By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
updated 10:49 AM EST, Sat January 19, 2013
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&contentId=living/2013/01/15/orig-ideas-contagious-yawns-primates.cnn
Lawrenceville, Georgia (CNN) — You might recognize prominent primatologist Frans de Waal from lectures he has given about his research on primate behavior, which have been popularized on YouTube.
His face is familiar to chimpanzees, too; some chimps that he knew as babies still recognize him even after decades apart, he said.
“Chimpanzees have the advantage that you cannot ask them questions, so you have to watch (their) behavior to see what they do,” says de Waal, director of Emory University’s Living Links Center, in his Dutch-accented voice that is both gentle and authoritative.
He adds, with dry humor: “With humans, you can ask questions and you get all sorts of answers I don’t trust, so I prefer to work with chimpanzees for that reason.”
Living Links is part of the oldest and largest primate center in the United States: The Yerkes National Primate Research Center, a secluded grassy area in suburban Atlanta where humans work in office trailers and other animals play in open-air compounds.