Big Biology
119 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 97 ratingsThe biggest biology podcast for the biggest science and biology fans. Featuring in-depth discussions with scientists tackling the biggest questions in evolution, genetics, ecology, climate, neuroscience, diseases, the origins of life, psychology and more!! If it's biological, groundbreaking, philosophical or mysterious you'll find it here.
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Episodes
Containing Cancer with Squirrel Ecology (Ep 12 Re-release)
August 04, 2022 19:00 - 53 minutes - 73.1 MBWill cancer ever become just another chronic but manageable disease? What can a squirrel biologist teach us about treating cancer? In this episode, Marty and Art talk with Joel Brown about how to contain cancer using basic ideas from ecology and evolution. To Joel, cells in tumors are like organisms in ecosystems, and fighting cancer means using what we know about species in nature to tilt the playing field against the worst kinds of cancer cells. He and his team at the Moffit Cancer Resear...
Shrimp Fight Clubs and Basic Science (Ep 6 Re-release)
July 21, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 87.3 MBHow do mantis shrimp punch as fast as a bullet… underwater? How do they break open one of the toughest materials on earth? Tune into this podcast to hear Art and Marty talk to Sheila Patek about how mantis shrimp pack such a powerful punch and why we should care. For example, mantis shrimp hammers can be used hundreds of thousands of times to break open the tough shells of snails and clams, and this research may help inspire lightweight, heavy duty military armor. Sheila studies the mechan...
Bioelectric Computation (Ep 39 Re-release)
July 07, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 92.1 MBHow do animals construct tissues, organs, and limbs in the right places during development? How do some animals manage to regenerate missing body parts? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Michael Levin, a biologist at Tufts University who studies how electric fields inside animals guide cells during development and regeneration. His work shows that electric fields play fundamental roles in structuring body plans and, in some species, can even be inherited across generations.
What the flux? The evolution of oxygen cascades (Ep 86)
June 23, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 102 MBHow do we properly study complex traits? How does organismal function relate to how organisms evolve? All animals use oxygen to convert sugars and other substrates into energy using a multi-step pathway called the oxygen cascade. This cascade involves many, many parts of the respiratory, circulatory, and metabolic systems, making it a complex trait. Complex traits pose at least two major challenges to biologists: how do such multifaceted systems operate effectively and how do they evolve in...
Little Biology: Zombie Parasites
June 16, 2022 19:00 - 9 minutes - 12.7 MBWhat’s behind the infamous zombie ant story? How does a fungus take control of an insect? Are zombies common in nature? How do biologists study the phenomenon of adaptive manipulation? Interns RB Smith and Natasha Dhamrait hijack the Big Biology channel to explore their favorite biology horror story, zombie ants! In this Little Biology episode, they dive into the unfortunate fate of these fungus-controlled ants and discuss some of the complicated evolutionary questions surrounding adaptive ...
The rise of the mammals and fall of the dinosaurs (Ep 85)
June 09, 2022 19:00 - 54 minutes - 74.6 MBWhat makes a mammal a mammal? How did mammals survive the KT event when dinosaurs mostly went extinct? And why did mammals become so dominant? When we think of the Cretaceous, or the Jurassic, we immediately think of dinosaurs. But mammals were there too! Although they weren’t the mammals you would recognize today. So what is it that makes a mammal a mammal? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Steve Brusatte, professor of Paleontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh. ...
Immune System: Make Love not War (Ep 8 Re-release)
May 26, 2022 19:00 - 59 minutes - 82 MBIs there a constant battle between our immune system and pathogens? Does the fighting ever end? Does the immune system do more than just provide defense against pathogens? On this episode, Art and Marty talk to Fred Tauber, a professor emeritus of medicine and philosophy at Boston University, about how the immune system does more than just protect our bodies from pathogens. Fred has published a number of books on immunity and philosophy. In his most recent book, "Immunity: The Evolution of...
Fractals in the Foliage (Ep 84)
May 12, 2022 19:00 - 59 minutes - 82.4 MBWhat do plants, animals and even river systems have in common? Branching networks are a universal element of life on Earth. Networks of veins, roots, xylem, phloem, and nerves – they all have large components that branch, usually repeatedly, into smaller and smaller components. The networks transport energy, materials, and information throughout the bodies in which they occur. Our guest today, Van Savage, is a professor in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the departme...
