Adapt or Die! The Evolutionary Biology of Pop Culture – Details, episodes & analysis

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Adapt or Die! The Evolutionary Biology of Pop Culture

Austin Ashbaugh

Science

Frequency: 1 episode/13d. Total Eps: 15

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🇩🇪 Germany - lifeSciences
01/02/2025
#99
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
25/12/2024
#98
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
24/12/2024
#91
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
23/12/2024
#85
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
22/12/2024
#74
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
21/12/2024
#63
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
20/12/2024
#51
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
19/12/2024
#33
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
18/12/2024
#30
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
06/12/2024
#88

Spotify

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Score global : 78%

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2. Of Meowth and Men: Artificial Selection

Season 1 · Episode 2

Tuesday, August 27, 2024 • Duration 40:16

Episode Description:
Welcome to this brand new episode of Adapt or Die! The evolutionary biology of pop culture hosted by Austin Ashbaugh. The current cultural phenomenon we are discussing this season is Pokémon and todays episode is focused on the normal type. Our evolutionary connection to the normal type is artificial selection. In the Safari Zone, I get into examples of artificial selection with Zigzagoon and Meowth providing excellent case studies. During the pokémon professors rant I appropriately rant about how Furfrou was a terrible idea to show paegentry and Pidove was robbed. Lastly, we will end todays episode with describing a regional variant of Budew with a Tyrogue like evolution chain and results from our latest pokémon spectacular competition. Sit back and relax in a chair older than yourself, open an old dusty tome, and join me as we adapt or die!

Link to Google Slides of Pokémon discussed in this episode

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Twitter and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by Gregor Quendel from Pixabay

Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen

Resources cited for research in this episode:
1. Secord, J. A. (1981). Nature's fancy: Charles Darwin and the breeding of pigeons. _Isis_, _72_(2), 163-186.
2. Shapiro, B. (2017). Pathways to de‐extinction: how close can we get to resurrection of an extinct species?. _Functional Ecology_, _31_(5), 996-1002.
3. Sinding, M. H. S., & Gilbert, M. T. P. (2016). The draft genome of extinct European aurochs and its implications for de-extinction. _Open Quaternary_, _2_, 7-7.
4. Sol, D. (2008). Artificial selection, naturalization, and fitness: Darwin's pigeons revisited. _Biological Journal of the Linnean Society_, _93_(4), 657-665.
5. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/lines-of-evidence/artificial-selection/
6. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Artificial_Pok%C3%A9mon
7. https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonconspiracies/comments/axagi7/the_galar_region_is_based_in_norse_and/
8. https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-sm/052.shtml
9. https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-swsh/meowth/#
10.

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Bluesky and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by Gregor Quendel from Pixabay

Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen

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1. The Eye of the Tauros: The Survival of the Fittest

Season 1 · Episode 1

Tuesday, August 13, 2024 • Duration 37:52

Episode Description:
Welcome to this brand new episode of Adapt or Die! The evolutionary biology of pop culture hosted by Austin Ashbaugh. The current cultural phenomenon we are discussing this season is Pokémon and todays episode is focused on the Fighting type. Our evolutionary connection to the fighting type is the survival of the fittest. In the Safari Zone, I get into the requirements for Evolution by Natural selection using Paldean Tauros as an example. During the pokémon professors rant I talk about epigenetics and how I could have saved hours shiny chaining as a child. Lastly, we will end todays episode with describing a new regional form of Mightyena and results from our latest pokémon spectacular competition. Sit back and relax in a chair older than yourself, open an old dusty tome, and join me as we adapt or die!

