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This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute.

Sticks and stones may break some bones…unless you're a young female chimp¹. In that case, you're more likely to cradle your stick like a dollie. That finding appears in the journal Current Biology.

If you have kids, you've no doubt noticed that, generally speaking, girls like to play with dolls while boys gravitate toward swords and trains. Study after study has shown this to be true. But is it instinct? Parental² influence? Or the result of some sort of preschool peer-pressure? One way to find out is to look to the animal kingdom, where there are no gender-specific playthings. Earlier studies of monkeys in captivity³ have shown that, given a choice, females do prefer dolls whereas males will reach for a truck. But what about how juvenile⁴ animals play in the wild?

Scientists studying chimps⁵ in a national park in Uganda for 14 years have found that all the youngsters like to play with sticks. They poke⁶ them into holes and just carry them around. But the female chimps also seem to act out nurturing⁷ them, holding the sticks close and bringing them into their nests at naptime. Males prefer to use the sticks to whack⁸ each other. Sound familiar?

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American's 60-Second Science, I'm Karen Hopkin.