Month: November 2016

Cher’s career made her more famous for singing than acting, but on December 16, 1987, Moonstruck arrived in theaters and transformed her into a full-fledged movie star, and a few months later she won the Best Actress Oscar for her spellbinding performance. Cher plays Loretta Castorini, a widow living with her Sicilian family in Brooklyn. Despite being superstitious about love, she agrees to marry Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), that is until she meets his jaded brother (Nic Cage), goes to see La bohème with him, and realizes “I love him awful.”

Director Norman Jewison referred to the movie as “an operatic multi-generational romantic comedy,” which is one reason the movie grossed an impressive $91,640,528 and won three Oscars, including ones for Olympia Dukakis and screenwriter John Patrick Shanley. Here are 13 moony facts about the movie.

1. THE ORIGINAL TITLE WAS THE BRIDE AND THE WOLF.

An earlier draft of Shanley’s script had it named The Bride and the Wolf, but the title perplexed Jewison. “I said, ‘The Bride and the Wolf? It sounds like a horror film,’” he revealed to the DGA. “So we had a big battle about that and it ended up being called Moonstruck because I convinced [Shanley] it’s about the moon. Everybody’s talking about the moon. The father’s talking about the moon, the full moon. We keep shooting the moon. It should be called something. What is it? She’s moonstruck. That’s a good title. So we called it Moonstruck.”

It should be noted the definition of moonstruck means “mentally deranged, supposedly by the influence of the moon; crazed dreamily romantic or bemused.”

2. JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY BASED THE STYLIZED DIALOGUE ON REAL PEOPLE.

Shanley admitted to Bomb Magazine that Moonstruck’s language has a certain affectation and poetry to it. “I remember somebody saying, ‘People don’t talk that way, but if he talks that way in the movie you buy it,’” the playwright said. “There’s truth and not truth in that. I said, ‘Well, it’s not the way all people talk, but I was on the train and I heard two women talking and they were talking in the exact style of Moonstruck.’ I said, ‘Well, you know, I chose that.’ And that’s what style is all about. It’s just making a choice about which of the many things, many aspects, you’re going to choose to go with for a whole picture or play.”

3. CHER WAS AFRAID TO TAKE ON LORETTA.

In 1987, Cher wasn’t new to the acting world—she had been nominated for an Oscar in 1984, for Silkwood—but she was worried fans still wouldn’t take her seriously as an actress. A few months before Moonstruck was released, The Witches of Eastwick and Suspect came out, so she was in demand. “It wasn’t like Mask, which I felt I just had to do,” she told the Los Angeles Times about Moonstruck. “I was a little frightened because there seemed to be all kinds of possibilities and all kinds of risks here. I wondered if, at this point in my career when there might be some people out there interested in seeing my movies, they would accept me in this role.”

4. NIC CAGE WANTED TO MAKE PUNK FILMS, NOT MOVIES LIKE MOONSTRUCK.

When Cage was in his early 20s, he “wanted to make the kind of movies that are essentially punk gestures,” he told Baltimore Sun. “I read the screenplay to Moonstruck and thought, ‘I would never pay money to see this film!’ But my agent insisted I do it, practically forced me to do it. When I saw the finished film I didn’t know what in the world to make of it. That was my era of wanting to make new-wave, alternative films.”

His follow-up film, Vampire’s Kiss, was completely different from Moonstruck (for instance, Cage eats a live cockroach). “I was in such a state of shock that I had made a sweet, romantic movie I had to go and do Vampire’s Kiss right after,” he told The New York Times.

5. DUKAKIS AND CHER DIDN’T THINK THE MOVIE WOULD BE SUCCESSFUL.

In an interview with AV Club, Dukakis confessed she didn’t think the movie would be a hit. “As a matter of fact, one day we were sitting around talking, and somebody asked Cher what she thought was going to happen, and she gave it the thumbs-down,” the actress said. “Nobody really expected too much out of it. And then look what happened. And that’s because we were all stupid and didn’t understand what Norman Jewison was really doing. The guy’s incredible, you know?”

6. NORMAN JEWISON KNEW THE MOVIE WOULD WIN OSCARS.

In the same interview with AV Club, Dukakis said she knew the movie was a big deal when she went with Jewison to a benefit in Canada where he screened the film. “And he said, ‘You know, you’re gonna get an Academy Award for this.’ I looked at him like he was stark-raving mad. I thought, ‘This little movie and that little Italian lady are gonna get an award?’ I said, ‘You really think so?’ He said, ‘Yeah!’ I thought, ‘He’s just being nice because I came up here to do the benefit for him. He thinks he has to say something nice to me.’ And then all that happened. It was just amazing. The writer got it, I got it, and then Jewison didn’t get it. Can you imagine?”

