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
Harvey Whitehouse, "Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World" (Harvard UP, 2024)
Each of us is endowed with an inheritance--a set of evolved biases and cultural tools that shape every facet of our behavior. For countless generations, this inheritance has taken us to ever greater …
00:44:17 |
Sun 10 Nov 2024
David Peña-Guzmán: Animals Dream and that Makes Them Morally Considerable (JP)
In his marvelous new book, When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness (Princeton UP, 2023), David Peña-Guzmán (SF State as well as the lovely philosophical podcast Overthink) offers…
00:49:08 |
Thu 31 Oct 2024
Kostas Kampourakis, "Ancestry Reimagined: Dismantling the Myth of Genetic Ethnicities" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Recent social and political psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biol…
00:39:57 |
Sun 27 Oct 2024
Francisco Aboitiz, "A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds: The Evolution of Life and Consciousness" (MIT Press, 2024)
Francisco Aboitiz is a professor at the Medical School and the director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. A History of Bodies, Brains, and …
01:09:25 |
Sat 19 Oct 2024
William T. Taylor, "Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History" (U California Press, 2024)
Which society was the first to domesticate the horse? It’s a difficult question. The archaeological record is spotty, with only very recent advancements in genetics and carbon dating allowing scienti…
00:48:13 |
Thu 17 Oct 2024
Whitney Barlow Robles, "Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History" (Yale UP, 2023)
Dive into the world of animals with Whitney Barlow Robles in her captivating new book, Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History (Yale UP, 2023). Can corals truly build worlds? Do rattlesnake…
00:52:03 |
Fri 13 Sep 2024
Kostas Kampourakis, "Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Many historical figures have their lives and works shrouded in myth, both in life and long after their deaths. Charles Darwin (1809–82) is no exception to this phenomenon and his hero-worship has beco…
00:42:41 |
Tue 03 Sep 2024
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 |
Mon 02 Sep 2024
Nick Haddad, "The Last Butterflies: A Scientist's Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature" (Princeton UP, 2019)
Butterflies have long captivated the imagination of humans, from naturalists to children to poets. Indeed it would be hard to imagine a world without butterflies. And yet their populations are declin…
00:57:01 |
Fri 23 Aug 2024
Iris Berent, "The Blind Storyteller: How We Reason about Human Nature" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Do newborns think-do they know that 'three' is greater than 'two'? Do they prefer 'right' to 'wrong'? What about emotions--do newborns recognize happiness or anger? If they do, then how are our inbor…
00:54:28 |
Sun 11 Aug 2024
Alan C. Love, "Evolution and Development: Conceptual Issues" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
It was an astounding discovery in the early 1980's that the same genetic sequence, the homeobox, controlled the development of basic body plans across the animal kingdom, whether the result was a fla…
01:03:59 |
Sat 10 Aug 2024
Gavin Steingo, "Interspecies Communication: Sound and Music Beyond Humanity" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
In Interspecies Communication: Sound and Music Beyond Humanity (U Chicago Press, 2024), music scholar Gavin Steingo examines significant cases of attempted communication beyond the human--cases in wh…
00:56:15 |
Sat 10 Aug 2024
David Badre, "On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done" (Princeton UP, 2020)
On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done (Princeton UP, 2020) is a look at the extraordinary ways the brain turns thoughts into actions—and how this shapes our everyday lives.
Why is it hard to text …
00:40:29 |
Sun 21 Jul 2024
Monika Krause, "Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
In Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites (University of Chicago Press, 2021), Dr. Monika Krause asks about the concrete material research objects behind shared conversations about clas…
00:34:07 |
Wed 10 Jul 2024
Joshua Schuster, "What Is Extinction?: A Natural and Cultural History of Last Animals" (Fordham UP, 2023)
Life on Earth is facing a mass extinction event of our own making. Human activity is changing the biology and the meaning of extinction. What Is Extinction?: A Natural and Cultural History of Last An…
00:57:11 |
Fri 28 Jun 2024
Tessa Hill and Eric Simons, "At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans" (Columbia UP, 2024)
At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans (Columbia UP, 2024) takes readers on a journey from California tidepools to Antarctic poles, showcasing myriad efforts to research and pro…
00:53:01 |
Fri 14 Jun 2024
Duana Fullwiley, "Tabula Raza: Mapping Race and Human Diversity in American Genome Science" (U California Press, 2024)
In Tabula Raza: Mapping Race and Human Diversity in American Genome Science (University of California Press, 2024), Duana Fullwiley has penned an intimate chronicle of laboratory life in the genomic …
01:16:20 |
Wed 12 Jun 2024
At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans
Today’s book is: At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans (Columbia UP, 2024), by Tessa Hill and Eric Simons, which takes readers beneath the waves and along the coasts, to explor…
00:49:35 |
Thu 16 May 2024
Carl Zimmer, "Life's Edge: The Search For What it Means to be Alive" (Dutton, 2022)
Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is on…
00:36:28 |
Fri 10 May 2024
Christian Hansel, "Memory Makes the Brain: The Biological Machinery That Uses Experiences To Shape Individual Brains" (World Scientific, 2021)
If you're interested in memory, you'll find a lot in Memory Makes the Brain: The Biological Machinery That Uses Experiences To Shape Individual Brains (World Scientific, 2021), from cellular processe…
01:10:41 |
Tue 30 Apr 2024
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