The Amazon in us (Ep 83)
April 28, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 84.8 MBHow does one of the most diverse groups on the planet, the ants, interact with the extremely diverse group of microbes that live on and inside them? On this episode, we talk to Corrie Moreau, a professor of entomology at Cornell University, about the diversity and influence of microbes in ants. For Corrie, these microbes are a sort of internal rainforest, whose presence directly impacts the lives of the ants who carry them. Many ant-microbe relationships have evolved over millions of years,...
Survival of the systems: The power of persistence (Ep 63 Re-release)
April 22, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 94.7 MBCan selection act on ecosystems, societies, or planets such that some persist and others disappear? Must such systems reproduce to evolve? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk to Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute (@GSI_Exeter) and a Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter. In his 2021 Trends in Ecology & Evolution paper “Survival of the Systems,” Tim outlined his idea that large, complex systems--such as grasslands, coral reefs,...
Organisms are not machines (Ep 82)
April 14, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 127 MBWhy shouldn’t we think of living things as machines? What is and what isn’t an organism? In this episode, we talk to Dan Nicholson, a philosopher and biologist from George Mason University about his new edited volume, "Everything Flows: Toward a Processual Philosophy of Biology". In it, he and colleagues argue that biological systems more resemble flames and tornadoes and other dynamically stable systems than clocks or other human-designed things. Dan thinks that life is better understood a...
How staying cool blunts evolution (Ep 81)
March 31, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 91.1 MBWhy are tropical mountain passes ‘higher’ than temperate ones? Why do some organisms regulate their temperature better than others, and what effect does this have on evolution? On this episode, we talk with Martha Muñoz, a professor in Yale’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. We frame the chat in terms of two big ideas in thermal physiology – Janzen’s hypothesis and the Bogert Effect. Dan Janzen famously predicted that tropical ectotherms, with their relatively narrow thermal ...
Human-wildlife conflict in a changing world (Ep 80)
March 17, 2022 19:00 - 50 minutes - 69.6 MBWhat is the link between climate change, declining wildlife populations and conflict between animals and humans? And how should scientists, governments and individuals manage declining populations of wildlife, especially when humans rely on them? On this episode, we explore the interface of biology and resource management with Briana Abrahms, from the Department of Biology and the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels at the University of Washington. Climate change is increasingly forcing humans ...
How the genetic lottery affects complex human traits (Ep 79)
March 03, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 89.9 MBDoes our DNA matter for our life outcomes? Can and should we use it for better social policy? And why have these questions caused such a stir? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Kathryn Paige Harden, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin where she leads the Developmental Behavior Genetics lab. Paige is the author of a new book, The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality. In the book, Paige advocates for using genetic informa...
The amphibian omnivore’s dilemma: Plasticity-led evolution in spadefoot tadpoles (Ep 78)
February 17, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 87 MBWhat roles does plasticity play in evolution? Where does novelty come from, and how does it become widespread in populations? On this episode, we talk all things plasticity with David Pfennig, a professor at the University of North Carolina, and Nick Levis, a postdoc at Indiana University. Their research focuses on something they call plasticity-led evolution. Building on older ideas, David and Nick argue that novel environments release hidden, or cryptic, genetic variation in some individ...
A (Very) Short Interview with Henry Gee: 4 Billion Years in 30 Minutes (Ep 77)
February 03, 2022 20:00 - 34 minutes - 47.9 MBHow did life on Earth get from its humble beginnings to the dazzling array of forms we see now and in the fossil record? On this episode, we talk with paleontologist Henry Gee about his latest book, A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth. The book offers a kaleidoscopic tour through the roughly 4 billion year history of life on Earth in just 288 pages. Gee is a longtime editor at Nature, and a master writer and storyteller. He shares his approach to good writing and discusses why professio...