7. MOONSTRUCK CHANGED OLYMPIA DUKAKIS’S LIFE FOR THE BETTER.

By the time Moonstruck came around for her, the then 55-year-old had mostly made a name for herself in theater. But when she landed the role as Cher’s mother, Rose Castorini, and ended up winning Best Supporting Actress (and saying the line, “your life is going down the toilet,” something her mother said to her once), she became famous.

“It’s like somebody said ‘Look, she waited all these years, let’s give her something good,’” she said on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight. “And it was incredible. And that changed my whole life. My daughter was going to college on credit cards when I did that movie. After that, we were able to send our children to college with no problems.”

8. CHER ENJOYED PLAYING THE “BEFORE” LORETTA MORE THAN THE “AFTER” LORETTA.

The “before” Loretta entails the gray-haired widow and the “after” is when she falls for Ronny. “But I much prefer playing her ‘before’ than ‘after,’” Cher told the Los Angeles Times. “The freedom is not interesting to me because that’s something I know, usually. Yet I don’t think of her as being constrained, exactly. My idea was to play her more as bossy and controlled.”

9. THE GRANDFATHER RELEASED TENSION FROM A SCENE.

During shooting of the climax, cast members lost their cool because they couldn’t get the timing right. According to The New York Times, Jewison said Cage threw a chair at another actor, and Cher was threatening to report Jewison to the Screen Actors Guild for keeping them through lunch. Feodor Chaliapin Jr., who played Cher’s grandfather, walked into the room and told them to “calma, calma, calma” and, “This is a Feydeau farce, and in a Feydeau farce we pull everything together in the last scene.” After he said that the rest of the cast behaved themselves and finished the scene.

10. CHER USED SONNY BONO’S FAMILY AS A REFERENCE POINT.

Cher, who is part Armenian and part Cherokee, didn’t know how Italian families worked. “I didn’t come from that kind of family. I really didn’t relate exactly to it, but I had a sense of it, like a distance sense of it,” she told Good Morning America. “Not like something that you can relate to first hand. I’ve known some families like that and I got feelings of it. After a while I thought I might be able to do this.”

But her Moonstruck family reminded her of her ex-husband’s family. “It kind of reminded me of Sonny’s family,” she told the L.A. Times. “Everybody eating and talking and shouting—but you have such good times.”

11. CAGE WASN’T ALLOWED TO SPEAK LIKE A WOLF.

Going along with the wolf theme, Cage said he desired to speak like Jean Marais in Beauty and the Beast. “He had that accent and his voice was very gravelly—and I thought of my character in Moonstruck like a wolf who spoke with a growl,” Cage said. “And so I was talking like that in the movie and I got a call from the director, Norman Jewison, and he said, ‘Nicolas, the dailies aren’t working.’ And then I started hearing names of other actors and I thought I was going to get fired. I had to quickly drop the Jean Marais.”

12. DANNY AIELLO HATED THE MOVIE.

On The Diane Rehm radio show, Aiello, who played Loretta’s fiancé and Ronny’s brother, told the host he “couldn’t stand the character I played.” He continued, “Norman Jewison, the director, when I told him, he said, ‘Are you crazy? You’re wonderful.’ But in my neighborhood you can’t play a wimp on the screen. You know, people didn’t even know me as an actor, but to see me as they didn’t know me, was troubling in the area where I live. So it did adversely affect me at first. All I know is that I was stupid looking on the screen.”

Aiello also felt Cher should’ve picked him over Cage. “I said, ‘Do you think Nicky Cage is going to get a woman what I have?’ I said, ‘That’s not going to happen.’ I said, ‘Cher would be with me from the beginning.’” Despite not liking the role, it earned him more money and “it elevated a lot of other parts for me in comedic situations and so forth,” he said.

13. THE MOVIE MADE CAMMARERI BROS. BAKERY WORLD FAMOUS.

Ronny works at the Brooklyn bakery, and even though the bakery is only featured in a couple of scenes, it caused tourists to flock to the place after the movie was released. One of the owners, Gilberto Godoy, used to sign his autograph on bread bags, as he played a baker in the film. Jewison told The New York Times, “Whenever I can, I like to cast people who do the same job in real life,” and he picked that particular bakery because “It has one of the few coal-fired ovens left in the city,” he said. “Heat and humidity are always there. And bread is always rising, and there is an incredible smell. It helps the actors to be in a real environment.”

