Jane Goodall On The Future Of Evolutionary Science

IRA FLATOW: You’re listening to Talk of the Nation, Science Friday. I’m Ira Flatow. There’s a short list of icons in science, people who are both excellent researchers, also public symbols of what science is and does. And to anyone who’s a fan of magazines like, perhaps, National Geographic, Jane Goodall is one of those icons.

From her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees in the Gombe in the 1960s to her tireless advocacy for the environment today, she has earned her place in the science hall of fame. And she’s back with us today. So without further ado, let me formally introduce my guest. Jane Goodall is a primatologist and an environmental advocate. She is co-winner of the 2008 Leakey prize and is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute based in Arlington, Virginia. And she joins us today from CBC Studios in Toronto. Welcome back to the program.

JANE GOODALL: Well, Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

IRA FLATOW: It’s been too long. The last time you were on here was 2002.

JANE GOODALL: Goodness.

IRA FLATOW: Are you any more optimistic now about the prospects for the environment since then?

JANE GOODALL: Well, I think my– I feel about the same. We’re at a crossroads. We have been for the last several years. And if we don’t take action, us, collectively, then maybe it’s too late, but we haven’t got to that point yet.

IRA FLATOW: Your group, Roots and Shoots, is an outreach to young people. It’s been going now, what, for 17 years?

JANE GOODALL: Yeah, since 1991, but it didn’t really leave Tanzania until about ’93. And so it’s now in about 100 countries. It has programs from preschool through university. And even some senior citizens have formed groups, and it’s in prisons. So there are approximately 9,000 active groups.

IRA FLATOW: Wow, and so some of these kids are now grown up. Have they gone out now on their own, making their own marks as adults?

JANE GOODALL: Absolutely, and what I love is that one of the young Tanzanians who was with us right at the very beginning, he left school. He got a degree in the US. He got a job because he got a wife and family.

But now that we have raised more money, we can offer people employment. He’s back being the Tanzanian national director of the program. And it’s really wonderful to see this person who has never lost that commitment that he got as a child.

IRA FLATOW: That’s terrific. 1-800-989-8255 if you’d like to speak with Jane Goodall. There are still researchers out there in the Gombe, observing the chimps. What kinds of things are they learning? We’ve spoken. I’ve seen you recently out in San Francisco. It seems like they’re still learning all kinds of fascinating things about how the chimps behave.

JANE GOODALL: Well, they really are. And of course, a lot of what they’re learning is the result of the long-term studies that began in 1960, coming up to 50 years. Chimpanzees can live to be more than 60, so it does take a long time. But one of the more recent technologies we’ve been able to incorporate is DNA testing of fecal samples, which will tell us who the fathers are.

We’ve never known before. So this opens up a whole new area. Is the possibly any special relationship between a father and his biological child? It’s hard to see how that could be, but maybe there is. We don’t know.

IRA FLATOW: A question here for you from Second Life. And it is, it possible to balance activism and advocacy with scientific research without risking the objectivity of the researcher, or your objectivism, as he puts it?

JANE GOODALL: Well, I always have serious concerns about objectivity in science. Yes, we have to be objective, but we should not be objective at the expense of being a human. We should be able to have compassion and empathy at the same time as we can stand to stand back and be objective about what’s going on. But without that– if you don’t allow yourself to feel some empathy or some compassion, then science can become, I think, a very cold, hard, and potentially dangerous profession.

IRA FLATOW: You were just awarded the Leakey Prize for your work in evolutionary science. Now, I don’t think most people have heard or at least heard of what that means. Can you give us an idea what that whole field is about?

JANE GOODALL: It’s exactly the reason I got– I was able to get into this field at the beginning because my mentor, the late Louis Leakey, he spent his life searching for the fossilized remains of early humans. And he felt, way ahead of his time, that if we understood the behavior of our closest relatives in the natural state– that’s chimpanzees, and the gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos– that this might help him to have a better feeling for how early humans might have behaved because the argument is, if you find behavior that’s similar or the same in chimpanzees today and humans today, the modern human, modern chimp, then possibly that behavior was present in a common ancestor, ape-like, human-like, about six million years ago and that, therefore, we may have brought that characteristic or those characteristics with us throughout a long evolutionary journey.

And then he like to feel, yes, that will give me a better handle on how these Stone-Age people behaved.

IRA FLATOW: Do you still feel Louis Leakey around with you?

JANE GOODALL: Do I still what?

IRA FLATOW: Is he still present for you, Louis Leakey?

