This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com On this episode, we talk with Alina Chan , postdoc at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and co-author with Matt Ridley of Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 . SARS-CoV-2 could have plausibly jumped into humans in Wuhan via one of two paths. The first is zoonotic transfer from wild bats to humans, possibly via an intermediate animal host. The second is some kind of lab accident: researchers workin...
Sep 08, 2023•36 min
Season 6 of Big Biology will kick off at the beginning of September - woohoo! Before then, we have a quick message to share: We’re looking for a new producer to join the Big Biology team! If you are a passionate team player with experience in podcast production, then please consider applying! The producer position is a part-time, remote position. Please send us an email at [email protected] to learn more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acc...
Aug 15, 2023•15 min
Why can some animals regrow limbs while others can’t? Will understanding regeneration in other vertebrates help us regrow arms one day? Our intern team has taken over the channel to talk about one of their favorite biology topics, limb regeneration! In the episode, Dayna and Kyle break down the mechanisms of regeneration and discuss why some animals can regrow organs and limbs, and why the evolutionary paths of other animals may have led to alternative responses to limb loss. Thanks for listenin...
Jun 29, 2023•10 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Where does biological innovation come from? Why do some innovations wait millions of years for their spotlight? Life must constantly innovate for evolution to occur, but many forms of biological innovation often lie dormant, sometimes for millions of years. In this episode, we speak to Andreas Wagner about his recent book, Sleeping Beauties: The Mystery of Dormant Innovations in Nature and Culture . Andreas is ...
Jun 15, 2023•37 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What makes a pest? Why are some animals revered in one culture and vilified in another? How do our ways of life bring us into conflict versus companionship, and what do these interactions mean for us and them? Rats, squirrels, coyotes, pigeons...often, we view animals like these as pests. We usually don't like them, even try to get rid of them…but what makes a species a pest? On this episode, we talk with B...
Jun 01, 2023•25 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What is inherency? What are the potential flaws with our understanding of biological function? On this episode, we talk with Stuart Newman , professor at New York Medical College. In his recent paper , “Inherency and agency in the origin and evolution of biological functions,” Stuart argues against the commonly held view that functions of traits necessarily arise from the process of natural selection. He instea...
May 18, 2023•37 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What is NEON? What hopes and concerns do we have for large-scale research projects in ecology? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk about the challenges of doing…big biology! The National Ecological Observatory Network , or NEON, is a US National Science Foundation-funded project that has started collecting massive amounts of data from terrestrial and freshwater habitats across a network of sites distributed...
May 04, 2023•35 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Big Biology celebrates its 100th episode! You’re only 100 once, and though we hope there will be many more episodes to come, we wanted to celebrate this milestone with something special. A recurring theme from many of our conversations with guests on the show has been agency. This is a BIG and oftentimes controversial topic in biology, and in this episode we try to pull together the different threads from our p...
Apr 20, 2023•46 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com On this episode, we take a break from the regular format to talk with Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher of The Night Science Podcast , a show that explores the creative side of science with guests from across the globe. Itai is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the NYU School of Medicine, and Martin is a professor in both the Institute for Computer Science and the Departmen...
Apr 06, 2023•31 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What is the “infinitesimal model”? How has our understanding of complex traits changed recently? On this episode, we talk with Nick Barton , an evolutionary quantitative geneticist at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. Quantitative genetics has changed a lot in the past 30 years, driven by massive advances in DNA sequencing power and by new statistical and computational approaches to harnessing th...
Mar 23, 2023•33 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What is mutation bias? How does it affect evolution? In this episode, we talk with Arlin Stoltzfus , a research fellow at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research . Arlin studies mutation bias – the idea that some types of mutations occur more often than others – and how these patterns can influence the evolutionary trajectories of populations. In the chat, we contrast th...
Mar 09, 2023•35 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What are network motifs, and how and why do they matter to biological networks? On this episode, we talk with Uri Alon , systems biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, about biological networks. In the early 2000s, Uri discovered some of the fundamental characteristics of these networks and, since then, has worked to understand networks across different levels of biological organization. His work shows...
Feb 16, 2023•36 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com Why do humans look so different from one another? Why do we have different types of hair and different skin colors? And what do these traits have to do with the concept of race? On this episode, we talk with Tina Lasisi , incoming professor at the University of Michigan, about variation in human hair structure and skin color. We talk about why such variation may have evolved, and how biologists are studying it....
Jan 12, 2023•34 min
Happy holidays from the Big Biology team! As a bonus episode this week, we are sharing Art's recent interview with James Fodor on The Science of Everything podcast . Art and James discuss various topics in evolution and genetics, covering material that spans years of Big Bio conversations. Enjoy, and see you next year! 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 29, 2022•1 hr 2 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com What’s the smallest number of genes that cells need to grow and reproduce? Is it possible to synthesize minimal genomes and insert them into cells? What do minimal genomes teach us about life? In this episode, we talk to John Glass , leader of the Synthetic Biology Group at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Over the past decade, Glass and colleagues developed techniques for manipulating and synthesizing entire bac...
Dec 15, 2022•20 min
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