Beasty beats: The origins of musicality (Ep 76)
January 20, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 85.2 MBDo animals dance to the beat? When is birdsong music for a bird? Humans hear music in everything, but what about other species? On this episode we talk with Henkjan Honing, professor of music cognition at the University of Amsterdam, about the biology of musicality. Among diverse species, he and his collaborators now study how and why some animals perceive elements of music but others do not. We also discuss the earliest known examples of human musical instruments and the possible adaptive...
Hidden network: The evolutionary relationship between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plants (Ep 75)
January 06, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 90.2 MBWhat rules dictate trade in symbiosis? How did the complex relationship between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi evolve? What’s really going on in the world beneath our feet? On this episode, we talk to Toby Kiers, an evolutionary biologist at VU University Amsterdam, about the massive networks of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) that inhabit the soil beneath our feet. Toby studies the symbiotic relationship between AMF and 80-90% of plant species, through which the tube-shaped fun...
Big Biology Year End Wrap-Up
December 30, 2021 20:00 - 22 minutes - 31.4 MBHappy Holidays from Big Biology! In our year end wrap-up episode, meet the team behind the podcast and hear our picks for favorite episodes and moments from the last year of the show. We also look forward to what’s in store for 2022. Thanks for your support, and we will see you in the new year! Music on the episode is from Podington Bear.
Food for thought: Plant domestication and the promise of green super rice (Ep 74)
December 16, 2021 20:00 - 1 hour - 96.6 MBHow and when did early humans domesticate the plants that we use today? Did these ancient farmers purposefully select traits, or did they domesticate unconsciously? In the future, can breeders and farmers grow more nutritious and robust food using genomics? In this episode, we talk to Michael Purugganan, an evolutionary biologist at NYU, about some of our favorite foods, where they came from, and what to do to ensure we will still have them in the future. We also talk about rice, an essent...
A gene’s-eye view: Useful tool or narrow lens? (Ep 73)
December 02, 2021 20:00 - 1 hour - 120 MBAre genes the primary units of selection and main drivers of adaptation? How does a gene’s-eye view of evolution fit into modern biology? On this episode, we talk with Arvid Ågren, an evolutionary biologist and Wenner-Gren Fellow at Uppsala University, about his new book, “The Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution”. The book chronicles the history of gene-centric views of evolution, which burst onto the scene in 1976 with the publication of Richard Dawkins’s book, "The Selfish Gene". In the gene-cen...
Stability and change: Lessons from the Serengeti (Ep 72)
November 11, 2021 20:00 - 1 hour - 109 MBWhy is the Serengeti such a special ecosystem? Why does it support so many different species, and what ecological processes regulate the enormous population sizes of its dominant large-bodied herbivores? On this episode, we talk with Tony Sinclair, professor emeritus of zoology at the University of British Columbia, about his new book “A Place Like No Other: Discovering the Secrets of Serengeti”. Since the 1960s, Tony has studied the bottom-up and top-down processes that regulate wildlife p...
Please don't kill the bats! (Ep 5 Re-release)
October 28, 2021 19:00 - 51 minutes - 38.8 MBHow do diseases spread from animals to humans? Is it possible to forecast where disease outbreaks will occur and when they will blow up into major health crises? In one of the earliest episodes of Big Biology, Marty and Art talk to Barbara Han, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, about her research on zoonotic disease, how we track the spread of infectious diseases and whether we'll ever be able to predict outbreaks.
A tattoo on the brain: The neurobiology of Alzheimer's disease (Ep 71)
October 14, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 89.9 MBWhat causes Alzheimer’s disease? Why are some people more at risk than others? What are the prospects for a cure and the best options for slowing the onset of symptoms? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Daniel Gibbs, a retired neurologist, about his new book: “A Tattoo on My Brain: A Neurologist’s Personal Battle Against Alzheimer’s Disease”. A few years back, Dan discovered his genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which motivated him to chronicle his journey from ...
The virus and the vegan: How the brain gains inference (Ep 70)
September 30, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 164 MBWhat is the free energy principle? How do our brains use active inference to manage uncertainty and stress? On this episode, we talk with Karl Friston, world-renowned neuroscientist at University College London, about his free energy principle. In order for the human brain or any other self-evidencing system (be it Earthly or alien) to exist, they must be able to make inferences about their environments, and adjust their internal models of the world to resist entropy. In the show, we discus...