JANE GOODALL: Oh, sometimes he is. He was such a larger-than-life character. And he was such an amazing person.

IRA FLATOW: He was he was a seminal figure in your life.

JANE GOODALL: Well, absolutely. Goodness, when he offered me this opportunity, I had no degree of any kind. I was straight out from England. And all he knew about me was that one, I’d certainly read a lot about animals. I could answer lots of his questions.

And two, when he let me go with himself, his wife, and one young English girl, and a few Kenyans to Olduvai– Olduvai Gorge, now very famous site of many human fossil discoveries. But in those days, there was nothing there. It was just animals. No humans had been found.

And I think he was watching how I behaved out on the plains and what I did when a young, male lion followed for a good many yards. And that’s when he decided to offer this opportunity to me.

IRA FLATOW: Over these past 40 years, has your idea or your own definition of what intelligence means changed as you watch the apes, the primates, and even other animals?

JANE GOODALL: Well, it’s very, very clear. When I began in 1960, I was told– when I finally got to Cambridge University– that only humans had minds. And animals, other than human animals, were incapable of anything like thinking. That was the accepted attitude of the European ethologist– the people study animal behavior.

And of course, so obvious when you see these intelligent creatures out in the wild that they are thinking, that they definitely are capable of rational thought, and that’s been substantiated again and again with experiments in the laboratory. So I think my feeling is probably about the same, but I understand it better. But the majority of animal behavior scientists– their attitude has changed.

IRA FLATOW: What kinds of things have you seen, for example, one or two things that would change someone who goes out in the field and sees the behavior?

JANE GOODALL: Well, I think if you have the opportunity to watch young ones so closely observing the behavior of others and then imitating what they’ve seen and practicing it– tool using. And it’s fascinating to see a young one invent something new, doing something different and how the other young ones all watch that and sometimes imitate, which is how new cultural traditions are introduced into a group.

And something which is very, very simple, but imagine a chimpanzee sleeping. He’s stretched out on the ground. He’s by himself. He sits up, looks around, scratches in a contemplative way. Wanders over to a big tuft of grass. Very carefully selects two, three, or even four blades. Tucks them into that little pocket between chin and shoulder and wanders off, maybe several hundred yards to a termite heap that’s completely out of sight.

And there, he inspects the heap. And if it’s a productive one, he’ll use the tools that he picked. Well, if you don’t accept that this is some kind of planning ahead and thought, how can you explain it?

IRA FLATOW: Very interesting. 1-800-989-8255– let’s take some calls. Let’s go to Jessica in Boise. Hi, Jessica.

JESSICA: Hi there. Thanks so much for taking my call, and it’s so nice to be able to talk to you, Mrs. Goodall.

IRA FLATOW: Go ahead.

JANE GOODALL: It’s good talking to you.

IRA FLATOW: Go ahead, Jessica.

JESSICA: All right, I was actually just recently reading online about some cases of infanticide and cannibalism in chimpanzees, and specifically some cases that you were able to observe where there was a group of females that were stealing the babies from other females and actually eating them. And I had two questions. First, do you have any idea why such behavior has been occurring?

And number two, I did read that in one particular instance, you were able to save one of the infants. And how did that work as far as your objectivity? I thought that researchers were generally just supposed to observe and not interfere. And I’ll take my comments off the air.

IRA FLATOW: Thank you, Jessica. Good question.

JANE GOODALL: OK, well first off, we have no idea. It was one mother and her adult daughter who actually took the babies of other females. The most common infanticide is when a group of males is patrolling its territory. And if they see a stranger, if it’s a female with an infant or of course, if it’s a male, they may give chase. It’s almost like hunting.

And if they catch a female with an infant, they will attack her very, very severely, leave her probably to die of her wounds, take the infant, and sometimes kill and eat it. Usually, they just kill it. But the female and her daughter was different, because they were attacking females in their own group– not really to hurt the mother, but simply to take the baby and eat it.

And they only did this when it was a brand new baby, as though the smell was different and maybe the baby was sort of a stranger, or because there was blood, smell of blood from the placenta and the birth process. So we saw it in one other mother-infant pair, but they never succeeded. And I already talked on this show about objectivity.

And for me, these chimpanzees, they’re just like people, in a way. And we’ve always helped the chimpanzees if they’re sick. You hear people saying, you must let nature take its course. But we have interfered so profoundly, so hugely, and so monstrously with nature that in most places, it’s not possible.

