Barbara J. King
Barbara J. King is a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. She is a Chancellor Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary. With a long-standing research interest in primate behavior and human evolution, King has studied baboon foraging in Kenya and gorilla and bonobo communication at captive facilities in the United States.
Recently, she has taken up writing about animal emotion and cognition more broadly, including in bison, farm animals, elephants and domestic pets, as well as primates.
King's most recent book is How Animals Grieve (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Her article "When Animals Mourn" in the July 2013 Scientific American has been chosen for inclusion in the 2014 anthology The Best American Science and Nature Writing. King reviews non-fiction for the Times Literary Supplement (London) and is at work on a new book about the choices we make in eating other animals. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work in 2002.
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Humans evolved in Africa. How and when did we migrate from our ancestral home to Europe? Anthropologist Barbara J. King explains new fossil evidence from Israel.
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Barbara J. King says much is made of how attuned dogs are to humans — but new research shows that cats, too, check out our faces and voices closely when put in unfamiliar or worrisome situations.
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Commentator Barbara J. King digs into whether there's merit to fears of contracting the virus in the U.S. — and into humans' natural tendency, under certain circumstances, to panic.
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Commentator Barbara J. King says the book Farmageddon offers useful advice on how to take a stand against industrialized animal farming in the fight to forge a better future for our planet.
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Climate change is a global problem. Some island nations face the prospect of disappearing beneath rising seas. Barbara J. King is surprised by how the people of the Marshall Islands see their plight.
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It's summer, and inviting waves are breaking on the beach. Through the photographic artistry of Clark Little, Barbara J. King invites you to see shorebreak waves in gorgeous new ways.
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Set your summer table with bruised fruits and vegetables: Anthropologist Barbara J. King takes note of Europe's ugly-food movement.
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When girls act differently from boys, both biological and cultural factors may be at work. But which is primary, and can research on chimpanzees shed light on the answer?
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Ancient footprints discovered in Britain show that five individuals of mixed ages took a stroll together 800,000 years ago. Commentator Barbara J. King asks whether it's scientifically credible to consider these individuals a family.
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Insect-eating is catching on with some in the United States. But it's everyday behavior in many other cultures. Commentator Barbara J. King wonders how meat eaters and vegetarians in the U.S. react to dishes with grasshoppers and katydids as key ingredients.