Butterfl-eyes: The evolution and function of insect vision (Ep 69)
September 16, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 91.6 MBWhat does the world look like through insect eyes? What biological mechanisms make their vision different from our own? And how might those differences influence their evolution? On this episode, we talk with UC Irvine evolutionary biologist Adriana Briscoe (@AdrianaBriscoe) about color vision in insects, particularly Heliconius butterflies. We discuss how their perception of the world has led to such massive diversification and how variation in the structure of the light-sensitive opsin pr...
Performance anxiety: How coastal invertebrates cope with changing climate extremes (Ep 68)
September 02, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 98.2 MBWhat do we mean by ‘extreme ecological events’? What’s more important to a population, more frequent extremes or changes to average conditions? How should we link the performance of individuals to the success or failure of entire populations? On this episode, we talk with Mark Denny, Stanford University professor of marine science and former director of the Hopkins Marine Station. In his 2019 paper, “Performance in a variable world,” Mark reviewed how organisms perform in highly variable en...
Season 4 Preview (and more)
July 27, 2021 21:23 - 5 minutes - 8.24 MBSeason 4 of Big Biology will kick off at the end of August. Before then, Art and Marty have a few updates to share: We're looking for new interns to join our team and help produce the show! Also, we're hiring an executive producer to help with management and episode production. The application is available on the USF career page for a limited time - please consider applying! Please send us an email at [email protected] with any questions.
Foiling the flashy: How artificial light dims insect behavior (Ep 67)
July 01, 2021 18:55 - 55 minutes - 76.1 MBIs artificial light at night partly responsible for insect declines? How does it affect nocturnal insects, especially fireflies and other species that need darkness to thrive? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Avalon Owens (@avalonceleste), a PhD candidate at Tufts University whose research aims to better understand the effects of artificial light at night (or ALAN) on insects. We discuss what light at night is doing to insect populations, why some insects are attracted to light,...
Old vaccines for new pandemics (Ep 66)
June 17, 2021 19:00 - 36 minutes - 50.2 MBWhat has COVID-19 taught us about preparing for future epidemics? Can we trigger innate immune responses – our first lines of defense - to mitigate novel infections? Can we use live-attenuated vaccines (LAV) meant for other infections to protect us while we develop specific vaccines for new pathogens? On this episode, we talk to virologists Konstantin Chumakov and Robert Gallo about their recent paper entitled “Old vaccines for new infections”. They and their colleagues argue that we can fi...
Mouse on a hill: The structure and function of agency (Ep 65)
June 03, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 94 MBWhat is agency? How does it evolve? Do non-living things have agency? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Tufts University professor Michael Levin about his recent article in Aeon magazine called ‘Cognition all the way down’. In it, Mike and Dan Dennett discuss the phenomenon of agency and what it means for biology, basic to medical. We discuss with Mike what it means to be an agent - whether you’re a metabolite, a cell, or a human - and how agency affects and is affected by evolut...
The stall protocol: Diapause in the annual killifish (Ep 64)
May 20, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 96.4 MBHow do organisms cope with long periods of tough conditions where regular life is impossible? How do some animals turn down their metabolism to levels so low that they can appear dead? How do animals emerge from such deep, low activity states? In this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Jason Podrabsky, a professor of biology at Portland State University, about diapause – a remarkable physiological state in which organisms turn down their metabolic rates to a bare minimum. Diapause is a ...
Survival of the systems: The power of persistence (Ep 63)
May 06, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 94.7 MBCan selection act on ecosystems, societies, or planets such that some persist and others disappear? Must such systems reproduce to evolve? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk to Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute (@GSI_Exeter) and a Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter. In his 2021 Trends in Ecology & Evolution paper “Survival of the Systems,” Tim outlined his idea that large, complex systems--such as grasslands, coral reefs,...
Situated Darwinism: Organism-centered evolution (Ep 62)
April 22, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 104 MBAre genes the prime movers in evolution, or is causality distributed across multiple levels of organization? What role do organisms play in evolution? Could organismal agency, the propensity to respond actively to selective forces, affect standard evolutionary theory? On this episode, we talk with Denis Walsh, a professor and philosopher of biology at the University of Toronto, about his book Organisms, Agency, and Evolution. The Modern Synthesis, which combines Darwin’s theory of natural...
