I want to start this morning by telling you a story about some chimpanzees in Japan. A researcher conducted a study that essentially introduced chimps to straws. They were given a bottle of juice fixed to a wall that had a small opening in the top and a straw. Individually, the chimps used two primary techniques for getting the juice.

Some dipped the straw into the juice and removed it drinking the droplets from the bottom of the straw. Others used the straw to suck the juice from the bottle. The researchers then paired the chimps who were dipping the straw with chimps who had used the more efficient technique of sucking the juice.

After observing the more efficient technique, the chimps who had been dipping the straw, switched their method—what’s important here is the chimps who were dipping didn’t learn the sucking technique by themselves, only when they were paired with a chimp who was using the more efficient and equally as simple method, did they switch.