Via ABC’s Big Ideas, a lecture on where humans are the same as, and different from, other animals:

Dr Robert Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University who has spent much of his working life studying chimpanzees in Kenya.

His enviable gift for storytelling led the New York Times to describe his latest book like this: “If you crossed Jane Goodall with a borscht-belt comedian, she might have written a book like ‘A Primate’s Memoir’.” Dr. Sapolsky’s account of his early years as a field biologist and his findings as a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museum of Kenya. He is sure to dazzle and delight with tales of what it means to be human.

His Pritzer Lecture, “Are Humans Just Another Primate?“, was delivered to the California Academy of Sciences in February 2011.

Dr Robert Sapolsky is a professor of Biology and Neurology at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya. He is the author of several works of non-fiction, including “A Primate’s Memoir”, “The Trouble with Testosterone”, “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” and “Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals”.

Watch below (76m 16s, 283 MB mp4 from ABC) or on fora.tv.

Update 20110614: Bering in Mind: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot (Scientific American blog)