Coming of age in Ngogo - Many Minds
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- Title
- Coming of age in Ngogo
- Description
- <p class="p1"><span class="s1">It's a familiar story in many ways. A child is born, and for years afterward is adored and indulged and anchored to home and family. But then the child grows up and starts crossing that long threshold into adulthood. The transition proves—to say the least—a bit turbulent. Now when I say this story is familiar, I don't just mean familiar to us as human beings. After all, a similar story has long played out among our closest cousins, the chimpanzees.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">My guest today is <a href= "https://rachnareddy.scholars.harvard.edu/about-0"><span class= "s2">Dr. Rachna Reddy</span></a>. Rachna co-directs the longstanding <a href= "http://ngogochimpanzeeproject.org/"><span class="s2">Ngogo Chimpanzee Project</span></a> in Uganda and is an incoming Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. For more than a decade now, she has been closely observing the chimpanzees at Ngogo—and especially the adolescents.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Here Rachna and I talk about why adolescence—in all its intensity—is such a scientifically fascinating life-stage. We sketch the Ngogo research site, home to the largest group of chimpanzees ever studied. We unpack the different stages of chimpanzee life history. We zoom in on chimpanzee adolescence using a variety of different lenses—we talk about greetings, dominance hierarchies, grooming, social rejection, mentorship, deference, patrolling, female dispersal, and more. We discuss the so-called civil war that has taken root at Ngogo. And, finally, we talk about Rachna's in-progress novel (if that's the right word), which tells the story of one chimpanzee's coming of age in immersive detail. </span><span class= "s1"> </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I think you'll enjoy this one folks. Chimpanzees offer us a kind of parallel universe, a funhouse mirror version of human life—one that is deeply relatable in some ways, and totally alien to us in others. And the parallels and non-parallels are arguably all the more striking in adolescence.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">But before we get to it, one humble ask: As the new season of Many Minds ramps up, this would be a great time to support the show. You could do this by rating us, writing a review on Apple Podcasts or a comment on Spotify, or by doing the old-fashioned thing of just recommending us to a friend or colleague. Your support is—as always—much appreciated. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Alright friends, without further ado. Here's my conversation with Dr. Rachna Reddy. Enjoy!</span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1"> </span></p> <p class="p2"><em><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><span class= "s3">Notes</span></span></em></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1">4:00 – Damien and several other chimpanzees discussed in this episode feature in the Netflix documentary series <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjgL7Pumb4Q"><span class= "s2">Chimp Empire</span></a>.</span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1">8:00 – See <a href= "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10329-019-00732-1"><span class="s2"> here</span></a> for a study by Dr. Reddy and a colleague on caregiving behavior in recently orphaned chimpanzee siblings.</span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1">13:00 – See <a href= "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929322001190"> <span class="s2">here</span></a> for a comprehensive recent article by Dr. Reddy and colleagues about puberty and adolescence in chimpanzees.</span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1">16:00 – The Ngogo fission—and subsequent "civil war"—is treated in detail in Chimp Empire and was the subject of a recent, widely discussed <a href= "https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz4944"><span class= "s2">research paper</span></a> (which includes Dr. Reddy as an author).</span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1">26:00 – "<a href= "https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/puberty"><span class= "s2">Tanner sta
- Publication Date
- 2026-09-11T21:57:00+00:00
- Status
- completed
- Website
- https://manyminds.libsyn.com/coming-of-age-in-ngogo
- Length
- 94:56
- File
- /podcasts/Many Minds/1789163820-5387.mp3
- Size
- 130.38 MB
- Bitrate
- 187-CBR
- Channels
- 1
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