Like Gombe. Gombe– 30 square miles, once part of an uninterrupted forest, now a tiny little island surrounded completely by bare, cultivated fields. And if we get fewer chimps than we have today– it’s gone from about 150 to 100– then that’s going to be the end. So each one is precious from a genetic point of view.

IRA FLATOW: We have a question here, also from Second Life about your winning of the Leakey Prize. And it asks– and this is a very good question– who was your co-recipient?

JANE GOODALL: I knew you were going to ask that, and I–

IRA FLATOW: Not many people know about the very famous Japanese scientist, Toshisada Nishida. Who is he? And why is he so famous, at least in Japan and other parts of the world?

JANE GOODALL: He was involved with the other longest-term research. So Gombe was the first, starting in 1960, and the research at Mahali began in 1966. And Toshisada Nishida wasn’t the one who started it, but he was responsible for running it, and carrying on the research, and finding the funding for it for many, many years until he retired from that about two years ago. So I’ve known Toshi for years.

IRA FLATOW: Talking with Jane Goodall this hour on Talk of the Nation Science Friday from NPR News. Did the Japanese have a different way of studying in the wild than yours or basically mirroring yours?

JANE GOODALL: It was pretty much the same. I think that in some ways, fascinatingly, the Japanese started completely non-objective, and– the ethology. And of course, in Europe and then America, it was very objective.

But then, as we learn more and more about these complex beings with their complex brains, England– the British view of animal nature softened. And the Japanese, as they learn more and more about Western ways of science, hardened a little. So we ended up more or less exactly the same.

IRA FLATOW: Let’s go to Sam in Michigan. Hi, Sam.

SAM: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have a quick question with regards to language being a very unique characteristic of the human race. Can you shed some light with regard to why we are so different in that sense? Has there been any recent studies sort of correlate the evolution of this unique quality that humans possess?

JANE GOODALL: People have different theories, really, about the origins of language. And I’m not sure we’ll ever know. But I think what’s fascinating here is that I believe it’s because we have, for some reason or another– and it must have been many evolutionary pressures, I should think, which caused us to speak.

But because of it, because we have the ability to teach about things that aren’t present, to plan for the distant future, to discuss– and that’s so important, so you can involve the collective wisdom of a group in discussing an idea. That, I think, is what’s led to the explosive development of our intellect.

And so although chimpanzees can do things intellectually we never thought they could, like some of the amazing stuff they do with computers and things, it doesn’t make sense to compare a chimp intellect with human intellect. So the question is, if we’re the most intellectual creature that’s ever walked on this planet, how come we’re destroying it?

IRA FLATOW: You said that we’re not learning from our past mistakes, and we’re not listening to science.

JANE GOODALL: In many cases, we’re not learning from our past mistakes. Some science I’m not sure we should listen to. But the past mistakes of history– we’re not learning very well from those.

We go blindly into warfare again, not seeming to think about the consequences. So we’re a strange mixture. And we have a dark side, and we have a more noble side. And so do the chimpanzees.

IRA FLATOW: What science should we not be listening to?

JANE GOODALL: Well, it’s not so much a matter of listening to. But I’m thinking of the kind of science that led to nuclear weapons, for example, that sort of thing.

IRA FLATOW: All right. We’re going to take a short break and come back and talk more with Jane Goodall, who is the winner of the 2008 Leakey Prize. Also here to talk with us for the rest of the hour. Our number– 1-800-989-8255 if you’d like to talk with Jane.

Also, we’re twittering @scifritter, S-C-I-F-R-I-T-T-E-R. And also in Second Life, so there are lots of different ways you can reach us this hour if you’d like to ask Dr. Goodall a question. She’s talking about more than just the chimps. She’s talking about world problems, warfare, and other things like that that she has very much taken up the cause for. So we’ll talk to her about some of those causes when we get back. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back after this break.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I’m Ira Flatow. This is Talk of the Nation Science Friday from NPR News. You’re listening to Talk of the Nation Science Friday. I’m Ira Flatow. We’re talking this hour with Jane Goodall who has many, many accomplishments to her name, including her latest books, Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating. She’s also written many children’s books. Her latest one, and that is Ricky & Henri– and Henri– a true story with Alan Marks. That’s put out by Penguin Young Readers Association.

You’re also involved in environmentalism, especially– let’s talk about something called the Forests Now Declaration. That’s a very interesting concept and a declaration. Tell us what that is and what it’s aimed at.

JANE GOODALL: Well, the Forests Now Declaration is, if I’m remembering it correctly, because there are so many forest initiatives now, and I seem to be involved in all–

IRA FLATOW: Well, let me– I’m sorry, go ahead. I was going to drill down into one of them, but go ahead.

