Episode 59
Mendel and His Peas
In 1865 Gregor Mendel pulled together his work on heredity in peas and produced a paper which he read to a group of his peers. Unfortunately for Mende...
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Explore 159 episodes covering the who, what, why, and how of evolution
Episode 58
Our Unique Species
In the last episode I asked the question ‘Are we unique?’ and then set about showing why it is we are not by looking at the animal kingdom. From tool ...
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Are We Unique?
In what ways are we special or unique? Is it because we can think, like Rene Descartes said? Or is thinking just a chemical process that directs our a...
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Hairless Apes
If chimps are our closest relative why aren’t we hairy like they are? The answer lies somewhere in the far distant past. Imagine how hot it must have ...
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Master Switches
Nestled comfortably within our DNA are a set of switches. Like the light switches you casually flip on and off in your home, they are responsible for ...
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The Predictive Power of Evolution
We can make broad predictive strokes when it comes to how an organism will evolve. But that’s all we can do. What those changes will look like, if the...
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The Strange Case of Richard Owen
Every good story needs a villain. And there has been quite a few in the history of evolution theory. History has not been kind to Richard Owen. But ju...
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Epigenetics
In 2005 biologist Michael Skinner witnessed something that shouldn’t have happened. His mice were exposed to a toxin. A toxin which caused the childre...
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99%
If you’ve ever wondered why mice have been, and continue to be, science’s favorite research tools it’s becaus we are a lot a like. Yes, that little fo...
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The Hobbits of Flores
In 2003 something was found in a large limestone cave located in Liang Bua, Flores. It was a small skull which was at first identified as being that o...
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Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary psychology seeks to explain why we feel the way we do in certain situations. It also looks to understand what psychological adaptations w...
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The Missing Link
Darwin himself never used the term ‘missing link’. He wasn’t concerned with a missing link but he was concerned with gaps in the fossil record. It was...
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Self-Directed Evolution
Mankind has only just begun to unlock the secrets hidden within our DNA. As we move from gene to gene we will begin to see how it all ties together, a...
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Mitochondrial Eve
Mitochondrial DNA is only inherited from your mother. Everyone alive on earth today can trace their lineage back to Mitochondrial Eve. We know this be...
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The Anthropocene
The Cretaceous period ended 65 million years ago as did the reign of the dinosaurs. According to the International Union of Geological Sciences, we ar...
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Having a Laugh
It’s probably safe to say that everyone enjoys a good laugh. But where did it come from? What is it about laughter that gave us an advantage over our ...
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Punctuated Equilibrium
In 1972 Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge published a paper that immediately went viral among biologists. Gould and Eldridge pointed out, using the...
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The Piltdown Man
In the late 19th century, Europe was having a grand old time when it came to fossils of ancient hominids. The problem was – nothing was being discover...
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Darwin's Bulldog
On June 30, 1860 a great debate took place at the Oxford University Museum. This debate helped to launch Thomas Huxley’s career as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog”....
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Neanderthalis Extinctus
In the last episode we came face to face with the Neanderthal. What happened to the Neanderthal? Did they die on the battlefield or did they live out ...
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