Link to Google Slides of Pokémon discussed in this episode

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Twitter and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by Gregor Quendel from Pixabay

Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen

Resources cited for research in this episode:
1. Bellen HJ, Tong C, Tsuda H. 100 years of Drosophila research and its impact on vertebrate neuroscience: a history lesson for the future. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2010 Jul;11(7):514-22. doi: 10.1038/nrn2839. PMID: 20383202; PMCID: PMC4022039. 2. Darwin, C. (1859). _On the origin of species: A facsimile of the first edition_. Harvard University Press.3. Drea C. M., Place N. J., Weldele M. L., Coscia E. M., Licht P. and Glickman S. E. 2002Exposure to naturally circulating androgens during foetal life incurs direct reproductive costs in female spotted hyenas, but is prerequisite for male matingProc. R. Soc. Lond. B.2691981–19874. Herrel, A., Joly, D., & Danchin, E. (2020). Epigenetics in ecology and evolution. _Functional Ecology_, _34_(2), 381-384.5. Hungwe, C. (2017). Of crocodiles, Magumaguma, Hyenas, and Malayitsha: Zimbabweans crossing the Limpopo in search of a better life in South Africa. In _TMC2017 Conference Proceedings_ (pp. 363-371). Transnational Press London.6

Adapt or Die! - The Trailer

Season 1 · Episode 1

Wednesday, July 31, 2024 • Duration 01:19

Darwin did not expect to have "his" theory applied to pixelated creatures...this is payback for taking the limelight over Wallace. On Adapt or Die, Austin (a PhD candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) explores topics in popular culture that can be dissected with evolutionary theories and ideas. We will ask questions like "Does Pokémon evolution work like actual evolution?" or "How would evolution inform what lives and what dies after nuclear fallout". Combining peer-reviewed science, humour, and a smidge of speculation we will adapt our understanding of pop culture together.

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates!

Follow Austin on Twitter and Instagram for queer things, science things, pop culture things, and the intersection of all of the above!

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by Gregor Quendel from Pixabay

Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Bluesky and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!Song credits: Music by l from Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen

3. The Last of Us - Paras edition: Coevolution

Season 1 · Episode 3

Tuesday, September 10, 2024 • Duration 44:12

Episode Description:

Welcome to this brand new episode of Adapt or Die! The evolutionary biology of pop culture hosted by Austin Ashbaugh. The current cultural phenomenon we are discussing this season is Pokémon and todays episode is focused on the grass type. Our evolutionary connection to the normal type is coevolution.

In the Safari Zone, I get into how symbiotic relationships evolve with a few different grass type case studies. During the pokémon professors rant, I appropriately rant about how we need more coevolution informed evolution lines. Lastly, we will end todays episode with describing a regional variant of the croagunk and morelull evolutionary lines and results from our latest pokémon spectacular competition. Sit back and relax in a chair older than yourself, open an old dusty tome, and join me as we adapt or die!

Link to Google Slides of Pokémon discussed in this episode

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Twitter and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by Gregor Quendel from Pixabay

Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen

Resources cited for research in this episode:1. Alexandersson, R., & Johnson, S. D. (2002). Pollinator–mediated selection on flower–tube length in a hawkmoth–pollinated Gladiolus (Iridaceae). _Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences_, _269_(1491), 631-6362. Bush, G. L. (1992). Host race formation and sympatric speciation in Rhagoletis fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae). _Psyche: A Journal of Entomology_, _99_(4), 335-357.3. Cartaxana, P., Morelli, L., Cassin, E., Havurinne, V., Cabral, M., & Cruz, S. (2023). Prey species and abundance affect growth and photosynthetic performance of the polyphagous sea slug Elysia crispata. _Royal Society Open Science_, _10_(8), 230810.4. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/User:PardescanSlowbro/Symbiotic_Relationships5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/red-queen-hypothesis 6. https://www.serebii.net/pokemon/type/grass/

6. The Marowak in Black : Non-natural selection

Season 1 · Episode 6

Tuesday, October 22, 2024 • Duration 52:31

Episode Description:

**TRIGGER WARNING - I discuss Residential Schools and how a regional variant may be able to educate on an international level about how Canadian history has its own darkness**

Welcome to this brand new episode of Adapt or Die! The evolutionary biology of pop culture hosted by Austin Ashbaugh. The current cultural phenomenon we are discussing this season is Pokémon and todays episode is focused on the ghost type. Our evolutionary connection to the ghost type is non-natural selection.