Decoding CRISPR: Jennifer Doudna and the future of gene editing (Ep 61)
April 08, 2021 19:00 - 57 minutes - 79.1 MBWhat is CRISPR? Who are the key players behind its discovery? And what does it mean for science both now and in the future? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk to renowned author Walter Isaacson (@WalterIsaacson) about his new book, Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race. We break down the rich history of the gene editing CRISPR-Cas9 system--from its initial discovery in bacteria to the current ethical considerations for using it in humans. We also...
Human-assisted evolution: Conserving coral diversity (Ep 60)
March 25, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 86.9 MBWhy are some corals more resilient to bleaching than others? How should we leverage genetic and epigenetic information to conserve coral diversity? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Hollie Putnam (@HolliePutnam), a professor at the University of Rhode Island, about threats to coral reefs and the steps she and her colleagues are taking to preserve coral diversity. Warming oceans disrupt the relationships between corals and their symbiotic algae, which can lead to coral bleaching. ...
Feel the burn: The limits of human energy expenditure and endurance (Ep 59)
March 11, 2021 21:00 - 1 hour - 87.2 MBWhat can modern hunter-gatherer societies teach us about human energy budgets? What misconceptions do we have about weight loss and weight management? Are there limits to human endurance? On this episode, we talk with Herman Pontzer (@HermanPontzer) of Duke University. We discuss his new book Burn, in which he examines -- and in some cases overturns -- received wisdom about human energy budgets and human metabolism. Much of the book is framed around Herman’s amazing long-term studies with t...
Finding our voice: The neurobiology of vocal learning (Ep 58)
February 25, 2021 20:00 - 1 hour - 83.6 MBHow did vocal learning evolve? What is special about human language? What brain structures are associated with speech and the many components of spoken language? On this episode, we talk with Erich Jarvis (@erichjarvis), a professor at Rockefeller University, about the neurobiology of vocal communication. Erich’s ideas draw on the amazing breadth of auditory and vocal capacities among mammals and birds - from learning simple sounds to imitating sounds to producing complex, flexible vocaliza...
Georgia O'Keeffe and the Red Queen: Ecosystem services via coevolution (Ep 57)
February 11, 2021 20:00 - 1 hour - 95.3 MBWhat is coevolution? How has coevolution between insects and plants shaped human history and culture? In this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Rob Raguso, a professor at Cornell University, who studies insect-plant interactions. Rob discusses his work on diffuse coevolution between night blooming flowers and their long-tongued hawk moth pollinators, and how his and others’ ideas leading to geographic mosaic theory has helped us understand the evolution of novel traits. Rob says that pla...
Bee kind: The buzz on global insect declines (Ep 56)
January 28, 2021 20:00 - 58 minutes - 80.4 MBWhy are bee populations declining? How can we reliably monitor insect populations when many are so cryptic? And what steps can we take to ensure that populations remain viable? In this episode, we talk with Dave Goulson (@DaveGoulson), a professor of biology at the University of Sussex. Dave studies the ecology and conservation of insects, particularly bumblebees, and he is the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Bumblebees and wild bees provide pollination services for over 50% of...
Bee kind: the buzz on global insect declines (Ep 56)
January 28, 2021 20:00 - 58 minutes - 80.4 MBWhy are bee populations declining? How can we reliably monitor insect populations when many are so cryptic? And what steps can we take to ensure that populations remain viable? In this episode, we talk with Dave Goulson (@DaveGoulson), a professor of biology at the University of Sussex. Dave studies the ecology and conservation of insects, particularly bumblebees, and he is the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Bumblebees and wild bees provide pollination services for over 50% of...
New content on Patreon, social media and our website.
