Uploaded December 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
From the Radiolab for Kids podcast: A troop of baboons becomes unexpectedly gentle.
We start this story off with a question. Are human beings innately violent?
Then we head to East Africa with Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, who spent his summers studying wild baboons there. Baboons are a textbook example of a hierarchical, male-dominated and aggressive society. But one day, Sapolsky noticed that a troop of baboons became unexpectedly gentle. They deviated from the usual aggressiveness so characteristic of them and groomed each other.
The key question was how do these guys unlearn their entire childhood culture of aggression, something supposedly built-in? Sapolsky tells us that tale — a moment he describes as one of the best science moments of his life.
For more: Read Robert Sapolsky’s account of his 21 years studying baboons in Kenya: amazon.com/Primates-Memoir-Neuroscientists-Unconventional-Baboons/dp/0743202414#:~:text=Book%20details&text=In%20the%20tradition%20of%20Jane,By%20turns%20hilarious%20and%20poignant%2C
🎧 Subscribe to Radiolab for Kids wherever you listen to podcasts: lnk.to/radiolabforkids!youtube
🌱 Listen to more Radiolab for Kids episodes on YouTube: bit.ly/3YCcOBE
🔎 Subscribe to Radiolab and Radiolab for Kids on YouTube: bit.ly/3I9KI53
👍 Like this video ✏️ and leave us a comment!
Follow Radiolab:
Instagram — instagram.com/radiolab
X (Twitter) — twitter.com/Radiolab
Facebook — facebook.com/Radiolab
Threads — threads.net/@radiolab
Our newsletter includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up here: radiolab.org/newsletter
Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today: radiolab.org/the-lab
🌎 Radiolab for Kids features episodes about nature every other week. Sometimes these will be brand new Terrestrials episodes full of songs and silliness, sometimes they will be our very best, shiniest, furriest, family-friendliest Radiolab episodes about animals or plants or nature. You’ll always get a little hello from host Lulu Miller, and we hope that this feed will feel like a nature walk, a place you can show up and explore and always encounter something unexpected out there in the wilderness. You don’t have to be a kid to listen, just someone who likes to see the world anew.
Photo illustration by Jared Bartman
Video by Kim Nowacki
From the Radiolab for Kids podcast: A troop of baboons becomes unexpectedly gentle.
We start this story off with a question. Are human beings innately violent?
Then we head to East Africa with Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, who spent his summers studying wild baboons there. Baboons are a textbook example of a hierarchical, male-dominated and aggressive society. But one day, Sapolsky noticed that a troop of baboons became unexpectedly gentle. They deviated from the usual aggressiveness so characteristic of them and groomed each other.
The key question was how do these guys unlearn their entire childhood culture of aggression, something supposedly built-in? Sapolsky tells us that tale — a moment he describes as one of the best science moments of his life.
For more: Read Robert Sapolsky’s account of his 21 years studying baboons in Kenya: amazon.com/Primates-Memoir-Neuroscientists-Unconventional-Baboons/dp/0743202414#:~:text=Book%20details&text=In%20the%20tradition%20of%20Jane,By%20turns%20hilarious%20and%20poignant%2C
🎧 Subscribe to Radiolab for Kids wherever you listen to podcasts: lnk.to/radiolabforkids!youtube
🌱 Listen to more Radiolab for Kids episodes on YouTube: bit.ly/3YCcOBE
🔎 Subscribe to Radiolab and Radiolab for Kids on YouTube: bit.ly/3I9KI53
👍 Like this video ✏️ and leave us a comment!
Follow Radiolab:
Instagram — instagram.com/radiolab
X (Twitter) — twitter.com/Radiolab
Facebook — facebook.com/Radiolab
Threads — threads.net/@radiolab
Our newsletter includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up here: radiolab.org/newsletter
Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today: radiolab.org/the-lab
🌎 Radiolab for Kids features episodes about nature every other week. Sometimes these will be brand new Terrestrials episodes full of songs and silliness, sometimes they will be our very best, shiniest, furriest, family-friendliest Radiolab episodes about animals or plants or nature. You’ll always get a little hello from host Lulu Miller, and we hope that this feed will feel like a nature walk, a place you can show up and explore and always encounter something unexpected out there in the wilderness. You don’t have to be a kid to listen, just someone who likes to see the world anew.
Photo illustration by Jared Bartman
Video by Kim Nowacki
