Episodes

  • Do Animals Sing? Animal Cognition, Communication, and Music | David Rothenberg & Justin Gregg
    May 2 2026

    What if animal sounds are not just signals, but music, performance, and meaning?In this wide-ranging conversation, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg and animal cognition researcher and writer Justin Gregg explore the strange borderlands between music, language, animal communication, play, science, and imagination. Moving from birdsong and whale music to dolphins, narwhals, emotional support alligators, escaped zoo animals, and improv comedy, they ask what happens when we stop treating animals as biological machines and start listening to them as expressive beings.David Rothenberg, professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, has spent decades making music with birds, whales, insects, and other species while writing about the philosophical and scientific meaning of animal sound. Justin Gregg, author of If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal and Humanish, studies animal minds, dolphin cognition, and the ways humans project meaning onto other creatures. Together, they bring music, science, philosophy, humor, and curiosity into a lively conversation about what animals know, what humans imagine, and why the boundary between the two is never as clean as we think.They discuss why birds sing, whether animal sounds can be understood as music, how scientists study communication without reducing it to simple function, and why anthropomorphism is not always the mistake it is assumed to be. The conversation opens into stories of beluga whales, military dolphins, narwhals, prairie dogs, koalas, lyrebirds, emotional support alligators, animal escape stories, and the deep human need to find kinship with other beings.TIMESTAMPS00:00:57 – David Rothenberg on music, philosophy, and his unconventional academic path00:04:35 – Justin Gregg on sociolinguistics, dolphins, and entering animal cognition from the humanities00:05:20 – Scott McVay, John Lilly, Gregory Bateson, and the strange history of dolphin research00:07:45 – Teaching electronic music to engineering students and encouraging creative play00:12:21 – What makes sound music, and why streaming has changed how people listen00:20:04 – Organized sound, John Cage, silence, and listening differently00:24:08 – Why birds sing at dawn and why science still struggles to explain the dawn chorus00:26:34 – Birdsong, mating success, nightingales, and the limits of simple evolutionary explanations00:29:16 – Studying musicality in birds and why scientists resisted the question00:34:20 – Humpback whale song, beauty, and what science often leaves out00:39:15 – Koalas, lyrebirds, noise, distortion, and what humans recognize as song00:44:10 – Bee dances, prairie dogs, symbolic communication, and the importance of attention00:48:05 – Justin Gregg’s emotional support alligator story and animals as individuals00:53:55 – Narwhals, belugas, military dolphins, and Cold War animal research00:57:10 – Escaped animals, freedom stories, and why humans root for animals in captivityGUESTSJustin Gregg – Animal Cognition Researcher and WriterAuthor of If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal, Humanish, and Are Dolphins Really Smart? His work explores animal minds, dolphin cognition, human exceptionalism, and the stories people tell about intelligence, happiness, and meaning.David Rothenberg – Philosopher, Musician, and WriterProfessor of Philosophy and Music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Author of Why Birds Sing, Thousand Mile Song, Bug Music, and other works exploring music, nature, animal sound, and the deep connections between human creativity and the more-than-human world.FOLLOW ACCELERATOR MEDIATwitter/X: https://x.com/xceleratormediaInstagram: https://instagram.com/xcelerator.mediaLinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/accelerator-media-orgWebsite: https://acceleratormedia.org#AnimalCognition #Birdsong #WhaleMusic #JustinGregg #DavidRothenberg #AnimalCommunication #Dolphins #MusicPhilosophy #Anthropomorphism #Bioacoustics #CuriosityEntangled

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    2 hrs and 1 min
  • What Will 30 Trillion Tons of Waste Look Like in 100 Million Years?
    Apr 4 2026