Godoy refused to close the bakery for the filming—he had a quota of 5,000 loaves a day to meet—so for three days he worked around the cast and crew. “It was hysterical,” Jewison said. “We had trucks, lights, cameras, Cher—and the poor guy was still baking.” The cast and crew did benefit from complimentary breads, though.

The tourists kept the bakery afloat until 1998, when the bakery briefly closed. It eventually moved into a different location and reopened. But in 2013 the 92-year-old bakery filed for bankruptcy.

Lost wedding rings have been recovered from some pretty remarkable places: the bottom of the ocean, an old toilet, and a 10-ton pile of trash to name a few. When an 82-year-old German man lost his wedding band three years ago, he didn’t have to assemble a search party to find it. All he had to do was wait until a carrot from his garden delivered it back to him.

Elderly Man Discovers Lost Wedding Ring in New Carrot Crop Plucked From His Garden https://t.co/jSHL1dDI5y pic.twitter.com/eAhjPFtRYn

— MICARAMEL (@micaramel_life) November 8, 2016

As the AP reports, the man lost his ring shortly after celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary. The valuable piece of jewelry was nowhere to be found, but his wife insisted that it would turn up eventually.

Sadly, she passed away six months ago, but the husband was recently reminded of her optimism when the lost ring literally sprouted up from the ground. After the band stayed embedded in the dirt for years, a carrot apparently grew through it and unearthed it when it was picked from his garden. We’d say that’s a once-in-a-lifetime story if the same thing hadn’t happened five years ago in Sweden.

[h/t AP]

From hairy frogs to horse-faced bats, the world is full of unique-looking creatures. And then there’s the blobfish. When drawn up from its underwater habitat, Psychrolutes marcidus resembles of pile of disgruntled phlegm. Here are seven facts about the fish with a face only a mother could love.

1. ONE FISH MADE THEM FAMOUS.

Since 2003, one fish has served as the (unfortunate-looking) face of the animal: Mr. Blobby. The specimen was trawled up from its home more than 3300 feet deep by the crew of the NORFANZ expedition off the coast of New Zealand. Smitten scientists gave the blobfish his endearing nickname and snapped his now iconic picture, perfected by a mucousy parasite (a copepod) dangling from the corner of his mouth. Today Mr. Blobby is kept in a 70 percent ethyl alcohol solution at the Australian Museum. According to the institution, the preservation process has shrunk his nose, so he no longer looks as “cute” as he used to.

2. THEY DON’T LOOK HALF BAD 4000 FEET DEEP.

Most people familiar with the blobfish have only seen images of the sad, flaccid monstrosity out of water. But at the bottom of the ocean—where the fish is actually meant to be—it’s much easier on the eyes. Blobfish are typically found 2000 to 4000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. At those depths, inhabitants experience up to 120 times the pressure they would on dry land. Blobfish don’t have much bone or muscle, instead allowing the extreme pressure of the deep sea to provide their bodies structural support.

3. THEY DON’T HAVE A SWIM BLADDER.

To stay buoyant, most fish have something called a swim bladder. These internal air sacs allow fish to maneuver through the water without sinking. Such an organ would burst under the pressures of the deep ocean, so instead blobfish rely on their gelatinous flesh to keep them barely floating above the seafloor. This means that when blobfish are taken out of the ocean, they don’t need to worry about rapidly expanding swim bladders pushing their guts out through their mouths. What it does mean is that the same skin that provides them with natural buoyancy underwater relaxes into a flabby mess without pressure.

4. THEY’RE NOT VERY ACTIVE.

There isn’t much food to come by at the bottom of the ocean, so the blobfish has evolved to conserve its energy. It spends most of its time chilling above the seafloor, only moving to open its mouth when something edible approaches. This is an effective hunting method for a creature with barely any muscle. Some of the food it catches includes crabs, mollusks, and sea urchins.

5. THEY WERE VOTED THE “WORLD’S UGLIEST ANIMAL.”

When the Ugly Animal Preservation Society was in need of a new mascot, they decided to let the people select one for them. In September 2013, over 3000 online votes were cast for the “World’s Ugliest Animal,” with the blobfish racking up 795 of them. It bested the proboscis monkey, the aquatic scrotum frog, and pubic lice for the top honor. According to the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, the blobfish gives a voice to the “mingers who always get forgotten.”

