biology

#1074 Kevin Lala - Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity

Mar 21, 2025

Dr. Kevin Lala is Professor of Behavioral and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He is one of the co-founders of niche construction theory and a prominent advocate of the extended evolutionary synthesis. His research encompasses a range of topics related to animal behavior and evolution; particularly animal social learning, innovation and intelligence; niche construction, inclusive inheritance, and the extended evolutionary synthesis; and human evolution, cultural evolution, and gene-culture coevolution. He is the author of several books including Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity. More»
#1054 Kathryn Nave - A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life

Feb 3, 2025

Dr. Kathryn Nave is a Leverhulme Trust early career research fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on developing a realist account of autonomy and agency, grounded in the uniquely metabolic existence of living systems, and upon critiquing the machine concept of the organism in light of this distinctive material instability. She is the author of A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life. More»
#1050 David Henshall - Fine-Tuning Life: A Guide to MicroRNAs, Your Genome's Master Regulators

Jan 24, 2025

Dr. David Henshall is Professor of Physiology and Medical Physics at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. His laboratory is studying cell and molecular mechanisms of epilepsy. His research team combines cell and molecular biology techniques, data science and bioinformatics, pharmacology, neuroscience and behavior, imaging and histology, and employs a range of experimental and human models. He is the author of Fine-Tuning Life: A Guide to MicroRNAs, Your Genome's Master Regulators. More»
#1046 Olivia Reilly: Social Cognition and Sex Differences in the Brains of Capuchin Monkeys

Jan 16, 2025

Dr. Olivia Reilly is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Hecht Lab at Harvard University. Dr. Reilly earned her B.A. in Animal Behavior and Spanish from Bucknell University. She spent two years in the postbaccalaureate IRTA program in the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition at the National Institute of Mental Health prior to graduate school. Dr. Reilly completed her M.A. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Sciences at Georgia State University where she studied social cognition in nonhuman primates at the Language Research Center. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Hecht Lab, she uses a comparative approach to investigate the neural and hormonal correlates of social cognition and behavior. More»
#1043 Rodolfo Dirzo: The Importance of Biodiversity, and the Sixth Mass Extinction

Jan 9, 2025

Dr. Rodolfo Dirzo is Associate Dean at the Doerr School of Sustainability, Bing Professor in Environmental Science, Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. His scientific work examines the study of species interactions in tropical ecosystems from California, Latin America, and other tropical areas of the world. Recent research highlights the decline of animal life (“defaunation”), and how this affects ecosystem processes/services (e.g. disease regulation). More»
#1034 Elise Zipkin: Population Dynamics, Biodiversity, and Climate Change

Dec 19, 2024

Dr. Elise Zipkin is Red Cedar Distinguished Professor and Director of the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program in the Department of Integrative Biology at Michigan State University. She is a quantitative ecologist who connects the complexities of natural communities with the precision of mathematics to shine light on mysteries in ecology and conservation. Dr. Zipkin and her team develop analytical frameworks to address grand challenges in the study of biodiversity loss and the effects of anthropogenic activities, such as climate change. More»
#1033 Michael Levin: Self, Collective Intelligence, Cognition, Life after Death, & More

Dec 16, 2024

Dr. Michael Levin is Distinguished Professor in the Biology Department and Vannevar Bush Chair, as well as director of the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts University. His work is focused on understanding the biophysical mechanisms that implement decision-making during complex pattern regulation, and harnessing endogenous bioelectric dynamics toward rational control of growth and form. More»
#1023 Francesca Bellazzi: Biochemical Kinds and Functions, Genes, and Virtue Ethics

Nov 22, 2024

Dr. Francesca Bellazzi is Postdoctoral Researcher in the ERC project Assembling Life at the Centre for Philosophy and the Sciences (CPS) in the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History, Art and Ideas (UiO) at the University of Oslo, Teaching Fellow in Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, Honorary Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Department of Science and Technology at UCL, and Honorary Visiting Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Bristol. She is interested in the complexity of the interactions between different entities. In particular, she is fascinated by the interface between chemistry and biology. She also has several side projects that consider the ethical aspects of science, in particular focusing on virtue ethics and epistemic injustice. More»
#1017 Erica Cartmill: The Evolution of Ape Gestures and Human Language

Nov 8, 2024

Dr. Erica Cartmill is Professor of Cognitive Science, Anthropology, and Animal Behavior at Indiana University. She studies the acquisition and evolution of human language. Her work bridges the biological and linguistic subfields and involves both comparative and developmental approaches to communication. She is interested in how the multimodal aspects of communication contribute to and constrain the construction of meaning in spontaneous interaction. She is particularly interested in whether gesture played a role in the origins of human language. More»
#991 Kostas Kampourakis - Ancestry Reimagined: Dismantling the Myth of Genetic Ethnicities

Sep 9, 2024

Dr. Kostas Kampourakis is author and editor of several books about science. He works at the Teacher Training Institute and the Section of Biology at the University of Geneva. At the Section of Biology, he teaches the courses “Biologie et Société” and “Comprendre l’évolution”. He is the author of several books, the latest one being Ancestry Reimagined: Dismantling the Myth of Genetic Ethnicities. He is also the Editor of the book series Understanding Life, published by Cambridge University Press. More»