    Waste is not just what societies discard. It is one of the clearest records of who we are, how we live, and what kind of planet we are leaving behind. In this wide-ranging conversation, anthropologist Joshua Reno and geologist Jan Zalasiewicz explore waste as both a human problem and a geological force, moving from landfills and urban rubble to deep time, the Anthropocene, and the far future of Earth itself.  Joshua Reno, professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, studies the hidden systems societies depend on but prefer not to think about, especially landfills, disposal, and the cultural meanings of waste. Jan Zalasiewicz, geologist and paleontologist, has spent decades mapping the physical traces humans leave behind, from landfill strata and made ground to the broader geological signatures of the Anthropocene. Together, they bring two very different disciplines into unusually close conversation. They discuss why waste is both necessary and disavowed, how landfills reveal uncomfortable truths about human behavior, and why the geological scale of human leftovers is far larger than most people realize. They explore how cities preserve layers of industrial history like buried archives, why “waste as resource” is both useful and misleading, and how the accelerating production of waste changes our sense of time. From there, the conversation opens outward into questions of continuity, extinction, future readers, nuclear warning systems, the Fermi paradox, deep-time oceans, and what it means to leave a material record in a universe that may not care whether anyone is left to interpret it.   This conversation bridges anthropology, geology, environmental thought, philosophy, and deep time, revealing waste not as a side effect of civilization, but as one of its defining signatures.⸻TIMESTAMPS00:00:27 – Joshua Reno on landfills, hidden systems, and the paradox of necessary waste00:06:27 – Why studying trash reveals more than self-reporting ever can00:10:06 – Why many geologists resist treating landfill and waste as geology00:13:22 – The shocking scale of the technosphere and humanity’s waste legacy00:19:03 – Why pollution narratives are powerful but incomplete00:20:55 – Fly ash, landfill mining, and the complicated idea of “good waste”00:25:43 – Cities as layered archives: London, war, rubble, and urban strata00:29:23 – What landfill work feels like from the inside: constant motion, danger, and routine00:35:34 – Sewer epidemiology and why institutions often resist what waste can reveal00:39:00 – Future readers, lost continuity, and who might one day interpret our remains00:49:08 – Nihilism, speculative philosophy, and the spread of “the world after us” thinking00:53:12 – The Fermi paradox and whether civilizations accelerate into self-destruction01:00:35 – Nuclear waste, deep burial, and the problem of warning distant futures    ⸻GUESTSJoshua Reno – Professor of Anthropology, Binghamton UniversityAuthor of Waste Away: Working and Living with a North American Landfill and Military Waste: The Unexpected Consequences of Permanent War Readiness. His work examines waste, disposal, landfills, and the hidden systems that shape social life.Jan Zalasiewicz – Geologist, Paleontologist, and StratigrapherEmeritus Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester, Author of The Earth After Us and co-author of The Cosmic Oasis. His work spans geology, paleobiology, the Anthropocene, and the long-term material traces of human civilization.

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    1 hr and 45 mins
  • Robin Hanson x Joe Henrich | Cultural Evolution: The Slow Burn Rewriting Human Nature
    Nov 9 2025

    Cultural evolution has shaped human nature far more than we realize, and economist Robin Hanson and evolutionary biologist Joe Henrich reveal why ignoring this changes everything about policy, innovation, and our future. In this deep dive conversation, they explore how culture doesn't just influence behavior, it rewrites our preferences, beliefs, and even our cognitive machinery.

    Joe Henrich, professor at Harvard and author of The WEIRDest People in the World, explains how humans evolved to be uniquely reliant on social learning, making us a cultural species first and foremost. Robin Hanson, economist at George Mason University and author of The Elephant in the Brain, challenges the implications: if cultural evolution can account for most of human nature, then far more has changed in the last hundred thousand years than conventional wisdom suggests—and far more could change in the near future.

    Together, they tackle why economists bracket preferences instead of explaining them, how WEIRD psychology has dominated research while studying statistical outliers, why the collective brain hypothesis suggests innovation depends more on population size than individual genius, and why organizations systematically suppress innovation despite claiming to value it. They discuss marriage norms and kinship structures that literally reshape cognition across cultures, big gods and moral religions that enabled large-scale cooperation, and the uncomfortable selection pressures modern societies refuse to discuss openly.

    This conversation bridges economics, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and policy—revealing why cultural evolution deserves far more attention than it receives in academia, government, and institutional design.⸻

    TIMESTAMPS

    00:00:04 – Introductions: Economics meets cultural evolution

    00:01:26 – What is cultural evolution and why does it matter?

    00:03:31 – The ambitious scope: explaining preferences, beliefs, and values

    00:04:08 – Why economists bracket preferences—and why that's a problem

    00:04:55 – Cultural evolution as a return to Darwinian thinking

    00:06:26 – How genetic evolution shaped us to be cultural learners

    00:07:45 – Why cultural evolution rarely enters policy discussions

    00:12:00 – The WEIRD problem: most psychology research studies outliers

    00:20:00 – Marriage norms, kinship, and cognitive differences across cultures

    00:28:00 – The collective brain: why innovation depends on population size

    00:38:00 – Can individuals or small groups out-innovate large populations?