JANE GOODALL: All right, drill. Drill down.

IRA FLATOW: I heard you speaking about allowing Third-World countries and countries in Africa to become more market savvy in the natural resources that they have so they get fair market for what they have there.

JANE GOODALL: That’s something we’re very deeply involved in, because when I flew over the Gombe National Park about 17 years ago in a small plane and saw the extent of deforestation outside the park– saw that the soil was no longer fertile, saw there were more people living there than the land could support, too poor to buy food– I realized that there was no way we could even try to save the chimps while the people were struggling to live.

So that led to our TACARE Program, which is basically community-centered conservation. And it’s a holistic way of improving their lives in 32 villages around Gombe. And it’s in ways selected by them, not by us. So they say what they need.

And it’s to do with different farming methods, reclaiming infertile land, reforestation, water and sanitation projects, working with groups of women providing microcredit opportunities, scholarships for girls, HIV/AIDS and family planning information, everything like that. And then, we discovered that high up in the hills was some really good coffee. So the farmers couldn’t make money, because there’s no proper roads.

So when I had the chance to talk to a group of coffee roasters in Seattle, I said, we need some of you guys to come out, see if it’s really good coffee, and if it is, help us market it. So Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was there within about five weeks or even less. And they found, indeed, the coffee was fantastic. They’ve been buying it. Other coffee roasters have come in to buy some as well, helping the farmers to develop ever-better ways of harvesting and storing the coffee that they have.

And because of this– this is why this is so exciting. Because of this, the villages are setting aside between 10% and 20% of their land for reforestation and forest protection in such a way that these forest patches will form a contiguous corridor of forest, so that the Gombe chimps who, at the moment are isolated, will once again be able to move out and interact with other remnant groups.

IRA FLATOW: Now, some people might say you’re turning the forest into coffee plantations.

JANE GOODALL: No, because there aren’t– there’s no trees left. The coffee is grown where they’ve already cut down the trees. The good news is that shade coffee gets the best prices. So the trees are coming back. And all of these forested patches are at the movement bare, but their regenerative power is such that if you stop chopping at the seemingly dead tree stumps, you get a 30 foot tree in five years.

IRA FLATOW: Wow, that’s pretty fast growing.

JANE GOODALL: And also, the village management plan that each village is required to make sets aside so much percentage of land for agriculture. And it can’t be changed. So what’s changing is the efficiency of the way they’re growing coffee and other crops– same amount of land used but a much more efficient way of using that land.

And the village management plan also includes the number of people that must live in that area. So it’s, what with our microcredit and family planning information, women empowerment. It means that they can actually plan a family, and they couldn’t before. And we already see a trend of smaller family size– at the same time, more infants living.

IRA FLATOW: Yeah, because lots of studies have shown that education is the best thing you can do for people.

JANE GOODALL: Yeah, women’s education, especially–

IRA FLATOW: Women’s education.

JANE GOODALL: –all around the world. Yes.

IRA FLATOW: Let’s go to Elizabeth Ann in Birmingham, Alabama. Hi, Elizabeth Ann.

ELIZABETH ANN: Hi. I was wondering what you thought about the efforts of orangutan island in Borneo to return orphaned orangutans to the wild.

JANE GOODALL: Yes.

IRA FLATOW: Are you familiar with that– orangutan island?

JANE GOODALL: Yeah, there are– yes.

IRA FLATOW: She wants to know what you think about it.

JANE GOODALL: Well, I think as long as one can return animals to the wild without disturbing existing wild populations, that is the answer. I just wish we could do it with our chimpanzees. We’re looking for a place where maybe we could return them to the wild.

But you’ve got to find somewhere with no people, because they’re used to people, and they would probably harm people– same with orangutans. And no wild chimps, because the wild chimps are territorially aggressive and probably kill them. It’s very hard to find places like that in Africa.

IRA FLATOW: Thank you, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH ANN: Thank you.

IRA FLATOW: Have a good weekend. What is the greatest threat to chimpanzees today?

JANE GOODALL: Depends really which part of Africa they’re in, because the underlying threat is us. It’s human population growth. And then on top of that, you’ve got the habitat destruction, just from people farming and so forth.

You’ve got commercial hunting– the bushmeat trade– which is very prevalent in Central Africa where the last significant populations of chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, and bonobos are. And you have the logging companies– all foreign– which, even if they practice selective logging, are making roads deep into the heart of the forest. And this is opening up the forest for hunting.

