biology

#355 Kay Holekamp: Hyenas, and the Evolution of General Intelligence

Aug 17, 2020

Dr. Kay Holekamp is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Integrated Biology, and Director of the Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology & Behavior at Michigan State University. She is also Principal Investigator at the Holekamp Lab. She is recognized as one of the world’s leading behavioral ecologists. Dr. Holekamp has devoted her career to animal behavior and behavioral neuroendocrinology, focusing specifically on the study of the evolution of intelligence. Her long-running study of spotted hyenas in Africa has acquired more than 30 years of data, covering 10 generations of hyena. Dr. Holekamp’s honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, being named a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, and a Merriam Award from the American Society of Mammalogists. More»
#316 Colin Wright: Insect Personality, And The New Evolution Deniers

Apr 3, 2020

Dr. Colin Wright is Eberly Fellow in the Department of Biology at Pennsylvania State University. His research explores the effects of animal personality on collective behavior and colony success. Using a combination of laboratory and field experiments, he tests for relationships between group personality composition, inter-colony differences in collective behavior and behavioral flexibility, and colony performance. He uses social spiders (genus Stegodyphus) and paper wasps (genus Polistes) to probe these topics. More»
#314 Zanna Clay: Bonobo Societies, And Comparative Psychology

Mar 30, 2020

Dr. Zanna Clay is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Durham University. She is a comparative and developmental psychologist with expertise in primatology. She studies and compares great apes and young children in order to investigate the evolutionary and developmental basis of hominid social cognition and behavior. Her main interests are the development & evolution of social cognition and communication, focusing on empathy, language and social learning. More»
#310 Hal Whitehead: The Sociality And Culture Of Whales

Mar 20, 2020

Dr. Hal Whitehead is Professor in the Department of Biology at Dalhousie University. His work focuses mainly on the behavior, ecology, population biology and conservation of two species of deep-diving whale: the sperm and northern bottlenose. He and his team have ongoing research projects on sperm whales in the eastern Pacific (since 1985) and Atlantic (since 2004) on northern bottlenose whales off Nova Scotia (since 1998), and on pilot whales off Nova Scotia Isince 1998). They spend periods of weeks at sea on board ocean-going sailing boats collecting acoustic, visual, photographic, genetic and oceanographic data. More»
#309 Robert Sapolsky: Human Behavior, Evolution, Morality, and Free Will

Mar 19, 2020

Dr. Robert Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biology and Professor of Neurology and of Neurosurgery at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky is the author of several informative and comical books that present cutting edge psychoneurobiological knowledge in an enjoyable, easy to read format. He's also a renowned researcher and award-winning professor at Stanford University. He’s the author of books like Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament, A Primate's Memoir, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. More»
#299 Thom Scott-Phillips: The Biological And Cultural Bases Of Language

Feb 24, 2020

Dr. Thomas Scott-Phillips is a Senior Research Scientist in the Social Mind Center and the Department of Cognitive Science, at Central European University, Budapest. In particular he studies communication, and how it makes us human. His first book, Speaking Our Minds, was reviewed as “The most important and the best book ever written on the evolution of language” and “The best linguistics book I’ve read in 10 years”. He’s written short pieces for outlets such as Aeon, Scientific American, The Conversation; and he has given public talks for TEDx, British Humanist Association, Skeptics In The Pub, Digital Science and others. His academic articles and broader interests span cultural evolution, primate communication, language acquisition, philosophy of language, and others. More»
#294 Rob Dunn: Never Home Alone; The Species We Live With

Feb 13, 2020

Dr. Robert Dunn is William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor in the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University. He is known for efforts to involve the public as citizen scientists in arthropod surveys and bacterial flora studies. His projects include studies of belly button biodiversity, mites that live on human faces, ants in backyards, and fungi and bacteria in houses. He’s the author of five books, his most recent one being Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live. More»
#281 Henry Greely: The Future of Human Reproduction

Jan 13, 2020

Dr. Henry Greely is currently the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor by courtesy of Genetics at Stanford University, and also an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He specializes in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to neuroscience, genetics, or stem cell research. He is a founder and president of the International Neuroethics Society; a member of the Multi-Council Working Group of the NIH’s BRAIN Initiative, whose Neuroethics Working Group he co-chairs; a member of the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law of the National Academies; and chair of California’s Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee. He’s also the author of The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction. More»
#259 Tyler Volk: From Quarks to Culture

Nov 22, 2019

I’M SORRY ABOUT THE MISSING BITS OF AUDIO HERE AND THERE, BUT THE CONNECTION WAS A BIT WEAK. More»
#234 Samir Okasha: Natural Selection, From Genes To Groups

Sep 26, 2019

Dr. Samir Okasha is a Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Bristol. He is a winner of the Lakatos Award for his book Evolution and the Levels of Selection. He was appointed a Fellow of the British Academy in 2018, and he is also the President of the European Philosophy of Science Association. He has broad philosophical interests, though most of his research falls into two main areas: (i) philosophy of biology / evolutionary theory; and (ii) epistemology /philosophy of science. Within philosophy of biology, he is especially interested in foundational and conceptual questions surrounding evolutionary theory. For many years, his research focused on the 'levels of selection' question in evolutionary biology, and the related issue of individual versus group conflicts of interest. More»