    00:48:00 – Religion, cooperation, and big gods that enforce moral norms

    00:58:00 – Why societies struggle with explicit reasoning about cultural evolution

    01:08:00 – Selection pressures we're not thinking about: fertility, values, migration

    01:18:00 – The challenge of integrating cultural evolution into institutional design

    01:24:30 – Cultural evolution's influence (or lack thereof) in economics

    01:26:00 – Innovation: overwhelmingly important, surprisingly poorly understood

    01:28:00 – Why organizations suppress innovation while claiming to promote it

    GUESTS

    Robin Hanson – Economist, George Mason University

    Author of The Elephant in the Brain and The Age of Em

    https://overcomingbias.com/

    http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson


    Joe Henrich – Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University

    Author of The WEIRDest People in the World and The Secret of Our Success

    https://x.com/JoHenrich

    https://henrich.fas.harvard.edu

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    ABOUT CURIOSITY ENTANGLED

    Curiosity Entangled pairs distinguished thinkers from different disciplines for unscripted conversations about consciousness, science, technology, and humanity's long-term future. Hosted by Accelerator Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to science storytelling and long-term thinking.

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    1 hr and 29 mins
  • Daniel H. Wilson x Eric Anctil | Keep Evolving, Stay Human: Can AI Make Us Better People?
    Nov 5 2025

    In this episode of Curiosity Entangled, professor @DrEricAnctil and science fiction author Daniel H. Wilson meet for a wide-ranging dialogue on artificial intelligence, human nature, and the uncertain futures we're building together. What begins as introductions between a media scholar and a roboticist-turned-storyteller unfolds into a profound exploration of how humans interface with technology, the cultural implications of AI, and whether our species can evolve alongside machines without losing what makes us fundamentally human.

    Eric traces his academic journey from sports media and higher education to inventing his own role studying media, technology, and the cultural dimensions of innovation—focusing not on how machines are built, but on how humans engage with them. Daniel describes his path from growing up in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma through earning his robotics PhD at Carnegie Mellon to writing bestsellers like How to Survive a Robot Uprising, blending his technical expertise with indigenous perspectives and science fiction imagination. Together, they probe whether science fiction can help us navigate near-future scenarios, how different cultural frameworks might reshape our relationship with AI, and whether capitalism's profit motives can align with technologies that make us better people.

    At the heart of the discussion lies a shared tension: we're living through a "wild west" moment with AI, simultaneously fascinated and terrified by what we're creating. The pair explore how social media addiction revealed humanity's vulnerability to engineered engagement, why "engaging" rather than "embracing" should be our stance toward new technologies, and how younger generations might inject different values into systems currently driven by shareholder interests. They also examine the anthropomorphization of AI in everything from autonomous vehicles to children's toys, and debate whether we can design AI companions that challenge us to be more empathetic rather than simply reinforcing our existing behaviors.

    Through these exchanges, Eric and Daniel circle around an audacious hope: that despite the dangers ahead, humans can evolve together, retain their humanity, and create technologies that serve the greater good rather than merely extracting value.

    Learn More About the Guests

    Daniel H. Wilson

    Author and Roboticist | PhD, Carnegie Mellon University

    Cherokee Nation Citizen | Author of Robopocalypse, The Andromeda Evolution, Pearl in the Sky

