This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com How will we find life beyond Earth? Can we use a molecule's complexity to distinguish life from non-life? A common way to search for extraterrestrial life is to look for signs of complex organic molecules on other moons and planets. One trouble with this approach, though, is that lots of complex molecules can arise from inorganic processes. To be sure that complexity indicates life, we also need to distinguish ...
Dec 01, 2022•41 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What hidden life lies at the bottom of the deep ocean? How do so many species survive and even thrive with so little light and food and at such pressure? In this episode, we talk to Helen Scales , a marine biologist, writer, and broadcaster who has written the essential guidebook to the deep ocean titled “The Brilliant Abyss” . On our way to the bottom of the sea, Helen recounted her journey from academia to wr...
Nov 17, 2022•30 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What is eco-evo-devo? How can ants help us understand the evolution of development? There are 20 quadrillion ants in the world, and they come in lots of different shapes and sizes. We even see big differences within colonies, like ants in the genus Pheidole which have different castes: workers, soldiers, and, in some species, super soldiers. Super soldiers are the muscle-y brutes of the ant world that grow huge...
Nov 03, 2022•24 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What happens when potential fraud is detected in research papers on major medical issues? In this episode, we talk to Charles Piller , an investigative journalist who published a shocking story in Science magazine in July this year laying out compelling evidence for misconduct in multiple journal articles on Alzheimer’s disease. This misconduct appears to have occurred in recent papers involving the experimenta...
Oct 20, 2022•28 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Can genes in single species act as keystones in ecosystems? What is AOP2, and how does it affect community composition and persistence? In this episode, we talk to Matt Barbour , a professor at the University of Sherbrooke, about “keystones” in biology. You’re probably familiar with the keystone species concept, but Matt’s research focuses on whether genes can play a similarly fundamental role in an ecosystem. ...
Oct 06, 2022•24 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com How much coffee should we drink? Is there a scientific way to have a healthy, happy life? And how do we distinguish scientific sense from nonsense? In this episode, we talk with author and University of Alberta professor Timothy Caulfield about decision making and misinformation in the modern world. A surprising number of “common sense” decisions that people make in their daily lives are not actually backed by ...
Sep 22, 2022•24 min
The biggest and best biology and science podcast!! If you enjoy science podcasts featuring in-depth conversations with scientists subscribe now. Big Biology covers breaking research and original thinking regarding evolution, genetics, physiology, psychology, wildlife, nature, conservation, epidemiology and more. Everything biological, anything mysterious, anything philosophical, everything scientific, you'll find it here! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscri...
Sep 19, 2022•2 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What are model organisms? Why have they been so important to biology? Much of biological research over the past 50 years has relied on model organisms. These species – which include mice, rats, fruit flies, and others – have yielded many insights and led to the development of better molecular tools and a scientific culture centered on sharing. At the same time, the money and effort devoted to model organisms ma...
Sep 08, 2022•32 min
Season 5 of Big Biology starts next week, so this week we are thrilled to highlight Genetics Unzipped, another one of the great science podcasts out there. Genetics Unzipped is the official podcast of the Genetics Society, one of the oldest learned societies dedicated to promoting research, training, teaching and public engagement in all areas of genetics. Hosted and produced by Drs Kat Arney and Sally Le Page, Genetics Unzipped entertains listeners with fascinating stories about all things gene...
Sep 01, 2022•42 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Why do some rove beetles look like ants? Why do living things evolve similar solutions to common problems? Is there predictability within the evolutionary process? On this episode, Art and Marty talk with Joe Parker , an entomologist at Caltech. Joe has been collecting beetles since the age of 16, when he first became amazed by their incredible diversity. He now focuses on rove beetles and studies their evoluti...
Aug 18, 2022•25 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Will 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 aga...
Aug 04, 2022•31 min
How 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 mechanics of...
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 4 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com How 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 structurin...
Jul 07, 2022•31 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com How 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 biologist...
Jun 23, 2022•36 min
What’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 manip...
Jun 16, 2022•9 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What 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 Br...
Jun 09, 2022•27 min
Is 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 an I...
May 26, 2022•1 hr
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What 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...
May 12, 2022•28 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com How 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 w...
Apr 28, 2022•30 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Can 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 Syste...
Apr 22, 2022•32 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Why 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...
Apr 14, 2022•43 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Why 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...
Mar 31, 2022•32 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What 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 Sentinel...
Mar 17, 2022•25 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Does 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 ...
Mar 03, 2022•30 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What 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 tha...
Feb 17, 2022•34 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com How 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 ...
Feb 03, 2022•15 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Do 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 t...
Jan 20, 2022•30 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What 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 relat...
Jan 06, 2022•32 min
Happy 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bigbiology.substack.com/subscribe...
Dec 30, 2021•23 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com How 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...
Dec 16, 2021•35 min