January 19, 2021 23:00 - 2 minutes - 3.31 MBWe are jumping into the podcast feed with a few quick updates. We’re revamping our Patreon tier system to give you more Big Biology content. We also created a Facebook group where you can discuss Big Biology episodes with other fans and we're starting to upload transcripts for select episodes on BigBiology.org. Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/bigbio Join the Facebook Group Read the transcripts
Hot wings: How birds stay cool under the Australian sun (Ep 55)
January 14, 2021 22:00 - 46 minutes - 63.9 MBOn this episode of Big Biology we talk to Christine Cooper (@CECooperEcophys), a vertebrate ecophysiologist and professor at Curtin University, Australia. Christine’s research focuses on the thermal, metabolic, and water physiology of Australian mammals and birds. Her recent research, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology (a sponsor of this episode), details how one small and common bird, the zebra finch, responds to prolonged and intense Australian heat waves. We also discussed t...
And the Oskar goes to: Germ-soma differentiation in insects (Ep 54)
December 17, 2020 23:00 - 1 hour - 86.6 MBWhat is a germ cell and why do animals separate germ and soma (body) cells at all? What molecules determine whether cells become germ or soma, and are some such mechanisms products of horizontal gene transfer? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Cassandra Extavour, an evolutionary developmental biologist at Harvard who studies the how's and why's of germ cell differentiation in insects. Recently, Cassandra's lab has been working on oskar, a novel and highly conserved gene that is i...
Turn down the lights: The ecological effects of bright nights (Ep 53)
December 03, 2020 23:00 - 56 minutes - 78.4 MBHow has the amount of artificial light changed over the last 150 years? In what ways does artificial light affect human health and wildlife? And how can new lighting technologies ameliorate the effects of light pollution? On this episode of Big Biology we talk to Kevin Gaston (@KevinJGaston), a professor of Biodiversity & Conservation at the University of Exeter. Kevin is an expert on the ecological impacts of artificial light and in particular “sky glow”--the combined glow of all lights co...
Coronavirus III: Town Hall (Ep 52)
November 19, 2020 23:00 - 1 hour - 97.7 MBHow can local and state governments repair the damage done by COVID-19? Is there a vaccine on its way to a pharmacy near you? And what should you expect about lockdowns, facemasks, and new COVID-19 therapies in the coming months? On this episode of Big Biology, a panel of experts discusses the virus’s trajectory and impact, and our options going forward. This conversation was recorded live at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, in partnership with the University of South Florida College of Pub...
A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and Contingency (Ep 51)
November 05, 2020 22:00 - 57 minutes - 79.6 MBWhat is the role of chance in explaining variation in biology? How has it shaped the history of life on Earth? And how do scientists incorporate chance into their performing experiments? In this episode of BigBiology, we talk to Sean Caroll, an award-winning scientist, author, educator and, film-producer about his latest book, A Series of Fortunate Events, in which he writes about how chance has shaped life on Earth. In Sean’s view, chance is the creative process and contingency is the afte...
Big Blue: How whales evolved to become ocean titans (Ep 50)
October 22, 2020 19:00 - 52 minutes - 72.3 MBAre whales the biggest animals to have ever lived? Why have they evolved to become so gigantic? What key adaptations support their immense size? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk to Jeremy Goldbogen (@GoldbogenLab), a scientist at the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University. For the past few years he has been tracking blue whales, aiming to understand how their physiology sustains their massive size, and how food and environment play a role in whale gigantism. We talk about the ...
The Vital Question: The Chemistry of Early Life (Ep 49)
October 08, 2020 23:33 - 1 hour - 85.7 MBHow did life originate on Earth? Why is it that eukaryotes but not bacteria or archaea evolved large size and complicated body forms? How likely is that life has arisen independently elsewhere in the universe? On this episode, we talk with Nick Lane, a biochemist and professor at University College London, about his 2015 book The Vital Question. Nick argues that protolife arose in alkaline hydrothermal vents deep in the early Earth’s oceans. The key early event was the evolution of metaboli...
An 8-legged Bite: The Evolution of Venom in Spiders and Beyond (Ep 48)
September 24, 2020 21:08 - 46 minutes - 64.1 MBHow did the Brown Recluse get its powerful bite? How widespread is venom across the tree of life? How do spiders use their venoms? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with spider venom expert Greta Binford (@gretabinford), a Biology Professor and Biology Department Chair at Lewis & Clark University. Her lab explores the vast chemical richness of spider venom and how those venoms have evolved. We talked with Greta about the function of venom, how it’s evolved throughout the tree of life...