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A new study finds peeing is contagious among chimpanzees

Chimpanzees in Monarto Safari Park South Australia. A new study finds that peeing is contagious among a group a captive chimps.
Outback to Coast
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Chimpanzees in Monarto Safari Park South Australia. A new study finds that peeing is contagious among a group a captive chimps.

At least, it's contagious among a group of captive chimpanzees at the Kumamoto Sanctuary. How do researchers know? A very dedicated graduate student at Kyoto University. In the quest for scientific knowledge, Ena Onishi logged over 600 hours in the field! This episode, host Regina G. Barber and special guests Jonathan Lambert and Ari Shapiro get into the nitty gritty of the research and their hypotheses for why this is happening in this episode.

Read Jonathan's full reporting about contagious peeing in chimps.

Delighted by other scientific discoveries you think we should share with the whole class (the rest of our audience)? Let us know by emailing shortwave@npr.org!

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This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn and Jordan-Marie Smith. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Christopher Intagliata. Rachel Carlson contributed reporting. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Ko Takasugi-Czernowin and Becky Brown were the audio engineers.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Regina G. Barber
Regina G. Barber is Short Wave's Scientist in Residence. She contributes original reporting on STEM and guest hosts the show.
Jordan-Marie Smith
Jordan-Marie Smith is a producer with NPR's All Things Considered.
Hannah Chinn
Rachel Carlson
Rachel Carlson (she/her) is a production assistant at Short Wave, NPR's science podcast. She gets to do a bit of everything: researching, sourcing, writing, fact-checking and cutting episodes.
Ari Shapiro has been one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine, since 2015. During his first two years on the program, listenership to All Things Considered grew at an unprecedented rate, with more people tuning in during a typical quarter-hour than any other program on the radio.