Big Biology – Details, episodes & analysis

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Big Biology

Cameron Ghalambor and Marty Martin

Science

Frequency: 1 episode/18d. Total Eps: 180

The biggest biology podcast for the biggest science and biology fans. Featuring in-depth discussions with scientists tackling the biggest questions in evolution, genetics, ecology, climate, neuroscience, diseases, the origins of life, psychology and more. If it's biological, groundbreaking, philosophical or mysterious you'll find it

bigbiology.substack.com

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🇬🇧 Great Britain - lifeSciences
25/08/2026
#25
🇩🇪 Germany - lifeSciences
25/08/2026
#24
🇺🇸 USA - lifeSciences
25/08/2026
#88
🇬🇧 Great Britain - lifeSciences
24/08/2026
#15

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https://bigbiology.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38
132 shares
https://bigbiology.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38
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https://www.bigbiology.org/
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Score global : 53%

Publication history

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Does a porpoise have a purpose? Agency and goals in evolution (Ep 115)

Season 6 · Episode 115

Thursday, February 8, 2024 • Duration 35:18

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com

What is an agent, and does an organism have to be conscious to be one? How does organismal agency affect evolution?

In this episode, we talk with Samir Okasha, a Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Bristol. Samir studies fundamental philosophical questions in evolutionary biology, most notably how selection acts on various levels of biological organization. Our discussion focuses on his book “Agents and Goals in Evolution,” in which he unpacks various definitions of agency and outlines their evolutionary implications. We talk about whether genes and groups of individuals can be agents, whether agency is heritable, where variation in agency comes from, and the relationship between agency and adaptation.

Cover art: Keating Shahmehri. Find a transcript of this episode on our website.

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Ep 45: Student Spotlight

Season 2 · Episode 45

Thursday, June 25, 2020 • Duration 01:07:39

How are early stage scientists pushing biology forward? What’s it like to be a graduate student during a global pandemic?

Over the last several months, we’ve been collecting short audio clips from biology students describing their research. Associate Producer Michael Levin spearheaded the project, which we called the Student Spotlight.

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with four students who submitted the best audio clips for that project. We talked about their science, and also asked them about the most important areas for future research, advice for future biology students and what it’s like to be a young scientist when a global pandemic is making the future uncertain.

The episode features Andrew Burchill at Arizona State; Ruth Demree, who recently graduated from Vassar; and Jason Hagani and Laura Plimpton, both at Columbia

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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Ep 44: The Science of Slime

Season 1 · Episode 4

Friday, June 12, 2020 • Duration 27:01

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com

What’s the slimiest fish on Earth? Why are they so slimy? And can we leverage our understanding of slime to make better bioengineered materials?

In this episode we talk with Doug Fudge, an Associate Professor at Chapman University, about his research on hagfish slime. Over the past 20 years, Doug and his lab and collaborators have figured out how and why hagfish produce slime, how the slime’s remarkable properties emerge from its underlying chemistry, and whether the protein threads in slime can be used to make bio-inspired fabrics that are greener, better, and longer lasting.

A significant portion of Doug’s work has been published in Journal of Experimental Biology, including this 2005 paper on the composition and structure of hagfish slime and this 2006 paper testing a key hypothesis about how hagfish use slime to defend themselves from predators. Fudge’s lab published recent papers on how slime glands refill after they eject their slimy contents and how they chemically stabilize coiled threads inside the glands before they are ejected. Papers in other journals explore how slime threads can be used to make bio-inspired fabrics and how slime threads are constructed and mature inside slime glands.

Ep 43: Project ICARUS

Season 1 · Episode 43

Thursday, May 28, 2020 • Duration 32:03

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com

What can we learn from animals by constantly tracking their movements with transmitters? How can we use information from collectives of animals to study and predict disease spread, earthquakes, and outbreaks of pests? How do you transform a massive, international scientific idea into a reality?

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Martin Wikelski, the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior. Martin leads Project ICARUS, an international collaboration aiming to track thousands of tagged animals at once from space. We talked with him about the long road to getting the project off the ground and what will ultimately learn from this new and powerful tool.