    https://danielhwilson.com

    Eric Anctil

    Professor of Media and Technology, University of Portland

    Founder, Cosmic North Studio | Author of Keep Evolving and Stay Human

    https://cosmicnorth.studio

    https://youtube.com/@UCjeiKRid_5RsYCWvMJ5KhVQ

    https://ericanctil.com

    Timestamps

    00:00:27 – Introductions: Robots, fiction, and the human side of AI

    00:04:12 – How science fiction predicts and shapes the future

    00:06:00 – Voyeurism, exhibitionism, and the psychology of social media

    00:08:14 – The real “robopocalypse”: attention as the new battleground

    00:10:47 – Consciousness, sentience, and the rise of AI companions

    00:13:40 – Infotainment, learning, and the erosion of deep knowledge

    00:15:45 – The domestication of robots and humans

    00:17:18 – Psychosis, ego, and the hidden dangers of AI interaction

    00:19:59 – Deifying machines and the illusion of digital gods

    00:21:26 – Reciprocity, empathy, and losing our social reflexes

    00:27:24 – Why machines flatter us and how it makes them dangerous

    00:29:23 – Working inside the machine: morality, capitalism, and complicity

    00:33:05 – Bezos, efficiency, and the dark logic of progress

    00:36:25 – Hole in the Sky and the idea of Indigenous technology

    00:39:51 – Is AI the new colonizer and are we its resources

    00:42:31 – The peer-opticon: how we surveil each other for free

    00:47:20 – Hive minds, utopias, and the illusion of collective intelligence

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    1 hr and 14 mins
  • Can Consciousness Be Engineered? | Bernardo Kastrup & Christof Koch
    Nov 1 2025

    In this episode of Curiosity Entangled, philosopher Bernardo Kastrup and neuroscientist Christof Koch meet for a rare and wide-ranging dialogue on consciousness, physics, and the limits of materialism. What begins as an exchange between two leading proponents of Integrated Information Theory (IIT) unfolds into a profound exploration of what consciousness is, how it might arise, and whether it could extend beyond biology into machines and even quantum systems.

    Christof traces his decades of work with Francis Crick and at the Allen Institute, developing tools to detect signs of consciousness in unresponsive patients. Bernardo describes his dual life as a computer engineer and philosopher of mind, bridging the technical and the metaphysical in search of a unified account of reality. Together, they probe whether artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT merely mimic human awareness or could one day become truly conscious. Their conversation ranges from quantum entanglement and the ontology of information to the metaphysical implications of Integrated Information Theory.

    At the heart of the discussion lies a shared question: can a theory of consciousness also illuminate the nature of the physical world? The pair discuss the idea of “ontological dust,” the possibility that quantum computers might possess a faint glimmer of experience, and how mystical or non-dual experiences challenge the boundaries of physicalism. They also touch briefly on anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff’s theory of orchestrated objective reduction, which suggests that consciousness arises from quantum effects in microtubules, and debate its compatibility with IIT.

    Through these exchanges, Bernardo and Christof circle around an audacious idea that mind and matter may not be two distinct domains but two perspectives on a single informational reality.

    5 Questions This Episode Might Leave You With

    1. Can consciousness arise from non-biological systems—or is it unique to life?

    2. What connects Integrated Information Theory and quantum information theory?

    3. Are “things” in the world truly distinct, or are they convenient fictions of perception?

    4. Could future technologies enable minds to merge or expand through physical connection?

    5. If consciousness is intrinsic to the universe, what does that mean for science itself?

    Learn More About the Guests

    Bernardo Kastrup

    Philosopher & Computer Engineer | Executive Director, Essentia Foundation

    Author, The Idea of the World; Analytic Idealism

    https://bernardokastrup.com


    Christof Koch

    Neuroscientist & Meritorious Investigator, Allen Institute for Brain Science

    Co-developer of Integrated Information Theory

    Former Chief Scientist & President, Allen Institute

    https://christofkoch.com

    https://alleninstitute.org

    Timestamps

    00:00:27 – Introductions: From neuroscience to philosophy and AI

    00:05:12 – Integrated Information Theory and the illusion of AI consciousness

    00:08:45 – Quantum computers, entanglement, and the possibility of artificial feeling

    00:10:00 – Beyond Physicalism: Consciousness, physics, and metaphysical challenges

    00:15:40 – Information as the bridge between mind and matter

    00:19:00 – Split-brain experiments and instantaneous shifts in consciousness00:27:00 – Are objects real, or conceptual conveniences?00:33:00 – Why panpsychism isn’t enough

    00:38:30 – Particles as ripples, not things: rethinking matter

    00:45:00 – The power and peril of scientific “convenient fictions”

    00:49:00 – Experimenting with shared consciousness and Neuralink interfaces

    00:53:00 – Consciousness in the cosmos and possible ways to detect it

    00:56:00 – Dissociative identity, unconscious knowledge, and the multiplicity of mind

    01:02:00 – Closing reflections on mind, matter, and mystery

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    1 hr and 19 mins
  • Báyò Akómoláfé & Catherine Keller: Crossroads, Creation, and Artificial Intelligence
    Aug 17 2025