In the Safari Zone, I get into how natural selection is almost always interfered with, what constrains evolution by natural selection, and how ghost type pokemon show examples of evolution outside of natural selection as case studies. During the pokémon professors rant, I appropriately rant about how the dark type should not be confused with evil personalities. Lastly, we will end todays episode with describing a regional variant of the phantump evolutionary line and results from our latest pokémon spectacular competition. Sit back and relax in a chair older than yourself, open an old dusty tome, and join me as we adapt or die!

Link to Google Slides of Pokémon discussed in this episode

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Twitter and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by Gregor Quendel from PixabayLogo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen Resources cited for research in this episode:1. Futuyma, D. J. (2010). Evolutionary constraint and ecological consequences. _Evolution_, _64_(7), 1865-1884.2. Gould, S. J., & Lewontin, R. C. (2020). The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme. In _Shaping Entrepreneurship Research_ (pp. 204-221). Routledge.3. https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/cedar/4. https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/totem_poles/#:~:text=Totem%20poles%20are%20monuments%20created,be%20visible%20within%20a%20community.5. https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-dp/ghost.shtml

5. Pride, prejudice, rats, and cane toads: Competition CORRECTION

Tuesday, October 8, 2024 • Duration 00:56

I accidentally used "Trans extremist radical feminist" instead of "Trans exclusionary radical feminist" on the latest episode - apologies folks!

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5. Pride, Prejudice, Rats, and Cane toads: Competition

Season 1 · Episode 5

Tuesday, October 8, 2024 • Duration 43:18

**CORRECTION**
I mention in the contest spectacular section that shiny zoaroark almost looks as if it would align with trans extremist radical feminists - this was a major mistake/misspeaking of my own. I meant to say Trans EXCLUSIONARY radical feminists of the J.K. Rowling variety. I apologize deeply for anybody who was offended by this mistake.

Episode Description:

Welcome to this brand new episode of Adapt or Die! The evolutionary biology of pop culture hosted by Austin Ashbaugh. The current cultural phenomenon we are discussing this season is Pokémon and todays episode is focused on the dark type. Our evolutionary connection to the dark type is competition.

In the Safari Zone, I get into how competition is important for how we understand evolution, how sexual dimorphism likely fuels mate competition in the dark type as well as how some regional variants have evolved through the introduction of invasive species outcompeting native species. During the pokémon professors rant, I appropriately rant about how the dark type should not be confused with evil personalities. Lastly, we will end todays episode with describing a regional variant of the bidoof evolutionary line and results from our latest pokémon spectacular competition. Sit back and relax in a chair older than yourself, open an old dusty tome, and join me as we adapt or die!

Link to Google Slides of Pokémon discussed in this episode

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Twitter and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by l from Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen Resources cited for research in this episode:1. Baldwin, P. H., Schwartz, C. W., & Schwartz, E. R. (1952). Life history and economic status of the mongoose in Hawaii. _Journal of Mammalogy_, _33_(3), 335-356.2. Callaway, E. Size doesn't always matter for peacocks. _Nature_ (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2011.2453. Darwin, C. The Origin of The Species by Means of Natural Selection. 1859. 4. Darwin, C. The Descent of Man and Evolution in Relation to Sex. 1871. 5. Han, G., Mall

4. A Tale of Two Fishes: Biodiversity

Season 1 · Episode 4

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • Duration 45:14

Episode Description:

Welcome to this brand new episode of Adapt or Die! The evolutionary biology of pop culture hosted by Austin Ashbaugh. The current cultural phenomenon we are discussing this season is Pokémon and todays episode is focused on the water type. Our evolutionary connection to the water type is biodiversity.

