New Books in Biology and Evolution
Interviews with biologists and evolutionary scientists about their new books
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 54 minutes
- Episodes
- 445
- Years Active
- 2009 - 2025
Jason Karlawish, "The Problem of Alzheimer's: How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It" (St. Martin's Press, 2021)
In 2020, an estimated 5.8 million Americans had Alzheimer’s, and more than half a million died because of the disease and its devastating complications. 16 million caregivers are responsible for payi…
01:03:48 |
Tue 11 May 2021
Jörg Matthias Determann, "Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World" (I. B. Tauris, 2020)
The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, …
00:51:29 |
Wed 05 May 2021
Peter Godfrey-Smith, "Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind" (FSG, 2020)
Dip below the ocean’s surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms, whose rooted bodies, intricate ge…
00:46:58 |
Mon 03 May 2021
Elise K. Burton, "Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity" (Stanford UP, 2021)
Elise K. Burton’s important book, Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity (Stanford University Press, 2021), documents how race and nation became fused in concept and in…
00:57:44 |
Thu 29 Apr 2021
James Doucet-Battle, "Sweetness in the Blood: Race, Risk, and Type 2 Diabetes" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
Decades of data cannot be ignored: African American adults are far more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than white adults. But has science gone so far in racializing diabetes as to undermine the se…
00:56:15 |
Fri 23 Apr 2021
Leigh Calvez, "The Hidden Lives of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Nature's Most Elusive Birds" (Sasquatch Books, 2016)
Join naturalist and science writer Leigh Calvez on her adventures into science and spirit of animals, as we discuss her two recent books: The Hidden Lives of Owls, and The Breath of the Whale (Sasqua…
00:58:53 |
Fri 23 Apr 2021
Avi Loeb, "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth" (Houghton Mifflin, 2021)
In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring through our inner solar system, moving so quickly that it could only have come from another star. Avi Loeb, an astronomer…
00:53:20 |
Tue 06 Apr 2021
Juno Salazar Parreñas, "Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation" (Duke University Press, 2018)
Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation (Duke University Press, 2018) presents a multi-species ethnography of orangutans and humans that probes the shared susceptibiliti…
00:47:20 |
Mon 15 Mar 2021
Jeremy DeSilva, "First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human" (Harper, 2021)
Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species.
Humans are the only…
01:06:38 |
Fri 12 Mar 2021
Exploring STEM, Insulin Research, and Why We Get Sick
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish t…
00:59:26 |
Thu 25 Feb 2021
Erika Engelhaupt, "Gory Details: Adventures from the Dark Side of Science" (National Geographic, 2020)
Would your dog eat you if you died? What are face mites? Why do clowns creep us out? In this illuminating collection of grisly true science stories, journalist Erika Engelhaupt, the writer of Nationa…
00:56:08 |
Thu 25 Feb 2021
Tracie White and Ronald W. Davis, "The Puzzle Solver: A Scientist's Desperate Hunt to Cure the Illness That Stole His Son" (Hachette, 2021)
Based on a viral article, the gripping medical mystery story of Ron Davis, a world-class Stanford geneticist who has put his career on the line to find the cure for chronic fatigue syndrome, the dise…
01:02:05 |
Wed 24 Feb 2021
Imitating Viruses: How Technology Can Help Us Be Better Prepared For Pandemics
Viruses are not very different from machines that process information, and thus, how the virus functions can be simulated on a computer. This ability to “imitate” the way viruses behave is particular…
00:19:41 |
Wed 24 Feb 2021
Dominic Johnson, "Strategic Instincts: The Adaptive Advantages of Cognitive Biases in International Politics" (Princeton UP, 2020)
In Strategic Instincts: The Adaptive Advantages of Cognitive Biases in International Politics (Princeton University Press, 2020), Dominic Johnson challenges the assumption that cognitive biases led t…
00:45:24 |
Tue 23 Feb 2021
Seema Yasmin, "Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
Can your zip code predict when you will die? Should you space out childhood vaccines? Does talcum powder cause cancer? Why do some doctors recommend e-cigarettes while other doctors recommend you sta…
00:26:20 |
Mon 22 Feb 2021
Henry T. Greely, "CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans" (The MIT Press, 2021)
What does the birth of babies whose embryos have gone through genome editing mean—for science and for all of us?
In November 2018, the world was shocked to learn that two babies had been born in Chin…
01:01:30 |
Mon 15 Feb 2021
Jack Price, "The Future of Brain Repair: A Realist's Guide to Stem Cell Therapy" (MIT Press, 2020)
A scientist assesses the potential of stem cell therapies for treating such brain disorders as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.
Stem cell therapies are the subject of enormous hy…
01:04:58 |
Wed 10 Feb 2021
Thomas Pradeu, "Philosophy of Immunology" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
Vaccines make us wholly or partly immune to disease, such as Covid-19. But what is it to be immune? What is an immune system, and what does it do? In its beginnings, immunology was considered the sci…
01:04:08 |
Wed 10 Feb 2021
Simon Baron-Cohen, "The Pattern Seekers: A New Theory of Human Invention" (Allen Lane, 2020)
Why are humans alone capable of invention? This question is relevant to every human invention, from music to mathematics, sculpture and science, dating back to the beginnings of civilization. In The …
01:01:00 |
Tue 26 Jan 2021
Brian Deer, "The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's War on Vaccines" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
A reporter uncovers the secrets behind the scientific scam of the century.
The news breaks first as a tale of fear and pity. Doctors at a London hospital claim a link between autism and a vaccine gi…
00:54:12 |
Mon 25 Jan 2021
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