A chimpanzee ‘civil war,’ and NASA plans for nuclear propulsion

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Hannah Richter joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss NASA’s plans to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars in less than 3 years. Having not launched a fission reactor to space in more than 60 years, the organization faces many technical and bureaucratic hurdles to make that deadline. Next on the show, Aaron Sandel, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project, reports this week in Science on what looks like a chimpanzee civil war. The unprecedented violent split occurred in a large chimp colony that has been tracked by researchers for decades. Now, scientists are asking: What can the lethal division of a chimp community teach us about human conflict? This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can listen to A chimpanzee ‘civil war,’ and NASA plans for nuclear propulsion online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

A chimpanzee ‘civil war,’ and NASA plans for nuclear propulsion is an episode from Science Magazine Podcast by Science Podcast.

This episode is 42:15 long.

This episode was published on Apr 9, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Science Magazine Podcast when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.