    In this episode of Curiosity Entangled, philosopher and psychologist Báyò Akómoláfé joins theologian Catherine Keller for a searching dialogue on artificial intelligence, theology, and what it means to be human at the crossroads of technology. What begins with the question of AI’s place in creation unfolds into a meditation on race, mortality, authority, and the fragile line between the natural and the artificial.Bayo invokes the Garden of Eden, crossroads in Yoruba cosmology, and his idea of “becoming dust” to reimagine AI not as a tool but as a disruptive force unsettling human identity and mastery. Catherine draws from process theology and her work on apocalyptic hope to probe whether AI is a new instrument of denial or a chalice through which unexpected solidarities and forms of life might emerge. Together, they wrestle with risk, death, and transformation, asking whether we are witnessing the end of “the human” or the unveiling of new ways of being entangled with each other and the more than human world .5 Questions This Episode Might Leave You With1. Is AI a threat to human identity, or an invitation to rethink what being human means?2. What can Yoruba crossroads, biblical dust, and apocalyptic theology teach us about decision and risk in an age of AI?3. Does naming the world bring care, or does it foreclose possibility?4. Can AI be a tool for denying death, or a companion in embracing finitude?5. How might solidarity and possibility be cultivated at the crossroads of technology, theology, and ecological crisis?Learn More About the GuestsBayo AkomolafePhilosopher, Psychologist, Poet | Author, These Wilds Beyond Our FencesFounder, The Emergence Networkhttps://www.emergencenetwork.org/https://bayoakomolafe.netCatherine KellerTheologian | Author, Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy, and Other Last ChancesProfessor of Constructive Theology, Drew Universityhttps://catherineekeller.com/Timestamps00:00:27 - Opening and the invitation to speak about AI00:03:05 - Creation and destruction as a single intensifying moment00:05:27 - Eden, naming, and taxonomy as care or closure00:13:09 - Crossroads versus intersectionality and the risk of decision00:20:14 - Becoming dust, mortality, and species level vulnerability00:27:13 - Transhumanist dreams, immortality quests, and denial of death00:31:13 - Entanglement, weathering bodies, and the work of solidarity00:40:16 - Authorship and authority reimagined in the age of AI00:51:24 - AI as chalice, poetics, and naming the unnamable01:07:02 - Regulation, safety, and the reinforcement of colonial dynamicsFollow Accelerator Mediahttps://x.com/xceleratormediahttps://instagram.com/xcelerator.media/https://linkedin.com/company/accelerator-media-org

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    1 hr and 23 mins
  • Gurcharan Das & Milan Vaishnav: The Bhagavad Gita, War Ethics, Liberalism, and Global Power Shifts
    Jun 29 2025

    In this episode of Curiosity Entangled, author and philosopher Gurcharan Das joins political economist Milan Vaishnav for a wide-ranging conversation on the ethics of war, the future of liberalism, and the enduring tensions between statecraft and morality. What begins as a thought experiment—could the targeted assassination of a tyrant prevent a full-scale war?—unfolds into a rich dialogue spanning geopolitics, ancient Indian philosophy, and the fragile norms holding the global order together.

    Gurcharan draws on the Bhagavad Gita, his utilitarian leanings, and his new AI-powered book project to explore modern warfare, drone ethics, and whether Gandhi and Himmler could really have drawn wisdom from the same sacred text. Milan weaves in contemporary case studies—from Gaza to Gujarat, from Tamil Nadu’s manufacturing boom to the shortcomings of India’s liberal opposition—offering sharp analysis on state capacity, democracy, and economic reform. Together, they examine what it means to wield power responsibly in an era of deep polarization and technological acceleration.


    5 Questions This Episode Might Leave You With

    1. Could targeted assassinations of wartime instigators reduce human suffering—or create dangerous moral precedents?

    2. Can the Bhagavad Gita guide ethical decision-making in modern warfare and politics?

    3. Is the liberal international order unraveling, or are we taking its historic gains for granted?

    4. What lessons can India learn from Tamil Nadu’s manufacturing success and China’s bureaucratic incentives?

    5. Can moral imagination and institutional reform revive democracy in an age of cynicism?


    Learn More About the Guests

    Gurcharan Das

    Author, India Unbound and The Difficulty of Being GoodHarvard-Educated Philosopher | Former CEO, Procter & Gamble India

    https://gurcharandas.org

    https://x.com/gurcharandas


    Milan Vaishnav

    Director, South Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

    Author, When Crime Pays | Host, Grand Tamasha

    https://carnegieendowment.org/people/milan-vaishnav

    https://x.com/milanv


    Timestamps

    00:00:27 – Introducing the concept: AI book on the Bhagavad Gita and modern warfare

    00:05:31 – Drone strikes, utilitarian ethics, and the seduction of surgical warfare00:11:49 – What if the Buddha had guided Arjuna instead of Krishna?

