In honor of the publication’s 150th anniversary, Nature is rebroadcasting some of their best PastCast podcast episodes.
Most recently, the PastCast rebroadcast on 28 June revisited a story from the June 1876 issue that took the (then) recent arrival of a young Gorilla in England.
While today a report of an animal – even a particularly charismatic one such as a Gorilla – arriving in a modern European nation might merit only a passing glance (at most) by many, back in 1876, the species was only recently discovered, and debates about it and its relationship to humans were front page news, as well as rich fodder for the more popular side of culture.
Among the featured commentators in this PastCast is Monte Reel, author of the 2013 book Between Man and Beast; An Unlikely Explorer and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World By Storm, which recounts the 1856 journey of Paul Du Chaillu into Africa in search of the then near-mythical gorilla and his return with sufficient specimens to not only to satisfy scientific curiosity but to vigorously fan the flames of the great debate on evolution.
Nature PastCasts are always interesting, but this one rises above the rest in bringing a number of now nearly forgotten cultural phenomena that arose and swirled around the discovery and public exhibition of the Gorilla – however be warned; the Gorilla Quadrille, explained and played during the PastCast, is quite possibly one of the most powerful ear-worms ever to be performed.
