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
George Makari, “Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind” (Norton, 2014)
In his new book Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind (Norton, 2014), the psychoanalyst and innovative historian, George Makari speaks to us about the dramatic history of the invention of th…
00:55:06 |
Wed 20 Jan 2016
Nick Hopwood, “Haeckel’s Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud” (University of Chicago Press, 2015)
Nick Hopwood‘s Haeckel’s Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud (University of Chicago Press, 2015) blends textual and visual analysis to answer the question of how images succeed or fail. Hopwood is…
00:46:45 |
Mon 30 Nov 2015
Jorg Matthias Determann, “Researching Biology and Evolution in the Gulf States: Networks of Science in the Middle East” (I. B. Tauris, 2015)
Jorg Matthias Determann‘s new book looks at the history of modern biology in the Arab Gulf monarchies, focusing on the treatment of evolution and related concepts in the publications of biologists wh…
01:03:35 |
Sun 29 Nov 2015
James E. Strick, “Wilhelm Reich, Biologist” (Harvard UP, 2015)
“Life must have a father and mother…Science! I’m going to plant a bomb under its ass!”
The author of the line above – who scrawled it in his private diary in the midst of a series of experiments in w…
01:09:05 |
Tue 06 Oct 2015
Stefan Timmermans and Mara Buchbinder, “Saving Babies? The Consequences of Newborn Genetic Screening” (U Chicago Press, 2015)
In their book, Saving Babies? The Consequences of Newborn Genetic Screening (University of Chicago Press, 2015) UCLA sociologist and current department chair Stefan Timmermans and Mara Buchbinder, as…
00:54:12 |
Wed 30 Sep 2015
Alexandra Minna Stern, “Telling Genes: The Story of Genetic Counseling in America” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012)
Due in part to lobbying efforts on behalf of the human genome project, human genes tend to be thought of in light of the present–genetic components of human disease and differential risks associated …
01:08:24 |
Mon 10 Aug 2015
Raf De Bont, “Stations in the Field: A History of Place-Based Animal Research, 1870-1930” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
While museums, labs, and botanical gardens have been widely studied by historians of science, field stations have received comparatively little attention.Raf De Bont‘s new book rectifies this oversig…
01:01:44 |
Fri 24 Jul 2015
Margaret Morrison, “Reconstructing Reality: Models, Mathematics, and Simulations” (Oxford UP, 2015)
Almost 400 years ago, Galileo wrote that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. Today, mathematics is integral to physics and chemistry, and is becoming so in biology, economic…
01:08:30 |
Wed 15 Jul 2015
Myles W. Jackson, “The Genealogy of a Gene: Patents, HIV/AIDS, and Race” (MIT Press, 2015)
What happens when you allow human materials to become property? More specifically, how does granting monopoly rights over genetic material affect the potential for innovation and research on treatmen…
00:39:19 |
Mon 18 May 2015
Edmund Russell, “Evolutionary History: Uniting History and Biology to Understand Life on Earth” (
Evolution is among the most powerful ideas in the natural sciences. Indeed, the evolutionary theoristTheodosius Dobzhansky famouslysaid nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution…
00:50:32 |
Wed 11 Mar 2015
Kimberly A. Hamlin, “From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women’s Rights in Gilded Age America” (U Chicago Press, 2014)
Kimberly A. Hamlin is an associate professor in American Studies and history at Miami University in Oxford Ohio. Her book from Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science and Women’s Rights in Gilded Age in Am…
01:06:05 |
Mon 23 Feb 2015
Nicolas Rasmussen, “Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014)
Nicolas Rasmussen‘s new book maps the intersection of biotechnology and the business world in the last decades of the twentieth century. Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise …
01:05:04 |
Fri 30 Jan 2015
Vera Kolb, “Astrobiology: An Evolutionary Approach” (CRC Press, 2014)
Astrobiology: An Evolutionary Approach (CRC Press, 2014) is a new volume edited by Dr. Vera Kolb that brings together 37 authors from a variety of different research backgrounds to introduce this rap…
01:01:39 |
Thu 11 Dec 2014
William J. Turkel, “Spark from the Deep” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2013)
“In a sense, all life consists of the colonization of an electric world. But to see that, we have to go back to the very beginning.” William J. Turkel‘s new book traces the emergence and inhabiting o…
01:09:17 |
Thu 13 Nov 2014
David Wright, “Downs: The History of a Disability” (Oxford UP, 2011)
David Wright‘s 2011 book Downs: The History of a Disability (Oxford University Press, 2011), offers readers a history that stretches far beyond the strictly defined genetic disorder that is its names…
00:57:51 |
Tue 30 Sep 2014
Silver Donald Cameron, “The Living Beach: Life, Death and Politics where the Land Meets the Sea” (Red Deer Press, 2014)
The acclaimed Canadian author Silver Donald Cameron writes that the idea for his newly reissued book, The Living Beach: Life, Death and Politics where the Land Meets the Sea (Red Deer Press, 2014), o…
00:51:34 |
Tue 05 Aug 2014
Jane Maienschein, “Embryos Under the Microscope: The Diverging Meanings of Life” (Harvard UP, 2014)
Why do we study the history of science?
Historians of science don’t just teach us about the past: along with philosophers of science, they also help us to understand the foundations and assumptions o…
01:14:26 |
Thu 12 Jun 2014
Marwa Elshakry, “Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
The work of Charles Darwin, together with the writing of associated scholars of society and its organs and organisms, had a particularly global reach in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centur…
00:59:49 |
Fri 23 May 2014
Melinda B. Fagan, “Philosophy of Stem Cell Biology: Knowledge in Flesh and Blood” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
Philosophy of science has come a very long way from its historically rooted focus on theories, explanations, and evidential relations in physics elaborated in terms of a rather mythical “theory T”. B…
01:09:56 |
Thu 15 May 2014
Richard Weikart, “Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2011)
For many years now, historians have wondered whether Hitler had any sort of consistent ideology. His writings are rambling and confusing. His speeches are full of plain lies. His “table talk” reflect…
00:55:11 |
Sat 03 May 2014
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are the property of New Books Network. This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by eachpod.com.