6. THEY’RE A POP CULTURE SENSATION.

Rather than recoiling from this animal in disgust, the world (or at least the internet) has come to embrace the blobfish. It’s inspired songs, poems, plush dolls, and t-shirts. There’s even a blobfish cafe set to open in London in summer 2017. According to the cafe’s website, the space will feature a pressurized tank containing three live blobfish named Barry, Lorcan, and Lady Swift.

7. THEY STILL REMAIN A MYSTERY.

Because blobfish live thousands of feet below sea level, there’s still a lot we’ve yet to learn about these JELLO-like members of the animal kingdom. Scientists still don’t know how long blobfish live or how they reproduce. On that last point, the Australian Museum’s fish manager Mark McGrouther told Smithsonian last year, “I’d guess they lock in a clinging, rather conjugal embrace.”

Behold the Human Towers of Catalonia. The traditional competition of castelling is not for anyone with a fear of heights, or a fear of being stepped on.
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Everything you need to know about the new Beauty and the Beast live-action remake. Emma Watson has changed Belle considerably.   
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The American Military Made Condoms Really Popular During World War II. Sexually transmitted diseases could weaken a unit’s fighting power.  
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17 Acts Of Kindness By Total Strangers That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity. When you’re good to someone, the story may inspire people years later.
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More Bad News for Honey as U.S. Seeks to Get Handle on Glyphosate Residues in Food. Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup herbicide.  
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Eddie Redmayne Elaborates On His Bad, Roundabout Audition for the Villain Kylo Ren. But Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them might make up for not being in Star Wars.
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No, Really — Who Gets Control of the Armrest? Whoever decided planes should have a shared armrest was a cruel, cruel person.
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12 Funny and Delicious Venn Diagrams. So you can mind the overlap.

Depending on how you look at it, Khanzir is either the world’s loneliest—or luckiest—farm animal. According to The Washington Post, the 14-year-old hog is the only animal of his kind to live in Afghanistan, an Islamic nation that bans the consumption (and in some cases, even touching) of pigs. The solitary swine might be companion-free, but the sheer novelty of his existence means he’s famous in his hog-free nation.

Meet Khanzir – the only pig in Afghanistan https://t.co/5iWJdak1LZ

— The Independent (@Independent) November 3, 2016

Khanzir (whose name means “Pig” in Pashto, one of Afghanistan’s national languages) wasn’t always Afghanistan’s only pig. In 2002, China gave Khanzir and a female companion to the Kabul Zoo, along with a pair of brown bears. Khanzir became a father, but four years later, tragedy struck: A zoo caretaker left the bears’ cage open, and one of them raided the pig enclosure. The piglets were killed, and the female pig was badly injured, and later died. Khanzir was the only survivor.

Today, Khanzir lives in his own enclosure in the Kabul Zoo. The widowed pig may no longer have a family, but he still receives lots of company: Many Afghans have never seen a pig before in their lives, and travel long distances to see Khanzir. He’s also beloved by his caretakers, and well-fed to boot.

That being said, Khanzir’s celebrity status sometimes attracts unwanted attention. Case in point: During the worldwide swine flu epidemic of 2009, officials placed the famous pig in quarantine after visitors (who knew little about swine flu) feared he would make them sick. Some people even called for Khanzir to be euthanized.

Ultimately, Khanzir had more friends than enemies, and he remained unharmed. Today, he’s protected by loyal zoo workers, who tell The Washington Post that Khanzir is “an innocent animal, like all animals”—even though he’s haram, or forbidden by Islamic law.

You can learn more about Khanzir (and even watch a video of him) over at The Washington Post. 

[h/t The Washington Post]

The London Library is getting some long-overdue books back. Several of the library’s historic books dating back to the 18th century or older were recently discovered in a locked wardrobe, The Guardian reports. The 200-year-old London Library doesn’t sell books, so they must have been stolen by whoever squirreled them away.

Taken from the library sometime in the late 1950s, the books were discovered by a dealer who was asked to evaluate the collection of a family’s deceased relative. The stolen books returned last week include texts like A Discourse on Witchcraft (1736); a 1680 book with the long-winded title The most Sacred and Divine Science of Astrology by JBBD, a Protestant Minister of the True, Antient, Catholick and Apostolick Faith of the Church of England; the 1722 text The First Part of the Treatise of the Late Dreadful Plague in France Compared With That Terrible Plague in London, in the Year 1665; The Age of the World Collected in All Its Periods by JS (1707); A Collection of Letters by His Excellency General George Monk Relating to the Restoration of the Monarchy (1714); The True-Born English-man. A Satyr (1708); and The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom (1696).

