Politicians act like apes

I always thought there was something odd about politicians, but now science is proving it:

The hand gesturing of politicians can be traced back to the manual signals first used by our ape-like ancestors, according to a study into how chimpanzees communicate with one another.

Apes and humans both share the ability to communicate with their limbs as well as their vocal cords and scientists believe it may be the result of a common origin that evolved millions of years before the development of language. It could explain why politicians like to emphasise a point with a clenched fist, explain a failed policy with an upturned palm or bat away an unpleasant question with a raised hand.

The study looked at gestures among chimpanzees and bonobos, a closely related species of pygmy chimp, and found they both used movements of arms and legs to communicate.

Amy Pollick and Frans de Waal, of Yerkes National Primate Research Centre at Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia, believe both species acquired the gestures through a common ape ancestor. "The natural communication of apes may hold clues about language origins, especially because apes frequently gesture with limbs and hands, a mode of communication thought to have been the starting point of human language evolution," the scientists say in their study in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.