Evolution Talk
162 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★★ - 186 ratingsEverything you wanted to know about evolution by natural selection in short, easy to digest, episodes. Hosted, and produced by writer Rick Coste.
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Episodes
An Appendix
October 26, 2015 05:00 - 13 minutes - 18.2 MBFor years the appendix has been considered a vestigial organ. In 2007 researchers at Duke University began to take another look at the appendix. While taking their closer look something interesting began to emerge. Something that had always been there but had remained hidden, or unobserved for centuries. Your appendix, that little organ that we so often remove and forget, just might be useful after all.
Radiation and DNA
October 19, 2015 05:00 - 13 minutes - 18.3 MBWhat does radiation do to us exactly and why do we care? The American geneticist Hermann Joseph Muller worried about it back in the 1920s.
Mendel and His Peas
October 12, 2015 05:00 - 17 minutes - 24.3 MBIn 1865 Gregor Mendel pulled together his work on heredity in peas and produced a paper which he read to a group of his peers. Unfortunately for Mendel, the world would't be ready to listen until decades after his death.
Our Unique Species
October 05, 2015 05:00 - 11 minutes - 15.3 MBIn the last episode I asked the question ‘Are we unique?’ and then set about showing why it is we are not by looking at the animal kingdom. From tool use to altruism it appears that we are not as special as we might think. But, of all of earth’s creatures we seem to be the only species cursed with the ability to ask ‘why ?’ We alone appear to have the ability to look back into the past to help us to explain the present and to prepare for the future. Is it, as Darwin said, only a matter of de...
Are We Unique?
September 28, 2015 05:00 - 14 minutes - 19.3 MBIn what ways are we special or unique? Is it because we can think, like Rene Descartes said? Or is thinking just a chemical process that directs our actions as La Mettrie would have us believe? You might be shocked to know that we don’t really know. Science hasn’t been able to touch it.
Hairless Apes
September 21, 2015 05:00 - 16 minutes - 22.3 MBIf chimps are our closest relative why aren’t we hairy like they are? The answer lies somewhere in the far distant past. Imagine how hot it must have been on the savannah after our ancestors left the safety of the trees to hunt for food. Homo Erectus did this almost 2 million years ago, and perhaps as recently as 70,000 years ago. They made their homes on the savannahs. They ran, played, and hunted. They fought for survival. And one of the byproducts of all of that activity is sweat. Wouldn’...
Master Switches
September 14, 2015 05:00 - 18 minutes - 25.6 MBNestled comfortably within our DNA are a set of switches. Like the light switches you casually flip on and off in your home, they are responsible for making you who you are. And just like that one regulating switch which controls the current of electricity to your home, you have one which controls certain sets of genes. It’s called the PAX gene.
The Predictive Power of Evolution
September 07, 2015 05:00 - 20 minutes - 28 MBWe can make broad predictive strokes when it comes to how an organism will evolve. But that’s all we can do. What those changes will look like, if they happen at all, is beyond our power to know. Does this mean that theories about evolution are outside of the realm of true science?
The Strange Case of Richard Owen
August 31, 2015 05:00 - 25 minutes - 35 MBEvery good story needs a villain. And there has been quite a few in the history of evolution theory. History has not been kind to Richard Owen. But just like the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Owen had his good side. Not that his good side cared about the proper treatment of his fellow man, his good side cared more about the proper treatment, and appreciation of, science.
Epigenetics
August 24, 2015 05:00 - 16 minutes - 22.2 MBIn 2005 biologist Michael Skinner witnessed something that shouldn’t have happened. His mice were exposed to a toxin. A toxin which caused the children of these mice to experience birth defects. This wasn’t the surprise since the mice could easily have been exposed while in their mother’s womb. This could explain the defects. What it couldn’t explain was the fact that the next generation also had this defect.
99%
August 17, 2015 05:00 - 17 minutes - 24.2 MBIf you’ve ever wondered why mice have been, and continue to be, science’s favorite research tools it’s becaus we are a lot a like. Yes, that little four legged furry bundle of whiskers and pink feet shares 99% of its genes with us. 75-80 million years ago that 99% was 100%. That was when our most recent common ancestor walked the earth. That ancestor split off into different directions. One lineage led to and the other led to mice.
