Episódios
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Why is the National Science Foundation important? What is the potential impact of the proposed budget cut to the NSF? How can we stand up for federally-funded science in the US?
In this episode, we talk with Bill Zamer and Sam Scheiner, two former BIO program officers at the NSF. Much of the conversation focuses on the recently proposed 56% budget cut to the NSF and what the impacts of such a spending cut would be on science in the US. We discuss how the NSF came to be, the proposal selection process, and some of the scientific breakthroughs that have come out of the NSF-supported basic research. The episode also has suggestions of how to show your support for the NSF including calling your representatives, talking about the importance of the NSF and sharing this episode widely, and taking action suggested by the coalition SaveNSF.
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What are microplastics and why are they an issue for the environment? How can global policy address plastic pollution?
On this episode, we talk with Martin Wagner, a Professor of Environmental Toxicology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. We talk with Martin about the potential harms of microplastics and plastic-derived chemicals to our health and the health of natural ecosystems. We also discuss Martin’s work as part of the International Negotiating Committee set up to produce the UN plastics treaty, a global agreement that outlines steps and timelines for the production and use of plastics.
Cover art by Keating Shahmehri
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Estão a faltar episódios?
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Watch how our amazing artist Keating Shahmehri created the cover art for our last episode "Feel the heat”.
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How do scientists measure thermal tolerance and predict organismal responses in the wild? What kind of other data is needed to make predictive models better at helping us understand species responses to high temperatures?
In this special episode, roving podcaster Cameron Ghalambor went on the road to the University of Granada in Spain where he spoke about his own research in the symposium, Predictive Ecology in a Warming World. While there, Cam was inspired to get a few of the other experts into a room to talk about the broader field of predictive ecology, and this episode is the result. Guests on the episode include Jancitha Ellers, Professor at Vrije University of Amsterdam, Enrico Rezende, Associate Professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, and Wilco Verberk, Associate Professor at Radboud University. Cam and colleagues discuss the methods and tools they use to measure heat tolerance in insects, fish, and other ectothermic animals and how collecting and sharing trait data is important to inform and implement predictive models.
Cover art by Keating Shahmehri
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How are new technologies allowing biologists to look beyond simple genetic variation to whole genome structure? What is a pangenome?
In this episode, we talk with Scott Edwards, the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Curator of Ornithology at Harvard University. On this episode, we talk to Scott about the new ways we can describe and understand l…
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In this post-match chat, Marty and Cam discuss our most recent episode “A direct hit”, with guest Holden Thorp. This is a quickly evolving situation, and on Friday last week, a federal judge continued to block the cut to the NIH indirect cost rate. And just a few days ago, Holden wrote another editorial Come together, right now. He writes about the continued onslaught of cuts, firings, and changes to the science system in the United States, and how members of the scientific community can respond.
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Will a change in policy at the National Institutes of Health derail science in the US? How does the “indirect cost rate” for federal research grants fuel research?
In this episode, we talk with Holden Thorp, a chemist and editor-in-chief of Science, about his recent editorial A Direct Hit. In it, he writes about the NIH announcing a significant cut to their indirect cost rate and the consequences to science in the US if this change takes effect. “Indirect” or “overhead” costs are the portions of grants that are allocated to support research grant but aren’t for the research itself. Things like grant administration, compliance, and research infrastructure are covered by these funds (check out the comic below by Matteo Farinella for details). These costs have traditionally been shared by universities and the federal government, but with the proposed cut to the indirect cost rate, universities may need to make up for the deficit or change their operations. We discuss with Holden how this change could have widespread impacts on scientific research as well as the economy including our competitiveness on the global stage.
Comic by Matteo Farinella (Instagram, Substack)
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Here’s a little sneak peek into what goes on behind the scenes when we choose a title for an episode. In this snippet, Cam and Marty discuss the title of our most recent episode: “Beaks on (fitness) peaks.”
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Which factors lead to the evolution of reproductive isolation? What role does hybridization play in speciation? Why are there so many bird species in the tropics?
In this episode, we host Trevor Price, a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and a Fellow of the Royal Society to talk about the evolutionary proce…
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How does human behavior contribute to disease transmission? What can our history with infectious disease teach us about modern epidemics?
On this episode, we talk with Sabrina Sholts, Curator of Biological Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). Sabrina’s research explores the interse…
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What role does development play in evolution? How can biology incorporate a broader, more complex definition of what it means to be an organism?
In this episode, we talk with Scott Gilbert and Tobias Uller, two of the authors who wrote Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity. Tobias is a professor of Biodiversity and …
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How have organisms changed the Earth and what can humans learn from its deep past?
On this episode, we talk with Stephen Porder, a Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology and the Associate Provost for Sustainability at Brown University. Stephen is also the author of Elemental: How Five Elements Changed Earth’s Past and Will Shape Our Futu…
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How do natural selection and sexual selection interact? What can observing adaptive radiation in the wild teach us about evolution?