And that’s why the bushmeat trade has taken off, and it’s involving lots of money. And it’s the hunters shooting everything from elephants to birds and bats, smoking the meat, and trucking it into the towns. So we’re working there. We’re working with the Congo Basin Forest Partnership– partners being other NGOs, government, USAID, and suchlike. And our job is to make partnerships with the local people.

IRA FLATOW: Question from Second Life from Paxis, who says, does Jane have any advice for young people who want to pursue a career in biological science? What are some of the most crucial spaces that need to be filled by the next generation?

JANE GOODALL: Well, that’s a tough question. I’m not sure I can answer the crucial spaces. But the best thing to do, the only way that you’ll get on in the biological sciences is by being really determined, really wanting to do it, working really hard, keeping your ears open for opportunities, going on to the websites of the different colleges that offer different kinds of experience to see exactly which one it is that you want to do.

But there’s just such a lot left to learn out there. And of course a big field opening up now is the effect of climate change– how this will affect different species. What can be done to help those species when this happens, because it will?

IRA FLATOW: A question from RRW twit– and we’re tweeting. Twittering. Tweeting. Jane, you may not even know what I’m doing here. Are you familiar with Twitter? That’s sort of an instant message system that’s being developed.

JANE GOODALL: Oh, I see. I thought it was a bird.

IRA FLATOW: Well, we have a question about birds, but let me go to this question first. Does Jane Goodall believe all living, quote, “ape-like” species have been discovered? What about Bigfoot or the hobbit? I know you– any update on Sasquatch at all? I know you believe in Sasquatch. Any new discoveries on it?

JANE GOODALL: Well, the last people I was speaking to was in Australia talking about the Yowie, which is their equivalent of Sasquatch. I don’t know if these creatures exist. All I know is that everywhere I’ve been, there are tales of them. And there are people who say they’ve seen them. So I’m not going to go out and say they’re not there. There’s something, and it’s very strange. And I find it extremely fascinating.

IRA FLATOW: Let’s go to Dave in Rockford, Illinois. Hi, Dave.

DAVE: Hi.

IRA FLATOW: Go ahead.

DAVE: It’s an honor to talk to you. I was just wondering– I read somewhere that a lot of ranchers have been doing gene banking of their prized cattle and such. I was just wondering if you had been doing the same with the chimpanzees. You’re talking about the dwindling numbers, and I’m just wondering if you’d frozen some DNA samples?

JANE GOODALL: Not to my knowledge. I’m certainly not involved with anything like that. Although, in captive breeding, it is true that some sperm has been flown across the world. It was with the bonobo.

But we haven’t quite got down to needing to do that with chimpanzees yet. There’s so many in zoos and sanctuaries around the world. And there are efforts made to conduct the– well, to help them to breed in such a way as to maximize the gene pool.

IRA FLATOW: Barrigan in Second Life asked that question about bonobos. What are the prospects for bonobo populations?

JANE GOODALL: Well, they and the orangutans, I think, are the worst hit of all the great apes. I suppose mountain gorillas, as well. The lowland gorilla and the chimp have the larger populations left. And the bonobo– well, it really depends what’s going to happen in DRC. That’s the only place where they are. And that country is so unstable that conservation efforts have been rather difficult there.

IRA FLATOW: The Congo?

JANE GOODALL: In the Congo, yes.

IRA FLATOW: Democratic–

JANE GOODALL: Kinshasa, yes.

IRA FLATOW: And the war that’s going on around there doesn’t make anything any better.

JANE GOODALL: No, well the bonobos are way north of the war. But the whole country is a sort of– it’s very unsettled and very difficult to establish a long-term conservation program, which is what must happen if the bonobos are to be saved, except in zoos.

IRA FLATOW: Dan in Indiana. Hi, Dan.

DAN: Yeah, it’s great to speak with you, Ira and Jane. I saw you out in I think it was Washington, Jane, talking about saving the cougars and their habitat and stuff. And logging did seem to be the biggest reason that cougars were being diminished.

And have you– especially with the environments you’re dealing with– have you tried to get the CEOs of these big companies to come out and see what they’ve actually done? Because they’re just sitting at a desk somewhere, and they don’t see a lot of this degradation they’ve caused. Or have you even went as far as maybe to boycott these companies?

JANE GOODALL: Not per se, but the book I’m working on now is about animals and plants rescued from the very brink of extinction. And there’s some interesting stories there, and one that comes to mind is the Vancouver Island marmot in BC in Canada. And there, the numbers were down– I think they were just 12 individuals left.

