biology

#1127 Jonathan Losos - Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution

Jul 24, 2025

Dr. Jonathan Losos is the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis. He is an internationally renowned scholar in the field of evolutionary biology. In partnership with the Missouri Botanical Garden and the St. Louis Zoo, Dr. Losos leads the Living Earth Collaborative, an academic center dedicated to advancing the study of biodiversity. Within the biology department at Washington University, the primary focus of the Losos Lab is on the behavioral and evolutionary ecology of lizards and the study of evolutionary adaptation of wild species to urban habitats. He is the author of several books, including Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution. More»
#1122 Daniela Rodrigues: Communication in Apes and Humans, and the Cognitive Foundations of Language

Jul 11, 2025

Dr. Evelina Daniela Rodrigues is an invited assistant professor at Universidade Católica Portuguesa, where she teaches Master’s students about the cognitive foundations of language. She studies gestural communication in human and non-human primates. Beyond communication, she is also interested in other aspects of social development and cognition, including interactions among social partners (such as hierarchy and social bonds), social learning and culture, object manipulation and tool use, and theory of mind. More»
#1121 Deena Emera: A Brief History of the Female Body

Jul 10, 2025

Dr. Deena Emera is an evolutionary biologist, author, and teacher. She is a Senior Scientist and Writer-in-Residence in the Center for Reproductive Longevity and Equality at the Buck Institute, where she is drawing on her evolutionary background and expertise on female reproduction to investigate the evolution of menopause. She is the author of A Brief History of the Female Body: An Evolutionary Look at How and Why the Female Form Came to Be. More»
#1113 Vicky Oelze: The Diets of Great Apes, and the Evolution of Human Diets

Jun 20, 2025

Dr. Vicky Oelze is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department and Director of the Primate Ecology & Molecular Anthropology Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research interests include mobility and dietary adaptations in archaeological human populations; African strontium isoscapes and isotopic investigations of the Atlantic and transatlantic slave trade; the dietary ecology of extant African great apes; great ape breastfeeding and weaning; and chimpanzee tool use and termite-chimpanzee interactions. More»
#1101 Laura Betzig - The Badge of Lost Innocence: A History of the West

May 23, 2025

Dr. Laura Betzig is a Ph.D. in anthropology at Northwestern University; she’s held research and teaching positions at Northwestern, the University of California, and the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. She’s lectured all over the US and Europe in departments of biology, anthropology, history, economics, philosophy, political science, psychology and religion; at interdisciplinary conferences; and to general audiences. She’s also the author of four books, the latest one being The Badge of Lost Innocence: A History of the West. More»
#1097 Kostas Kampourakis: Dunking Myths and Falsehoods About Charles Darwin

May 15, 2025

Dr. Kostas Kampourakis is author and editor of several books about science. He works at the Teacher Training Institute and the Section of Biology at the University of Geneva. At the Section of Biology, he teaches the courses “Biologie et Société” and “Comprendre l’évolution”. He is the author and editor of several books, including Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods. More»
#1093 Agustín Fuentes - Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary

May 5, 2025

Dr. Agustín Fuentes is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. His research focuses on the biosocial, delving into the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. His latest book is Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary. More»
#1086 John Odling-Smee - Niche Construction: How Life Contributes to Its Own Evolution

Apr 18, 2025

Dr. John Odling-Smee is Emeritus Research Fellow at the Mansfield College at the University of Oxford. Prior to retirement, he lectured in Biological Anthropology at Oxford. He is the author of Niche Construction: How Life Contributes to Its Own Evolution. More»
#1074 Kevin Lala - Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity

Mar 21, 2025

Dr. Kevin Lala is Professor of Behavioral and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He is one of the co-founders of niche construction theory and a prominent advocate of the extended evolutionary synthesis. His research encompasses a range of topics related to animal behavior and evolution; particularly animal social learning, innovation and intelligence; niche construction, inclusive inheritance, and the extended evolutionary synthesis; and human evolution, cultural evolution, and gene-culture coevolution. He is the author of several books including Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity. More»
#1054 Kathryn Nave - A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life

Feb 3, 2025

Dr. Kathryn Nave is a Leverhulme Trust early career research fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on developing a realist account of autonomy and agency, grounded in the uniquely metabolic existence of living systems, and upon critiquing the machine concept of the organism in light of this distinctive material instability. She is the author of A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life. More»