Listen to Episode 106 on PodBean, Spotify, Spotify, or borrow it from a friend!
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a Hungarian Baron became a paleontologist, traveling around Europe, excavating fossils, going on adventures, and producing innovative research on fossils, geology, and more. This episode, we discussed the life and work of Franz Nopcsa.
Listen to Episode 105 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever podcasts are provided!
Most plants are content to sit still and take in sunlight and soil nutrients, but when conditions are tough, some plants get hungry! The habit of devouring animal prey has evolved in plants numerous times. In this episode, we discuss the varied strategies and evolutionary history of Carnivorous Plants.
Listen to Episode 104 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or your favorite alternative!
Seals, sea lions, and walruses (oh my!) are widespread, successful, and invariably charming. In this episode, we examine the adaptations, mysterious origins, and diverse but spotty fossil record of this fascinating group of aquatic mammals, the Pinnipeds.
Listen to Episode 103 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you can find it!
It’s been called the largest natural climate event of the Cenozoic Era, it set off a series of environmental changes that paved the way for our modern world, and it’s a critical case study in what happens when a huge rise in atmospheric Carbon triggers rapid warming of the global climate. This episode, we discuss the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
Listen to Episode 102 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever your friends are listening!
It may not sound appealing, but without a doubt one of the most successful of all life strategies is to siphon, steal, and exploit resources from other living things. In this episode, we discuss the evolution, deep history, and extraordinary diversity of Parasites.
Listen to Episode 101 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you can find it!
Dinosaurs are famous for being successful, strange, and super-sized, but one group outdoes all the rest. This episode, we’re discussing the fascinating and puzzling group of animals that smash the record for largest land animals of all time: Sauropods.
Listen to Episode 100 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you can find it!
As far as we can tell, all life on Earth is descended from a common ancestry. But there are so many open questions about when, where, and how life got started. In this episode, we tackle some of the biggest questions in the universe as we discuss The Origin of Life.
Listen to Episode 99 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite alternative!
They’ve been on Earth for around 400 million years, they have occupied nearly every ecosystem on land for most of that time, they come in a more dazzling diversity than arguably any other group of life, and they have a fascinating, complex, and deep evolutionary story. This episode, we try our best to touch lightly upon the Evolution of Insects.
Listen to Episode 98 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or elsewhere!
The study of life, past and present, revolves around the evolution, diversity, and extinction of organisms. But exactly how we group organisms and how we understand how new groups arise is a complex topic with much terminology and occasional turmoil. In this episode, we discuss Species and Speciation.
Listen to Episode 97 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you’d like!
From microbes to mushrooms, spiders to snakes, urchins to us, all life engages in chemical warfare. Toxins produced by organisms are enormously varied in their origins, functions, and evolutionary histories. In this episode, we discuss the nasty chemicals that make up Venom and Poison.
Listen to Episode 96 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or just search for it in your podcast app!
Kangaroos, koalas, opossums, possums, Tasmanian devils, and their relatives … they all have a few things in common: an unusual reproductive strategy, a pouch for their young, and a shared evolutionary history that separates them from the majority of living mammals. This episode is all about Marsupials.
Listen to Episode 95 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or just search for it in your podcast app!
Most famous extinction events are very animal-focused, but the end of the Carboniferous saw one of the worst plant mass extinctions in Earth history. In this episode, we discuss the specifics, the background, the causes, and the impacts of the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse.
The Common Descent Podcast 