For some time now, I have been concerned with the relationship between humans and our nearest cousins in the primate world. It started many years ago when, musing on the derogatory English anecdote " If you give a monkey a typewriter, and a long enough period of time, it will eventually type the works of Shakespeare." It occured to me that this statement is a bit of an oxymoron because even at that time-- before the publication of the human or chimp genomes, we were already aware that Chimps  (everyone's actual mental image of a "monkey") are genetically almost 99% identical to humans. In short, the works of Shakespeare were in fact written by something more or less the same as a monkey-- but we know it only took him part of a lifetime to leave his written legacy.... and whats more, he used a feather not a typewriter or a mouse!

The origin of the statement is rooted in mathemetics which you can best read about in this wikipedia entry but it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

But it has an elaborate history in modern literature http://www.angelfire.com/in/hypnosonic/Parable_of_the_Monkeys.html

and it is this fascination that reflects the presence of a deeper psychological (spiritual) basis to the spread of this parable/theorem/anecdote.
Recent experiment/art
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,11711,952259,00.html

Chimpanzees on Tiwai Island
The first time I visited Tiwai, they showed me this:

It looked non-descript enough, but with a description, it is a glimpse into the next great human frontier: Animal Intelligence.

This log is underneath a tree that produces a seed that contains a delicious jelly.  There is only a small quantity of jelly in each seed -- something like a semi-liquid Turkish delight in flavour.  Chimpanzees love it.  This particular tree which is one of a few on the island is about a mile from the nearest shoreline which is where the iron-stone rock in the picture comes from.  The rock is about 8 inches on a side and weighs about 1 kg. The chimps each bring there own rock all that way, and use the log as an anvil to break open the seeds and eat the jelly.  In short, this seed cracking workbench is evidence of tool-use among the chimps of Tiwai Island. Other chimp populations in Sierra Leone and elsewhere in West Africa are known to be exceptionally intelligent with sophisticated social interactions and cooperation.

Susan Savage-Rumbaugh: Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man

More of her stuff...