The Hobbits of Flores
August 10, 2015 05:00 - 18 minutes - 25 MBIn 2003 something was found in a large limestone cave located in Liang Bua, Flores. It was a small skull which was at first identified as being that of a small child. Upon further examination there was something odd about the skull. It didn’t appear to be exactly what the researchers assumed it to be.
Evolutionary Psychology
August 03, 2015 05:00 - 20 minutes - 28.5 MBEvolutionary psychology seeks to explain why we feel the way we do in certain situations. It also looks to understand what psychological adaptations were naturally selected to accompany us on our journey forward through time. Just like an archaeologist digs into the sands of time to piece together the physical world, it may be possible to do the same for the psychological world.
The Missing Link
July 27, 2015 05:00 - 12 minutes - 17.7 MBDarwin himself never used the term ‘missing link’. He wasn't concerned with a missing link but he was concerned with gaps in the fossil record. It wasn’t that he thought these gaps hurt his theory. So where did this term come from and why is it still used?
Self-Directed Evolution
July 20, 2015 05:00 - 14 minutes - 20.4 MBMankind has only just begun to unlock the secrets hidden within our DNA. As we move from gene to gene we will begin to see how it all ties together, and where evolution made a few mistakes. It will be within our power to correct those mistakes.
Mitochondrial Eve
July 13, 2015 05:00 - 11 minutes - 15.8 MBMitochondrial DNA is only inherited from your mother. Everyone alive on earth today can trace their lineage back to Mitochondrial Eve. We know this because we’ve all received our Mitochondrial DNA from her. It has been passed down generation by generation from mother to daughter.
The Anthropocene
July 06, 2015 05:00 - 18 minutes - 25 MBThe Cretaceous period ended 65 million years ago as did the reign of the dinosaurs. According to the International Union of Geological Sciences, we are currently in the Holocene. The Holocene has seen a number of changes. It’s seen us cultivate the land, store food, and build long standing shelters. It’s also seen us craft tools to shape the world around us. Some scientists have proposed calling this era the Anthropocene.
Having a Laugh
June 29, 2015 05:00 - 14 minutes - 19.6 MBIt’s probably safe to say that everyone enjoys a good laugh. But where did it come from? What is it about laughter that gave us an advantage over our ancient competitors?
Punctuated Equilibrium
June 22, 2015 05:00 - 11 minutes - 15.2 MBIn 1972 Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge published a paper that immediately went viral among biologists. Gould and Eldridge pointed out, using the fossil record as evidence, that evolution by natural selection worked in a series of starts and stops. There were periods of stasis where no changes occurred. They called this theory Punctuated Equilibrium.
The Piltdown Man
June 15, 2015 05:30 - 18 minutes - 24.9 MBIn the late 19th century, Europe was having a grand old time when it came to fossils of ancient hominids. The problem was - nothing was being discovered in England. Germany had the Neanderthal and France had the Cro-Magnon. In the summer of 1912 all of that changed.
Darwin’s Bulldog
June 08, 2015 09:53 - 13 minutes - 19 MBOn June 30, 1860 a great debate took place at the Oxford University Museum. This debate helped to launch Thomas Huxley's career as 'Darwin's Bulldog".
Neanderthalis Extinctus
June 01, 2015 09:44 - 15 minutes - 21.9 MBIn the last episode we came face to face with the Neanderthal. What happened to the Neanderthal? Did they die on the battlefield or did they live out their lives in a quiet struggle for survival while modern humans settled around them? Was they killed... or assimilated?
The Neanderthal
May 25, 2015 09:34 - 13 minutes - 19.3 MBIn the Neander valley, limestone miners found something which shocked them. They had found bones which they first thought belonged to a bear. Once Professor Schaafhausen had seen the bones he recognized them for what they were. Shortly after that the Neanderthal Man stepped into the spotlight. Were Neanderthals our early ancestors or were they a separate species?