In the Safari Zone, I get into what biodiversity is, what a niche is, how niches form biodiversity, how biodiversity is quantified and explain these ideas using the safari zones as well as the shellos, magikarp, and feebas lines. During the pokémon professors rant, I appropriately rant about how pokémon should not be restricted in movement once the post-game is reached. Lastly, we will end todays episode with describing a regional variant of the wailmer evolutionary line and results from our latest pokémon spectacular competition. Sit back and relax in a chair older than yourself, open an old dusty tome, and join me as we adapt or die!

Link to Google Slides of Pokémon discussed in this episode

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Twitter and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by Gregor Quendel from Pixabay

Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen Resources cited for research in this episode:1. Andermann T, Antonelli A, Barrett RL, Silvestro D. Estimating Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Diversity Through Deep Learning. Front Plant Sci. 2022 Apr 19;13:839407. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.839407. PMID: 35519811; PMCID: PMC9062518.2. Tuomisto, H. (2010). A diversity of beta diversities: straightening up a concept gone awry. Part 1. Defining beta diversity as a function of alpha and gamma diversity. _Ecography_, _33_(1), 2-22.3. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Great_Marsh4. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Hoenn_Safari_Zone5. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Johto_Safari_Zone6. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Kanto_Safari_Zone7. https://pokejungle.net/2012/07/31/pokeologyfeebasmilotic/8. https://www.serebii.net/pokemon/type/water/

7. Brave Mew World : Nature Vs. Nurture

Season 1 · Episode 7

Tuesday, November 5, 2024 • Duration 47:41

Episode Description:

Welcome to this brand new episode of Adapt or Die! The evolutionary biology of pop culture hosted by Austin Ashbaugh. The current cultural phenomenon we are discussing this season is Pokémon and todays episode is focused on the psychic type. Our evolutionary connection to the psychic type is nature Vs. nurture.

In the Safari Zone, I get into how mattpat (Game theorists) relied a bit too heavily on nature/nurture in explaining pokemon evolution in reference to eevee and then get into explaining the evolution of senses in a variety of psychic pokémon. During the pokémon professors rant, I appropriately rant about the gradual weakening of the psychic typing over time. Lastly, we will end todays episode with describing a regional variant of the unown evolutionary line and results from our latest pokémon spectacular competition. Sit back and relax in a chair older than yourself, open an old dusty tome, and join me as we adapt or die!

Link to Google Slides of Pokémon discussed in this episode

Follow Adapt or Die! on Instagram for regular updates

Follow Austin on Twitter and Instagram

Have a pop culture ecology or evolutionary biology question you want answered? Submit your questions and ideas here for a chance to have your topic researched and discussed on the podcast!

Song credits: Music by Gregor Quendel from Pixabay

Logo design: Austin Ashbaugh, Chase Ashbaugh, Xander Allen Resources cited for research in this episode:1. Alhosin, M. (2023). Epigenetics Mechanisms of Honeybees: Secrets of Royal Jelly. _Epigenetics Insights_, _16_, 25168657231213717.2. Hoover, K. C. (2010). Smell with inspiration: the evolutionary significance of olfaction. _American Journal of Physical Anthropology_, _143_(S51), 63-74.3. Jones, G., & Teeling, E. C. (2006). The evolution of echolocation in bats. _Trends in Ecology & Evolution_, _21_(3), 149-156.4. Osório, J., & Rétaux, S. (2008). The lamprey in evolutionary studies. _Development genes and evolution_, _218_, 221-235.5. Schwab, I. The evolution of eyes: major steps. The Keeler lecture 2017: centenary of Keeler Ltd. _Eye_ **32**, 302–313 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/eye.2017.2267. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/History_of_the_Pok%C3%A9mon_world8. ht

8. Moby Diglett : Biogeography

Season 1 · Episode 8

Tuesday, November 19, 2024 • Duration 30:09

Adapt or Die! The Evolutionary Biology of Pop Culture – Details, episodes & analysis

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Adapt or Die! The Evolutionary Biology of Pop Culture – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

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