzees which is partly mirrored in human children. Research published last July, in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, provided new evidence of cultural diversification between neighbouring chimpanzee communities.

Kathelijne [2006], who did a PhD in Biological Anthropology supported by a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and was subsequently a Junior Research Fellow at Homerton College, Cambridge, said: "Given the close evolutionary relationship between chimpanzees and humans, insights into what drives cultural diversification in our closest living relatives will in turn shed light on how cultural differences emerge and are maintained between adjacent groups in human societies.”

Photo by Kathelijne Koops

Latest News

Study shows need for repeated vaccines for immunocompromised people

Vaccinations alone may not be enough to protect people with compromised immune systems from infection, even if the vaccine has generated the production of antibodies, according to new research from the University of Cambridge led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar. The findings, published today in Science Advances, suggest that such individuals will need regular vaccine […]

Scholars win recognition for impact and engagement

Two Gates Cambridge Scholars have been recognised in the 2024 Cambridge Awards for Research Impact and Engagement. Stanley Onyemechalu [below right] was runner-up in the Early Career researcher category for his work on the Legacies of Biafra Heritage Project and Emma Houiellebecq was highly commended for her research on  strengthening the resilience of essential services […]

Exploring the origins of snake diversity in South America

“Snakes to me are the most beautiful creatures that exist. They look so simple, but they are so complex. They can glide, swim and burrow. They are so varied. I want people to see how amazing and beautiful snakes are,” says Andrés Alfonso-Rojas [2022]. His love of snakes has fuelled his PhD in Zoology.  Andrés […]

How do we learn languages?

Samuel Weiss-Cowie’s fascination with language learning began at the age of 15 when he started learning Korean. He is now in the third year of his PhD looking at how the brain learns a new language or new words in a native language. He says: “I wanted to see what was happening in the brain […]