# Science Has Fun: From mourning among chacma baboons to the anatomy museum
Welcome to *La science s’aMuse*, the science program co-produced by UM and Divergence-FM, which takes you on a journey through the archipelago of Muse laboratories. This week, Elise Huchard, a primatologist atISEM, shows us how chacma baboons grieve the death of their young. In the second half of the program, Marie-Angeline Pinail, collections manager, takes us on a tour of an iconic site at the School of Medicine: the anatomy museum.
This month marks the release of the 14th issue of LUM, the university’s quarterly popular science magazine. Titled “Animalement votre,” it features a special section dedicated to animals. Throughout the issue, researchers take you out to the open sea in the wake of bluefin tuna, to the Caribbean in search of the first rodents that appeared on these islands over 30 million years ago, on a quest for ecologically rare species with Nicolas Loiseau, whom we hosted here a while back (listen to the episode here), and even to Namibia with our guest today.
Elise Huchard is a researcher atthe Institute of Evolutionary Sciences in Montpellier (ISEM). Her doctoral research, which began in 2005, led her to study chacma baboons on the edge of the Namibe Desert. She has continued to observe them ever since, eventually becoming co-director of the Tsaobis Baboon Project, which she will tell us a little about. She is co-author of a highly acclaimed study on mourning behaviors in chacma baboon mothers, published in March 2020, and we are delighted to have her here today to discuss it with us.
In the second half of the program, we take you to the anatomy museum at the medical school. At a time when cultural venues are sorely lacking, Marie-Angeline Pinail, the collections curator, opens the doors to this extraordinary space. In the 19th century, it was in this sanctuary of medical knowledge that generations of students were trained: thanatopraxy, teratology, comparative anatomy, casts, and wax models—the collection comprises a total of more than 13,000 items. A surprising visit that challenges our relationship with the body, illness, death, and in a certain 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
Tune in to the show “A LUM LA SCIENCE” on Divergence FM 93.9