And Andrew Bryant was doing his PhD on the fate of the marmot. And every morning he’d arrive in the logging camp, because that’s where his research place was, and he’d ride with them at about 4:30 in the morning. And one day, one of the loggers said, well, what are you doing up there? And he was trying to explain, and he said, come with me on your day off, and I’ll show you.

And that day, the guy saw one of these marmots who’d been tranquilized to be banded, marked, or however they do it. And he was so moved by the whole thing that he went back and told his CEO. And the CEO went up and was similarly moved, and as a result, changed his entire logging practice so as to help the marmots. And now the moments are springing back. I think there’s around 500. I met this guy, Andrew, last week when I was there.

IRA FLATOW: This is Talk of the Nation Science Friday from NPR News, talking with Jane Goodall. Jane, when you went out to meet Louis Leakey all those many decades ago, did you ever foresee yourself having to be a crusader to save the life on the Earth here?

JANE GOODALL: I think the answer to that, don’t you? I couldn’t. And back then in 1960, it was so different, because this conservation threat wasn’t that. There were maybe way over a million chimpanzees. The African equatorial forest belt was virtually untouched. And it was after that that this massive invasion of foreign companies came in to Africa and started messing everything up.

IRA FLATOW: So where do you see yourself doing next? You’ve evolved many times yourself over your lifetime. Do you think you’re in your last stage of evolution of where you’re heading? You’re in this one direction– are you going to change another direction? Or where do you see yourself going over the next 5, let’s say 5 to 10 years?

JANE GOODALL: 5 to 10 years. I think I shall be carrying on. It’s 300 days a year on the road. It’s Africa, Europe, North America. Next year concentrating on the southern part of South America– Brazil, Central America.

Normally it’s Asia. This year, Australia. Next year, India. The world’s too big for me, actually. But I try and do as much as I can and start the roots and shoots group, because this is the future.

And if we can create a critical mass of youth that understands this life is about more than just money and that we need money to live, but we shouldn’t be living for money. And all these groups tackle projects to make things better for people, for animals, for the environment roll up their sleeves, get out, and take action. And–

IRA FLATOW: I’m sorry, go ahead.

JANE GOODALL: No, go on.

IRA FLATOW: No, I was just saying that has this change of administration– do you think– will help you in your work any more?

JANE GOODALL: Oh, absolutely, without any question. You can put it the other way around and say that the last administration hindered us. I think there’s a great, big sigh of relief. And most of the people I know are feeling extremely hopeful about the future.

IRA FLATOW: Well, I wish you good luck. I guess there’s no better way than to end our conversation by wishing you good luck going around the world 300 days of the year in your travels. And be safe, and come back and visit us. And certainly when is your next book, do you think, will be out?

JANE GOODALL: It’ll be out on September, I think, it’s the 18th next year.

IRA FLATOW: OK, well we have a date to look forward to.

JANE GOODALL: Yeah, absolutely

IRA FLATOW: If not before then. Thank you, Jane, for taking time to be with us today. And good luck to you.

JANE GOODALL: Thanks a lot. Thank you. Bye.

IRA FLATOW: Bye bye. Jane Goodall– she doesn’t need any introduction or, what more can I say? She’s a primatologist, environmental advocate, and co-winner of the 2008 Leakey Prize, and the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute. That’s based in Arlington, Virginia.

That’s about all the time we have for today. If you’d like to write to us, send us some regular, classic mail to Science Friday– 4 West, 43rd Street, Room 306, New York, New York, 10036. Thank all of you for twittering today.

Continue going during the week. If you want to tweet us, you can send it to @scifritter. That’s at S-C-I-F-R-I-T-T-E-R. We may change that back to scifri. Make it a lot easier for folks when we get a chance to do that.

Also, we’ve got the Science Friday Pick of the Week at sciencefriday.com. What happens when you blow up water balloons in weightlessness? Oh, this is really interesting stuff. Watch the water balloons explode, because they don’t do what you think they’re going to do. So you can see that video at sciencefriday.com. Have a great weekend. We’ll see you next week. I’m Ira Flatow in New York.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Copyright © 2008 Science Friday Initiative. All rights reserved. Science Friday transcripts are produced on a tight deadline by 3Play Media. Fidelity to the original aired/published audio or video file might vary, and text might be updated or amended in the future. For the authoritative record of Science Friday’s programming, please visit the original aired/published recording. For terms of use and more information, visit our policies pages at http://www.sciencefriday.com/about/policies/