Photo: © MPIAB Jacob Stierle

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Ep 42: Fatal Fungus

Season 2 · Episode 42

Friday, May 15, 2020 • Duration 20:42

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com

Why are amphibians across the world dying from a fungal infection? Where did the fungus come from? How does it kill and are populations adapting?

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Craig Franklin, a biologist at the University of Queensland and the director of research for the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, about the history and distribution of the fungus, how it’s killing so many species, and what we can do to save them.

Cover photo by Brian Gratwicke.

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Ep 41: Coronavirus II

Season 2 · Episode 42

Thursday, April 30, 2020 • Duration 20:55

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com

Where did the new coronavirus come from? How can we be on the lookout for new diseases emerging from animals? Now that the coronavirus has infected humans, what’s the best path forward? In this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Andy Dobson, a disease ecologist at Princeton University who studies epidemics like the current COVID-19 outbreak. We talked with him about the possible animal origins of the virus, the best way to control its spread and strategies to avoid the next pandemic. Andy emphasizes that we shouldn’t blame wildlife for the coronavirus outbreak. It’s human behavior that led to this problem, and it’s human behavior that’s going to have to change to avoid the next ones. This episode is dedicated to Robert May,

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We need your help to make season three!

Season 2 · Episode 41

Tuesday, April 21, 2020 • Duration 01:50

We’re getting ready for season three next fall. We already have a bunch of great guests lined up to talk about the evolution of venom, insect intelligence and human evolution.

But we need your financial support to make that happen. Our goal is to raise at least $1,500 from listeners. If we aren’t able to accomplish that, we’ll need to drastically scale back production for season three.

We know this is a tough time to ask for your help, but if you’re able, we would really appreciate your financial support.

We know our listeners love Big Biology. If you want it to continue in its current format then go to our Patreon page Patreon.com/bigbio and make a recurring donation. You can also make a one time donation at our website: bigbiology.org.

This is a make or break moment for the podcast and we need our listeners to support us. You can make a donation at Patreon.com/bigbio and BigBiology.org.

Thanks so much for listening. We hope all of you are staying safe!

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

Ep 40: Songbird Scents

Season 2 · Episode 40

Thursday, April 16, 2020 • Duration 36:12

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com

How do hormones like testosterone coordinate important activities in an animal’s life, and how might those activities tradeoff with one another? How do the microbial communities living on birds affect the scents they give off, and how do those scents influence the birds’ choices of mates?

In this episode, we talk with Ellen Ketterson, an evolutionary biologist at Indiana University, Bloomington, about her work on juncos in North America. We discuss Ellen’s early research on how testosterone modulates life history characteristics of male juncos. We also discuss her more recent work on bird microbiomes and their roles in bird olfaction and mating, and the physiological underpinnings of migratory behaviors. Finally, we talk about some big ideas about the philosophy of doing biology -- including the value of building scientific efforts around model versus natural systems, paths to integration in biology, and how to mentor students effectively.

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Ep 39: Bioelectric Computation

Season 2 · Episode 19

Thursday, April 2, 2020 • Duration 30:38

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com

How do animals construct tissues, organs, and limbs in the right places during development? How do some animals manage to regenerate missing body parts? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Michael Levin, a biologist at Tufts University who studies how electric fields inside animals guide cells during development and regeneration. His work shows that electric fields play fundamental roles in structuring body plans and, in some species, can even be inherited across generations.

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Ep 38: Coronavirus

Season 2 · Episode 18

Tuesday, March 17, 2020 • Duration 15:30

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.com

How is COVID-19 transmitted and how broad will the pandemic become? What can mathematical models of infectious disease tell us? What are steps we can take now to slow the spread?

On this episode of Big Biology, we speak with John Drake, the Director of the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases at the University of Georgia, who has been working with the CDC to understand the dynamics of the COVID-19 outbreak and to identify strategies for slowing its spread.

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Big Biology – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Spotify

Big Biology – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other99+

Twitter14

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other99+

Twitter14

Spotify

Patreon2