    00:16:20 – Gandhi, Himmler, and the duality of interpreting the Gita

    00:20:23 – The moral hazards of targeted assassinations

    00:24:46 – Kant’s Perpetual Peace and the UN’s mixed legacy

    00:30:11 – Why liberalism still matters—despite its critics

    00:34:54 – The need for community: liberalism and the rise of nationalism

    00:37:17 – India’s economic reforms: missing political champions?

    00:41:29 – India’s missed industrial revolution—and hope in Tamil Nadu

    00:45:17 – iPhones, incentives, and the future of Indian manufacturing

    00:50:27 – Education reform and the politics of short-term thinking

    00:54:10 – A silent education revolution underway?

    00:58:16 – Institutions, norms, and fragile democracies

    01:03:28 – When (if ever) is assassination justifiable?

    01:07:32 – The need for global legitimacy in precision warfare

    01:10:46 – Is this the best period in human history—and will we realize it too late?


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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • How Earth Shaped Life and Life Shaped Earth: A Conversation Across Deep Time | Sean B. Carroll x Andrew H. Knoll
    May 18 2025

    In this episode of Curiosity Entangled, evolutionary biologist Sean B. Carroll and paleontologist Andrew H. Knoll dive deep into the intertwined story of life and Earth—how genetics and geology, extinction and emergence, have sculpted the living world as we know it. From early microbial life and the Cambrian explosion to mass extinctions and planetary evolution, this conversation maps billions of years of change and discovery.

    Sean and Andy reflect on how their once-separate disciplines—evo-devo and paleontology—came together to unlock new understandings of form, function, and time. They explore the episodic history of water on Mars, the transformative role of oxygen in animal evolution, the legacy of the Mars Rover, and the very real consequences of global environmental change today. Along the way, they share personal stories of fossil-hunting, career pivots, and the emotional pull of scientific storytelling. For anyone curious about Earth’s past, present, and precarious future, this episode is a time capsule and a call to curiosity.

    5 Questions This Episode Might Leave You With

    1. How did common genetic toolkits shape life’s diversity across wildly different species?

    2. What does Mars’s episodic climate history suggest about life beyond Earth?

    3. How did a collaboration between evo-devo and paleontology unlock new insights into evolution?

    4. What caused Earth’s great mass extinctions—and what can they teach us today?

    5. Can scientific storytelling help shift how we think about the planet’s future?


    Learn More About the Guests

    Sean B. Carroll –Distinguished University Professor of Biology, University of Maryland

    Executive Producer, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios

    Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biology & Genetics, University of Wisconsin–Madison

    https://tangledbankstudios.org

    https://www.seanbcarroll.com/

    Andrew H. Knoll –Fisher Research Professor of Natural History

    Research Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Harvard University

    https://eps.harvard.edu/people/andrew-h-knoll

    https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Earth-Billion-Chapters/dp/0062853910

    Timestamps

    00:00:50 – Mars’s climate history: wet–dry–wet again?

    00:05:25 – Andy’s pivot from engineering to geology and biology

    00:11:09 – Bridging disciplines: paleontology meets evo-devo

    00:15:27 – Discovering shared genetics across the animal kingdom

    00:19:20 – Fossil hunting in the Arctic and unearthing deep time

    00:24:28 – Oxygen, tectonics, and the rise of large animals

    00:27:25 – Sean’s childhood fascination with salamanders

    00:35:15 – Why scientists are never bored

    00:39:12 – Sean’s leap from researcher to writer and filmmaker

    00:45:17 – Writing to think: how books reshape scientific thought

    00:51:02 – Global collaboration in science and the joy of mentorship

    00:54:27 – The climate parallels between past mass extinctions and today

    01:00:25 – Volcanism, CO₂, and the End-Permian extinction

    01:04:11 – Stories of recovery: hope in biodiversity conservation

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    1 hr and 11 mins