The library does not impose late fines, and the family of the book thief won’t be charged. Some of the pages were mutilated due to attempts to remove the London Library stamps on them, but at least one text still had a complete stamp, allowing it to be identified as the library’s property.

The London Library is thrilled to have its books back, and really, 50-some-odd years isn’t that long to wait for an overdue book. Some libraries have waited more than a century to get their missing books back.

[h/t The Guardian]

Few things are more American than processed meat in a can. But the appeal of Spam—the porky, salty luncheon loaf produced by Hormel—transcends national borders. If you’re still waiting to be turned on to the wonders of Spam, perhaps the addition of Velveeta, nori, or mushy peas will help it go down easier.

1. SPAM FRITTER // UK

Spam migrated to England during World War II. The product’s long shelf life made it a convenient source of protein for U.S. troops and rationing turned it into a delicacy for the citizens of the places they occupied. Today fresh meat is much easier to come by in the UK, but Brits still have a soft spot in their hearts for the canned stuff. One popular British preparation of the ingredient puts a twist on the classic fish and chips. Spam fritters are made by dredging slices of the meat in batter and frying them up in a pan. The proper British serving suggestion calls for thick-cut chips and mushy peas on the side.

2. SPAMSILOG // PHILIPPINES

Spam rivals scrapple as one of the most unusual meat products to appear on a breakfast plate. In the Philippines, it’s fried up like bacon and served alongside rice and a sunny side up egg. When you put all the components together—Spam, sinangag (fried rice), and pritong itlog (fried egg)—you get Spamsilog. Tomatoes and cucumbers on the side are optional.

3. SPAM MUSABI // HAWAII

If one dish perfectly sums up the mish-mash of cultures that make up Hawaii, it’s Spam musabi. At first glance it resembles traditional sushi with a strip of nori (seaweed) binding together rice and protein. But upon closer inspection you’ll see the protein is actually a slice of crispy, caramelized Spam. On the islands this treat can be found everywhere from school cafeterias to 7-Elevens.

4. SANDWICH DE MEZCLA // PUERTO RICO

Puerto Rico’s Sandwich de Mezcla (or “the mix”) is an unapologetic celebration of processed goodness. The contents consist of canned pimentos, Velveeta or Cheez Whiz, and Spam all blended together in a food processor. It’s smeared between two slices of white bread and commonly served at parties.

5. GOYA CHANPURU // JAPAN

Okinawa is home to a vibrant food scene—one that includes soba noodles, taco rice, and yes, Spam. Goya Chanpuru, made from tofu, egg, bitter gourd, and cubes of Spam, is one of the island’s signature dishes. The American product weaseled its way into the local cuisine through the U.S. military’s occupation of Okinawa during World War II. The history of the stir-fry actually dates back 1000 years, but when SBS asked a 90-year-old Okinawa native what was used in the dish before Spam she replied, “I don’t even remember.”

6. BUDAE JJIGAE // SOUTH KOREA

In South Korea, Spam is marketed as a luxury product and given as a gift at holidays. Koreans consume so much of it that their population of 50 million people make up the world’s second largest Spam market (right behind the U.S., which has a population of over 300 million). The nation’s most iconic Spam dish is Budae Jjigae, or army stew. There’s a lot going on with this recipe: In addition to Spam, it contains kimchi, chili paste, hot dogs, beans, pre-packaged cheese, and instant ramen noodles. The dish originated during the Korean War when locals were desperate for food. Army rations smuggled out of U.S. bases were tossed together in a pot and spiced with traditional Korean flavors to create the gut-busting meal. The dish, which comes served in a gigantic bowl, is meant to be shared.

7. SPAM AND EGG MACARONI SOUP // HONG KONG

Macaroni soup is so ubiquitous in Hong Kong that it’s included on McDonald’s breakfast menus. Traditionally served with a slice of ham, Spam became the starring ingredient when it was introduced by British colonizers in the 1940s. The recipe isn’t overly complicated: canned corn adds some crunch while the egg on top passes it off as a breakfast dish no matter where in the world you’re dining.