On this episode, we talk with Dale Broder, an Assistant Professor at American University, and Robin Tinghitella, an Associate Professor at the University of Denver. They study the Pacific field cricket, a fascinating organism that exemplifies both adaptive radiation and the interaction of natural selection and sexual selection. This species uses song for mate attraction, but the song also attracts Ormia ochracea, a fly that parasitizes the cricket. The fly recently invaded areas where the cricket is common and in response, some crickets evolved differentsongs and even silence. We talk with Robin and Dale about how their research team characterizes these cricket songs and the different wing morphologies that produce the songs. We also discuss the role of female preference (or lack thereof) in the evolution of different mating songs and how remarkably rapidly this song evolution occurred.
This episode was supported by a grant to Dale and Robin from the National Science Foundation.
Cover art: Keating Shahmehri.
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 -
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What are spiny mice and why are they so social? What about their brains makes them gregarious? Might network neuroscience be a useful framework for understanding spiny mice behavior?
On this episode, we talk with Aubrey Kelly, an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Emory University. Aubrey is a behavioral neuroscientist working on many vertebrate specie…
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What was life like in wartime England for a young female scientist? What about living and doing research for months each year with your daughters and husband on a remote island?
On this episode, we talk with Rosemary Grant, Emeritus Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. Rosemary is best-known for her foundational research on the Darwin’s Finches of the Galapagos Islands, conducted in collaboration with her husband, Peter. Our conversation focuses on Rosemary’s new autobiography “One Step Sideways, Three Steps Forward: One Woman’s Path to Becoming a Biologist.” We first discuss her upbringing in the Lake District during WWII, and how her family and the people she met there, as well as later scientific mentors like Conrad Waddington, shaped her path to science. Then, we talk about her work with Peter on the finches of Daphne Island, discussing their contributions to evolutionary biology. Rosemary also describes the joys of raising her girl in the Galapagos and gives advice to young people thinking about a career in biology.
Art by Keating Shahmehri. Find a transcript of this episode on our website.
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How do biologists study the influence of heat on organisms and how can this be applied to the study of climate change? What impacts mountaineer survival at high altitudes?
On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Professor Emeritus at University of Washington and recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Ray Huey. Ray is well known…
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Can we study evolution in the wild? Are some species “super-evolvers”?
On the episode, we talk with Alison Derry, a professor of biology at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and Andrew Hendry, a professor in the Department of Biology at McGill University, Canada. This episode is the second we’ve done on the team’s work, and Andrew was also a guest on our first episode in the series. This conversation was recorded live in front of an audience at Kenai Peninsula College, in Soldotna, Alaska.
The college is just a few miles from the lakes where Alison, Andrew, and many of their colleagues and students carry out experiments on threespine sticklebacks. We ask Alison and Andrew about their research on the rapid evolution of these fish, which were recently reintroduced to the lakes, and how the introduction of two distinct stickleback ecotypes are affecting the evolution of zooplankton in the lakes. We also discuss the central position of sticklebacks in the food web and how the sticklebacks are impacting the ecosystems now as well as how they likely impacted the lakes in the evolutionary past.
Art by Keating Shahmehri. Audio from Hunter Morrison at KDLL. Find a transcript of this episode on our website.
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 -
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What is mutation bias and how can scientists study it? How does changing a population’s mutation bias influence its evolutionary trajectory?
In this episode, we talk with Deepa Agashe, an Associate Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India. We first talk with Deepa about mutation bias and how she uses E. coli to understand it. We then focus on a 2023 PNAS paper about the fitness effects of experimentally changing the mutation bias in E. coli. In this research, Deepa and her team used a strain (MutY) of bacteria containing a mutation that knocks out an important DNA repair enzyme. They then isolated subsequent single mutations produced within both MutY and wildtype lines and studied the fitness effects of those mutations. Surprisingly, more than a third of mutations in the mutant lines were beneficial, and often across several different environments. Zooming out, the big picture is that shifts in mutation bias seem to generate new kinds of mutations that weren’t previously accessible to lineages, and a greater fraction of those may be beneficial in some circumstances.
Art by Keating Shahmehri. Find a transcript of this episode on our website. -
This week on Big Biology we're sharing an episode from The Naked Scientists Podcast about how humans lost their tails.
Humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans do not have tails. It sets us apart from other primates, but suggests that our shared evolutionary ancestors had them. So why did we lose them, and how? Speaking with Chris Smith, from The Naked Scientists Podcast, NYU Grossman School of Medicine's Itai Yanai explains that the way this study began was literally a pain in the "tail" for one of his colleagues...
Credit: The Naked Scientists Podcast
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At what levels does causation happen in biology? Are metaphors useful for understanding biology?
In this episode, we talk with Phil Ball, a science writer who was also an editor for the journal Nature for over 20 years. Phil has written over 25 books, but our conversation focuses on his most recent: “How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology.” In the book, Phil covers a wide-range of topics from cells to proteins to biological agency, and makes the argument that traditional ideas and simplified metaphors in biology often don’t hold up. We talk with Phil about the concept of the selfish gene and unpack what it actually means and when it’s useful. Then we dive into the paradox of how multicellular organisms are composed of multiple levels of agency, yet are complex agents themselves. Phil also discusses the biomedical implications of thinking about cancer as one in many possible states that cells can inhabit across a landscape.
Art by Keating Shahmehri. Find a transcript of this episode on our website. - Mostrar mais
