Frans de Waal on animal empathy

Today we went to see Frans de Waal talk about his research with chimpanzees, bonobos, and other intelligent animals, and what they've learned about cooperation and empathy. He's a good speaker! There were so many people that the main room was basically full before J. and I had even left home, but we got pretty good seats one floor above in the overflow room (where G. was), and then during the Q&A we eventually went back to the main room. I bought a book and got it signed, too, and J. took a photo for the woman ahead of me in the book line, who wanted to pose with de Waal. (Quite a few people did!) I'd wanted to bring D, who's seen the video of the monkeys-and-grapes-and-cucumbers experiment on TV multiple times, but he was too sniffly and also worn out after a day of final exams.

Today I also presented my purity paper outline, 40 minutes of fairly dense information, to G's lab group, and they had useful feedback. I'm glad I decided to include nearly a dozen photos of different types of "purity" in gardens, because it broke up the text and concepts, and the audience appreciated it. (I also had pictures of my cats, Marie Antoinette, Carl von Clausewitz, two types of Japanese tea rooms, and two types of milk labels...)