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Avrion Mitchison - The role of the zoo (72/120)

45 views · Published 5 September 2017 · 1:48 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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To listen to more of Avrion Mitchison’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFw1WOQIiFRJxPnoIpPgEUgQ

Avrion Mitchison, the British zoologist, is currently Professor Emeritus at UCL and is best known for his work demonstrating the role of lymphocytes in tumour rejection and for the separate and cooperative roles of T- and B-lymphocytes in this and other processes. [Listener: Martin Raff; date recorded: 2004]

TRANSCRIPT: I think it is a deeply loved part of London life, I think there are children, like me, who are attracted into biology in part because we went to... were taken to the zoo as children, and I think that is its job- is to present animals- the diversity of animals, to the public. Alas, it doesn't happen like it did in the old days when you could take animals out of their cages and you could feed them and even in the case of Lorna with my tiny little children- the tapir was sort of behind a stockade and you could feed it, but it was very... it was covered with saliva, so first she wiped the noses of her little children and then she wiped the nose of the tapir. You can't do that any more. So it had a... a wonderful past which isn't there any more, but it is carrying on as a showcase for biodiversity. It also makes a case for itself as actually preserving biodiversity and I am in favour of that up to a point, although I am afraid of the... of the thousands of species which it used to curate, many of whom were humble insects. the attention of the public is limited to a small number of mammals with beautiful brown eyes like ours... like our own, who are sort of child friendly.

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