In our last episode, we met Rwandan leader Freddy Mutanguha, who shared his remarkable journey to finding meaning and forgiveness after dozens of his family members, including his parents and sisters, were murdered during the genocide against the Tutsis in 1994. Freddy’s powerful and timely testimony underscored the importance of truth, remembrance, and community organizing in helping genocide victims — and perpetrators — find healing and peace.

Today we hear again from Freddy Mutanguha, and from Dr. Elizabeth Dowling, about what she’s learned from her research collaboration with Freddy and his team at the Aegis Trust, which works to prevent genocide and mass atrocities worldwide, and its projects supporting reconciliation across Rwanda, including the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Dr. Dowling shares how a nation with a recent history of polarization and violence has become a model for peace-making.

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Today’s episode offers a powerful example of courage, peace, and forgiveness. Our story looks back thirty years, to one of the most violent periods in modern history — the genocide against the Tutsi — and to the resilience and wisdom of the Rwandan spirit and heart.

On April 6, 1994, beautiful Rwanda, known as the Land of a Thousand Hills, became a hell on Earth. Between April and July 1994, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were slaughtered in a horrifying frenzy of state-sponsored terror.

Freddy Mutanguha, an ethnic Tutsi, was just eighteen years old when the genocide began. Today, Freddy shares the story of his unimaginable losses, the miracle of his survival, and his life’s work nurturing peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation in his country and across the world.

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• Learn more about the Kigali Genocide Memorial and the Aegis Trust
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In our last episode, we spent time with the extraordinary Dr. Jane Goodall, primatologist, writer, speaker, and conservationist. Dr. Goodall previewed today's episode, featuring the three recipients of the Wildlife Intelligence Project, a $2.7 million joint initiative between National Geographic Society and Templeton World Charity Foundation designed to support "three early-career scientists…whose passion for and discoveries in wildlife field research have the potential to illuminate unknown wonders of our world.” We're proud to be in conversation with cognitive ecologist and bee researcher Dr. Felicity Muth, primatologist Dr. Tiago Falótico, and behavioral ecologist and biologist Dr. Mauricio Cantor.

These three National Geographic Explorers all study animal cognition, but how they do it, and their objects of study — bees, capuchin monkeys, and dolphins — varies. What that shows, as you’ll hear about today, is that intelligence can take many forms, and it’s only once we look past our anthropocentric definitions of intelligence that we can truly understand and appreciate the complexity and beauty of nature.

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In today’s episode, we hear from leader and luminary Dr. Jane Goodall, who has, for decades, made significant contributions to not only the scientific world, but to, arguably, the entire planet.

When 26-year-old, British-born Jane Goodall began field studies of primates in Tanzania in July 1960, she was the first researcher to observe chimpanzees in the wild, and she remains the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees. Her rigorous and creative approach quickly gained the attention of the National Geographic Society, which awarded her first grant, and has passionately championed her work in the decades since. Despite never getting a college degree, Dr. Goodall was accepted at Cambridge University, earned her PhD in ethology in 1966, and spent decades in the Gombe Stream National Park studying chimpanzee communities, eventually becoming the only human to ever be accepted into a chimpanzee society.

Today, at the age of 90, Dr. Goodall is a legendary conservationist, galvanizing educator, UN Messenger of Peace, and an inspiring writer and public speaker. Her curiosity, empathy, wisdom, protective heart, and unshakeable hope reflect the best of humanity, and even though today’s conversation is short, you’ll hear all of those exemplary characteristics embodied in her voice and story.

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Today we bring you a follow-up story about revolutionary education in Northern Ireland, this time exploring the impact of teaching young children to not just tolerate difference and diversity, but to seek it out, embrace it, and celebrate it.

Our episode explores the history and legacy of Lough View Integrated Primary and Nursery School, a school founded 30 years ago to intentionally create a space where diverse points of view and religious and social practices could come together, and what’s remarkable is that this vision came to life fully five years before the Good Friday Accords birthed a fragile national peace.

Lough View was established in Belfast by a group of parents who didn’t want to send their children to a segregated school that would perpetuate the bias and prejudice that had fed the decades of violence between Protestants and Catholics, but instead, created a totally different paradigm for their children, and their children’s education.

Today we’ll hear from students and educators at Lough View, who tell us how this radical education has impacted classroom culture and individual lives, and how it might contribute to peace-building across the nation, and potentially, the world.

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Today we're back for another exploration of the magnificence and mystery of the universe — talking with three researchers who share not only a passion, but a respect for the species in their decidedly non-human, wildly intelligent subjects of research. First we meet Dr. Paco Calvo, a renowned cognitive scientist and professor of philosophy of science at the University of Murcia in Spain. Dr. Calvo has been called a philosopher of biology, who believes that by studying plant cognition, humans might be able to learn a little bit more about ourselves. And we hear from neuroscientist Marcelo Magnasco, a biophysicist professor and head of laboratory at Rockefeller University, New York, who works closely with Dr. Diana Reiss, professor of psychology at Hunter College and the director of the animal behavior and conservation graduate programs. Together, this team explores octopus intelligence.

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In today's episode, we meet Dr. Frans de Waal, Emory University and Utrecht University primatologist Dr. Frans de Waal, a trailblazer in the science of animal cognition, and Dr. Michael Levin, distinguished professor of biology at Tufts University and associate faculty member at Harvard's Wyss Institute. Both researchers’ work roots them deeply in the curiosity about the wonder of the natural world of animals, organisms, and plants that make up the diverse intelligences of the universe. They've each spent decades asking questions about the minds of a variety of species and furthering the science of cognition.

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Any sentient, soulful being paying attention to the way humans are treating other humans has been feeling these hard times. But sometimes, amidst all this darkness, humor can offer a little bit of hope.

Today we're back with a friend of the podcast, Dr. Erica Cartmill. You might remember her from past episodes as a leader in the science of diverse intelligences, the multi-disciplinary, open science study of cognition, whether it's found in humans, animals, plants, machines, or anywhere else. This time, we’re talking with Dr. Cartmill about the violation of expectations as a feature of primate intelligence, or in more down-to-earth terms: Funny monkeys. Actually, monkeys isn't technically right — it's actually apes.

What Dr. Cartmill and her fellow researchers have discovered, in a study they call “The Humor Project," is that humans and apes share a lot of traits, including what we think is funny.

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