# Science Fun: From the mourning of chacma baboons to the anatomy conservatory
Welcome to La science s’aMuse, the science program co-produced by UM and Divergence-FM, which takes you on a cruise through the Muse laboratory archipelago. This week, Elise Huchard, primatologist atISEM, shows us how chacma baboons mourn the death of their young. In the second part of the program, Marie-Angeline Pinail, collections manager, introduces us to an iconic location at the Faculty of Medicine: the anatomy conservatory.
This month sees the release of the 14th issue of LUM, the university's quarterly popular science magazine. Entitled "Animalement votre" (Yours in Animal), it features a special report on animals. Throughout its pages, researchers take you on a journey to the open sea in the wake of bluefin tuna, to the Caribbean in search of the first rodents that appeared on these islands more than 30 million years ago, in search of ecologically rare species with Nicolas Loiseau, whom we welcomed here some time ago (listen to the program again here), and to Namibia with our guest of the day.
Elise Huchard is a researcher atthe Institute of Evolutionary Sciences in Montpellier (ISEM). Her thesis research, which began in 2005, led her to encounter chacma baboons at the edge of the Namibe Desert. She has continued to observe them ever since, becoming co-director of the Tsaobis Baboon Project, about which she will tell us a little. She is co-author of a highly acclaimed study on mourning behavior in chacma baboon mothers, published in March 2020, and we are delighted to have her here today to talk to us about it.
In the second part of the program, we take you to the anatomy conservatory at the faculty of medicine. At a time when cultural venues are sorely lacking, Marie-Angeline Pinail, collections manager, opens the doors to this extraordinary space. In the 19th century, generations of students were trained in this sanctuary of medical knowledge: thanatopraxy, teratology, comparative anatomy, casts and wax models—the collection comprises a total of more than 13,000 items. It is an astonishing visit that questions our relationship with the body, illness, death and, in a way, the sacred.
Science is fun, you've got the ticket, let's go!
Co-production: University of Montpellier / Divergence-fm
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Lucie Lecherbonnier/ Aline Périault
Reporting: Lucie Lecherbonnier/ Aline Périault
Editing: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Director: Bruno Bertrand
Listen to the program “A LUM LA SCIENCE” on Divergence FM 93.9
