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
Joseph E. Davis, "Chemically Imbalanced: Everyday Suffering, Medication, and Our Troubled Quest for Self-Mastery" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
Everyday suffering—those conditions or feelings brought on by trying circumstances that arise in everyone’s lives—is something that humans have grappled with for millennia. But the last decades have …
00:56:07 |
Fri 18 Sep 2020
David Haig, "From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life" (MIT Press, 2020)
In his book, From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life (MIT Press), evolutionary biologist David Haig explains how a physical world of matter in motion gave rise …
00:45:08 |
Thu 10 Sep 2020
Ann-Sophie Barwich, "Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind" (Harvard UP, 2020)
In Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind (Harvard UP, 2020), cognitive scientist, empirical philosopher & historian of science, technology, and the senses A. S. Barwich asks a deceptively simple …
01:43:04 |
Thu 03 Sep 2020
Adam Rutherford, "How to Argue With a Racist" (The Experiment, 2020)
Racist pseudoscience has become so commonplace that it can be hard to spot. But its toxic effects on society are plain to see—feeding nationalism, fueling hatred, endangering lives, and corroding our…
01:18:28 |
Thu 27 Aug 2020
Elizabeth A. Williams, "Appetite and Its Discontents: Science, Medicine, and the Urge to Eat, 1750-1950" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
Why do we eat? Is it instinct? Despite the necessity of food, anxieties about what and how to eat are widespread and persistent. In Appetite and Its Discontents: Science, Medicine, and the Urge to Ea…
00:51:12 |
Wed 15 Jul 2020
Cailin O’Connor, "Games in the Philosophy of Biology" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
The branch of mathematics called game theory – the Prisoners Dilemma is a particularly well-known example of a game – is used by philosophers, social scientists, and others to explore many types of s…
01:06:46 |
Fri 10 Jul 2020
Rachel Mundy, "Animal Musicalities: Birds, Beasts, and Evolutionary Listening" (Wesleyan UP, 2018)
“What makes song sparrows, Verdi, medieval monks, and minstrelsy part of the same taxonomy?” So asks—and answers—Rachel Mundy, who is Assistant Professor of Music at Rutgers University–Newark. In her…
01:24:02 |
Tue 07 Jul 2020
Henry M. Cowles, "The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey" (Harvard UP, 2020)
The idea of a single scientific method, shared across specialties and teachable to ten-year-olds, is just over a hundred years old. For centuries prior, science had meant a kind of knowledge, made fr…
00:55:18 |
Wed 17 Jun 2020
A. M. Barton and W. S. Keeton, "Ecology and Recovery of Eastern Old-Growth Forests" (Island Press, 2018)
Old-growth forests captivate and inspire us. Walking through them can transport us to a time before human domination of the natural world. This is especially the case with old-growth forests in the e…
01:07:23 |
Thu 14 May 2020
Wade Roush, "Extraterrestrials" (MIT Press, 2020)
Everything we know about how planets form and how life arises suggests that human civilization on Earth should not be unique. We ought to see abundant evidence of extraterrestrial activity―but we don…
00:54:50 |
Mon 27 Apr 2020
Jodi Hilty, "Corridor Ecology: Linking Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Adaptation" (Island Press, 2019)
In Corridor Ecology: Linking Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Adaptation, 2nd Edition (Island Press, 2019), Dr. Jodi Hilty and her co-authors expand on concepts and practices impo…
00:54:51 |
Mon 20 Apr 2020
Wenfei Tong, "Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds" (Princeton UP, 2020)
Wenfei Tong's Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds (Princeton University Press, 2020) looks at the extraordinary range of mating systems in the avian world, exploring all the stages from courtship and…
00:51:16 |
Fri 17 Apr 2020
Ray Dorsey, "Ending Parkinson's Disease: A Prescription for Action" (Public Affairs, 2020)
Brain diseases are now the world's leading source of disability. The fastest growing of these is Parkinson's: the number of impacted patients has doubled to more than six million over the last twenty…
00:42:25 |
Mon 06 Apr 2020
Alistair Sponsel, "Darwin’s Evolving Identity: Adventure, Ambition, and the Sin of Speculation" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
Dr. Alistair Sponsel talks about Darwin’s experiences on HMS Beagle and his early career as a naturalist. His close reading of Darwin’s journals and letters reveals insights about the man that would …
00:35:47 |
Fri 14 Feb 2020
Stephen Le, "100 Million Years of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today" (Picador, 2016)
There are few areas of modern life that are burdened by as much information and advice, often contradictory, as our diet and health: eat a lot of meat, eat no meat; whole-grains are healthy, whole-gr…
01:05:56 |
Tue 03 Dec 2019
Helen Rozwadowski, "Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans" (Reaktion Books, 2018)
Helen Rozwadowski talks about the history of the oceans and how these oceans have shaped human history in profound ways. Rozwadowski is a professor of history at the University of Connecticut, Avery …
00:32:55 |
Fri 15 Nov 2019
Justin Garson, "What Biological Functions are and Why They Matter" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
Why do zebras have stripes? One way to answer that question is ask what function stripes play in the lives of zebras – for example, to deter disease-carrying flies from biting them. This notion of a …
01:08:35 |
Thu 10 Oct 2019
David Sinclair, "LifeSpan: Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To" (Simon and Schuster, 2019)
Today's guest is David Sinclair, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Paul Glenn Center Biological Mechanisms of Aging. He is widely considered on the world's foremo…
00:57:56 |
Fri 04 Oct 2019
Erika Milam, "Creatures of Cain: The Hunt for Human Nature in Cold War America" (Princeton UP, 2019)
Erika Milam talks about the scientific search for human nature, a project that captured the attention of paleontologists, anthropologists, and primatologists in the years after World War II. Milam is…
00:41:02 |
Fri 04 Oct 2019
Matthew James, "Collecting Evolution: The Galapagos Expedition that Vindicated Darwin" (Oxford UP, 2017)
Matthew James talks about the 1905 Galapagos Expedition organized by the California Academy of Sciences. James is a professor of geology at Sonoma State University. He is the author of Collecting Evo…
00:33:30 |
Fri 16 Aug 2019
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