Genetic Drift
May 18, 2015 08:58 - 12 minutes - 17.4 MBFrog populations remained pretty much the same in Podville until the Great Fire of 2015. After the fire the population of blue frogs increased. Welcome to genetic drift, the subject of this week's episode of 'Evolution Talk'.
Non-Overlapping Magisteria
May 11, 2015 09:02 - 17 minutes - 24.4 MBIn 1997 Professor Stephen Jay Gould published an essay in Natural History which also appeared in his book Rocks of Ages. This essay was titled ‘Non-Overlapping Magisteria’. It’s commonly referred to as NOMA. The concept behind NOMA is that science and religion operate in two different, non-overlapping, realms.
Altruism
May 04, 2015 09:04 - 18 minutes - 24.9 MBWhere does altruism come from? How did it evolve in a world ruled by 'selfish genes'?
Survival of the Fittest?
April 27, 2015 09:11 - 13 minutes - 18.4 MBThe term 'Survival of the Fittest' was unleashed on the world in 1864 by Herbert Spencer when he published his work Principles of Biology. It was later picked up by Charles Darwin who used it himself in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species five years later. But is it fair to say that the term "Survival of the Fittest" is synonymous with evolution by natural selection? In this episode of Evolution Talk we explore this very question.
Putting the Selection in Sex
April 20, 2015 09:14 - 13 minutes - 18.1 MBFor Charles Darwin, the idea of sexual selection explained a lot of what he saw in the animal kingdom. He gave sexual selection just as much importance as natural selection.
Warm Blooded Dinosaurs
April 13, 2015 10:24 - 10 minutes - 14.5 MBIn 1986 Professor Robert Bakker, a paleontologist, published 'The Dinosaur Heresies'. According to Professor Bakker there have been waves of extinction, and these extinction events mainly attacked, or affected, one particular type of animal... warm blooded animals.
Where Are the Dinosaurs?
April 06, 2015 09:11 - 13 minutes - 18.3 MBWhat killed off the dinosaurs? There are many competing theories yet there is no ‘smoking gun’. There is evidence however, and with each bit of evidence comes another theory. Dinosaurs didn’t disappear overnight. It took a few millions years for them to die out. Perhaps six million years.
A Whale of a Tale
March 30, 2015 09:27 - 12 minutes - 17 MBToday’s episode of Evolution Talk is brought to you by all of those animals out there who exhibit vestigial features (which is pretty much every animal out there). Our DNA contains traces of our past - switches in our genes that have either been shut off or turned over the years while natural selection’s fingers hovers over the controls.
An Interview With Charles Darwin
March 23, 2015 09:48 - 15 minutes - 21 MBTo mark the occasion of Evolution Talk's 30th episode, Rick Coste steps into the past to interview Charles Darwin.
Mistakes Were Made
March 16, 2015 09:58 - 10 minutes - 14.5 MBIn the X-Men movies the X-Men are mutants. Mistakes were made during DNA replications that brought out features and abilities which were not present in the population prior to their births. Defects which enhanced their chances of survival.
Is Everything Related?
March 09, 2015 09:53 - 12 minutes - 17 MBThe Human genome project took 13 years to complete. Hundreds of scientists from all over the world were involved. What’s just as amazing as the completion of the project is the story that it tells when you begin to compare it with other chapters in the book of life.
Fossil Dating
March 02, 2015 10:05 - 12 minutes - 16.8 MBHow do we date fossils? There are a few ways and in this episode we will look at a couple.
Robert Chambers
February 23, 2015 10:14 - 18 minutes - 25.3 MBRobert Chambers' masterpiece was titled 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'. In it he explained how everything evolved. Everything from simple, less complex forms, to more complex forms over time.
The Case of Patrick Matthew
February 16, 2015 10:46 - 18 minutes - 25 MBPatrick Matthew published 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture' in 1831. There were a few positive reviews but they were somewhat tepid in their praise. Only a couple reviewers happened to notice something else that Matthew had mentioned in his book. A certain passage that appeared in the book’s appendix. This passage would would later catch the eyes of Charles Darwin.