When an old piano is out of tune and completely out of commission, some say there’s only one thing left to do: Burn it. Burning an old piano has become something of a tradition for musicians and Air Force members alike—although no one’s exactly sure how it got started.

Most stories attribute the birth of the custom to the British Royal Air Force (RAF), with the ritual eventually spreading to the U.S. Air Force. One popular origin tale goes like this: Some time during World War II, the Royal Air Force decided that their pilots needed to be more civilized and gentlemanly. As part of this etiquette training, pilots were required to take piano lessons. And they all hated it—so no one was surprised when the building the piano was in mysteriously caught fire, reducing the instrument to a pile of ashes, strings, and keys. The act of rebellion quickly became a tradition among pilots.

The other story often cited is a bit more touching. By this account, a fallen RAF fighter pilot was also the resident piano player in his squadron, and after he was killed on a mission, his fellow squadron members burned the piano in his honor—if he couldn’t play it, no one should.

In the video below, RAF Lt. Col. James Radley gives both potential origin stories before a piano burn at the Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. The piano was set alight to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain:

But it’s not just members of the military who tickle the incendiary ivories—playing a piano as it burns has also become a kind of performance art.

Pianist Yosuke Yamashita played his first burning piano in 1973, when a graphic designer asked him to do the honors for a short film. Yamashita happened to view the film again 35 years later and was inspired to do an encore performance. This time, he assembled 500 spectators on a beach in Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture to watch the piano turn to embers. It took 10 minutes for the flames to completely silence the instrument, but Yamashita played until he could literally play no more.

“I did not think I was risking my life but I was almost suffocating from the smoke that was continuously getting into my eyes and nose,” Yamashita later said.

Of course, others have a little more fun with it, like this pianist who appropriately chose “Great Balls of Fire” to play:

 

Should you want to attempt the feat yourself, take the advice of Annea Lockwood, a composer who has written unorthodox pieces for decomposing pianos, such as Piano Garden and Drowning Piano. Here are the directions for Piano Burning, written in 1968:

– Set upright piano (not a grand) in an open space with the lid closed.
– Spill a little lighter fluid on a twist of paper and place inside, near the pedals.
– Light it.
– Balloons may be stapled to the piano.
– Play whatever pleases you for as long as you can.

If you do follow her instructions, however, make sure you adhere to Lockwood’s number one rule: “All pianos used should already be beyond repair.”

Apparently we’re not the only animals who could benefit from reading glasses; primatologists now report that older bonobos groom their kin from a distance, like a person holding a restaurant menu at arm’s length. Their study, published in the journal Current Biology, confirms that bonobos become farsighted as they age.

Along with the chimpanzee, the bonobo (Pan paniscus) is the closest living relative of humans; our three species share nearly 99 percent of our DNA. But unlike humans or chimpanzees, bonobos have a reputation as the hippies of the animal kingdom, resolving conflicts with sex rather than violence. They put a high value on group harmony, which they maintain through the aforementioned love-ins and by a near-constant social grooming regimen. 

It was during one of these grooming sessions that experts observed a very familiar behavior: An older male named Ten (abbreviated TN) was grooming a younger male, Jeudi (JD), from a somewhat ungainly distance. “TN had to stretch his arm to groom JD,” study co-author Heungjin Ryu of Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute said in a statement, “and only when he found something on JD’s body would he come close to remove it using his mouth.”

Here’s TN grooming JD:

Compare that with this photo of 17-year-old Fuku grooming her friend Hoshi: 

Ryu and his colleagues suspected that TN was grooming at arm’s length to accommodate for presbyopia, or farsightedness. To find out if that was true, and if the strategy was widespread, they spent four months in 2015 monitoring wild bonobos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Each time they spotted the animals grooming, they snapped a photo, eventually capturing pictures of 14 different bonobos between the ages of 11 and 45. 

The researchers then measured the distance in each photograph between groomer and groom-ee. They compared each animal’s grooming proximity with his or her age and, sure enough, a trend emerged. Whether male or female, each bonobo’s preferred grooming distance increased exponentially as he or she got older, especially after age 40. 

The straightforwardness of the results was “very surprising even for us,” Ryu said. Bonobos have no corrective lenses, no reading glasses. When their vision fails, it fails—a dangerous proposition for animals who spend their lives in the forest canopy. 

Ryu says his team’s findings also have some interesting implications for humans. If our bonobo cousins also lose their visual edge as they age, maybe our tech-centric lifestyle is less to blame for our midlife squinting than we previously believed.