The Work of WC Wells
February 09, 2015 10:20 - 12 minutes - 17.4 MBWilliam Charles Wells, in no uncertain terms, pointed out that mankind is not immune to nature’s ability to modify an organism's features over time.
Unlucky Lamarck
February 02, 2015 11:03 - 18 minutes - 26 MBJean Baptiste Lamarck's mechanism for evolution was wrong, as history shows, and that fact has haunted his memory ever since. But ideas and theories have ways of being resurrected and, in recent years, there are hints out there that Lamarck wasn’t completely off base when he proposed his theory for the evolution of species.
Erasmus Darwin
January 26, 2015 10:33 - 16 minutes - 23.4 MBErasmus was a country physician. He believed that women should have access to the same education that men did, and that slavery should be abolished. He also believed that life evolved from a single filament that wiggled out of the mud in the distant past.
Hutton’s Hypothesis
January 19, 2015 10:00 - 13 minutes - 19 MBJames Hutton saw the power of natural selection, but he didn’t see how it could eventually, over vast spans of time, mold an animal into something completely different. That would have to wait until Charles Darwin entered the scene over 50 years later.
Diderot’s Dream – Updated
January 12, 2015 12:30 - 16 minutes - 22.3 MBDiderot devoured the written word. It was food for his mind and he couldn’t get enough of it. He was ravenous when it came to ideas. Especially when those ideas took him into places that others feared to tread.
Of Mermaids and Men
January 05, 2015 10:39 - 20 minutes - 28.1 MBBenoit de Maillet believed that life, all life, came from the sea. And not only did it come from the sea, but it continued to evolve into different species as it encountered different environments. To present these ideas would be dangerous to him so he wrote it as a work of fiction called Telliamed.
Lucretius – Evolution’s Poet
December 29, 2014 11:07 - 14 minutes - 20.2 MBIn the first century BC the Roman poet Lucretius wrote On the Nature of Things. A poem with 7400 lines of verse that covered everything from the tiniest particles of matter and how they move, as well as the nature of time and space, consciousness, mortality, and the arrival of life from animals to man.
The Father of Zoology
December 22, 2014 09:59 - 15 minutes - 21.5 MBAristotle actually came close to explaining natural selection, 2200 years before Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace did.
Darwin and God
December 15, 2014 10:55 - 13 minutes - 18.9 MBCharles Darwin questioned everything when it came to the origin of species and the evolution of life here on earth. That questioning led him into some pretty dark places. As he grew more and more certain that nature was fully capable of producing the abundance of life around us without the assistance of a deity, the more he became afraid to say anything on the subject.
Darwin or Design
December 08, 2014 11:15 - 15 minutes - 21.5 MBAs a young man, the more Charles Darwin learned about nature the more he began to question things. If species were immutable, meaning they never changed, then how was it that breeders were able to change the forms of dogs or pigeons? What if something similar occurred in nature? According to William Paley nature required a designer. Charles began to think that Nature was the designer. A blind designer with no goal in mind at all.
Darwin’s Doubts
December 01, 2014 10:13 - 13 minutes - 18.1 MBThroughout his life Charles Darwin suffered bouts of anxiety and often went off alone by himself to think. His work afforded him the perfect escape and he dove into it at every opportunity.
The Beginning: Out of the Sea
November 24, 2014 11:15 - 14 minutes - 20.6 MBThe sea was full of life a half a billion years ago. Arthropods fought to survive and there were some interesting things happening on land as well. We have here our first plants - and they spread like wildfire. The quiet life on land enjoyed by the plants looked appealing to that first vertebrate that poked its head out of the water as it supported itself with its new backbone and fins.
The Beginning: An Arms Race
November 17, 2014 10:50 - 11 minutes - 15.5 MBAs predators evolved to better catch their prey, their prey evolved unique and efficient ways to avoid being eaten. It was because of this sudden arms race that we see the proliferation of body forms that mark the Cambrian Era. The real winners were the Trilobites.