Episodes

  • Ethan Tapper, "How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World" (Broadleaf Books, 2024)

    Ethan Tapper, "How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World" (Broadleaf Books, 2024)
    Feb 22 2025
    For more than a decade, Ethan Tapper has been recognized as a thought-leader and a disruptor in the worlds of forestry, conservation, and ecosystem stewardship. He has many years of experience managing private and public forestlands. He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including Forester-of-the-Year, by the Northeast-Midwest Foresters Alliance. Ethan lives in Northern Vermont, where he manages a 175-acre forest and homestead called ‘Bear Island’…and rumor has it he is a musician in a punk-rock band. In his tender and fearless literary debut, Tapper proffers a more complex vision. He writes that we must act now in order to protect ecosystems, and that the actions we must take will often be counterintuitive, uncomfortable, even heartbreaking. In striking prose, he shows how bittersweet acts—like loving deer and hunting deer, loving trees and felling trees—can be radical expressions of compassion. In this poetic and visionary book, Tapper weaves a new land ethic for the modern world, reminding us that what is simple is rarely true, and what is necessary is rarely easy. Countless decisions await. There are no perfect solutions; only endless bittersweet compromises. How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World (Broadleaf Books, 2024) offers a clear-eyed, hopeful vision of a world in which so much is wrong and so much is worth saving. Michael Simpson has been actively working, researching and teaching in the watershed management and wetlands fields for 40 years. He is a licensed wetlands scientist where he has conducted numerous delineations, wetland assessments and restorations employing a variety of assessment approaches and data collection procedures, as well as designing wetlands for treatment of NPS run-off and wastewater. He has also held a position as graduate school Professor at Antioch University New England, where he has taught courses in wetlands ecology, watershed science and management, climate science & climate vulnerability and adaptation His primary research has been funded by both US EPA and NOAA, which has focused upon impact to natural systems and built infrastructure in riparian corridors and estuaries, from changes in land-use combined with increases in storm intensity and frequency due to projected climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    48 mins
  • Shoumita Dasgupta, "Where Biology Ends and Bias Begins: Lessons on Belonging from Our DNA" (U California Press, 2025)

    Shoumita Dasgupta, "Where Biology Ends and Bias Begins: Lessons on Belonging from Our DNA" (U California Press, 2025)
    Feb 10 2025
    Dr. Dasgupta is a geneticist and internationally recognized anti-racism educator. In this book, she provides a powerful, science-based rebuttal to common fallacies about human difference. Well-meaning physicians, parents, and even scientists today often spread misinformation about what biology can and can’t tell us about our bodies, minds, and identities. In this accessible, myth-busting book, Dr. Dasgupta draws on the latest science to correct common misconceptions about how much of our social identities are actually based in genetics. Dasgupta weaves together history, current affairs, and cutting-edge science to break down how genetic concepts are misused and how we can approach scientific evidence in a socially responsible way. With a unifying and intersectional approach disentangling biology from bigotry, the book moves beyond race and gender to incorporate categories like sexual orientation, disability, and class. Where Biology Ends and Bias Begins is an invaluable, empowering resource for biologists, geneticists, science educators, and anyone working against bias in their community. Dr. Scott Catey is a consultant, educator, and CEO of The Catey Group, LLC., a multimedia creative firm. scottcatey.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr
  • Bruce Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, "Macroevolutionaries: Reflections on Natural History, Paleontology, and Stephen Jay Gould" (Columbia UP, 2024)

    Bruce Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, "Macroevolutionaries: Reflections on Natural History, Paleontology, and Stephen Jay Gould" (Columbia UP, 2024)
    Jan 19 2025
    One of the twentieth century's great paleontologists and science writers, Stephen Jay Gould was, for Bruce S. Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, also a close colleague and friend. In Macroevolutionaries: Reflections on Natural History, Paleontology, and Stephen Jay Gould (Columbia UP, 2024), they take up the tradition of Gould's acclaimed essays on natural history, offering a series of wry and insightful reflections on the fields to which they have devoted their careers. Lieberman and Eldredge explore the major features of evolution, or "macroevolution," examining key issues in paleontology and their links to popular culture, philosophy, music, and the history of science. They focus on topics such as punctuated equilibria, mass extinctions, and the history of life--with detours including trilobites, Hollywood stuntmen, coywolves, birdwatching, and New Haven-style pizza. Lieberman and Eldredge's essays showcase their deep knowledge of the fossil record and keen appreciation of the arts and culture while touching on different aspects of Gould's life and work. Ultimately, they show why Gould's writings and perspective are still relevant today, following his lead in using the natural history essay to articulate their view of evolutionary theory and its place in contemporary life. At once thought-provoking and entertaining, Macroevolutionaries is for all readers interested in paleontology, evolutionary biology, and Gould's literary and scientific legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    41 mins
  • Mariam Motamedi Fraser, "Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences" (Manchester UP, 2024)

    Mariam Motamedi Fraser, "Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences" (Manchester UP, 2024)
    Jan 15 2025
    Do dogs belong with humans? Scientific accounts of dogs' 'species story,' in which contemporary dog-human relations are naturalised with reference to dogs' evolutionary becoming, suggest that they do. Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Mariam Motamedi Fraser dissects this story. This book offers a rich empirical analysis and critique of the development and consolidation of dogs' species story in science, asking what evidence exists to support it, and what practical consequences, for dogs, follow from it. It explores how this story is woven into broader scientific shifts in understandings of species, animals, and animal behaviours, and how such shifts were informed by and informed transformative political events, including slavery and colonialism, the Second World War and its aftermath, and the emergence of anti-racist movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book pays particular attention to how species-thinking bears on 'race,' racism, and individuals. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • David Strayer, "Beyond the Sea: The Hidden Life in Lakes, Streams, and Wetlands" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)

    David Strayer, "Beyond the Sea: The Hidden Life in Lakes, Streams, and Wetlands" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)
    Jan 12 2025
    Beyond the Sea: The Hidden Life in Lakes, Streams, and Wetlands (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024) is an exciting foray into Earth's inland waters, the remarkable species they contain, and the conservation challenges of protecting them. In Beyond the Sea, he introduces readers to the world's most remarkable and varied inland waters, including massive lakes that fill only once a century, groundwaters miles beneath our feet that host unique microbes, volcanic lakes more corrosive than battery acid, and catastrophic floods that carry ten times more water than the Amazon River. Strayer also shares stories of the myriad fascinating species supported by these crucial ecosystems, featuring mussels that seduce fish, tiny tardigrades that cheat death, animals that photosynthesize, and plants that eat meat. Because humans have used—and abused—inland waters so intensively Strayer advocates for specific solutions that can restore and sustain these water ecosystems. Dr. David Strayer is a freshwater ecologist specializing in freshwater mussel ecology. In addition to his most recent publication Beyond the Sea; The Hidden life in Lakes, Streams and Rivers, he has authored a number of books and over 200 research papers. He is also the co-editor of Fundamentals of Ecosystem Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    36 mins
  • Cordelia Fine, "Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society" (Norton, 2018)

    Cordelia Fine, "Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society" (Norton, 2018)
    Jan 11 2025
    Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in human development. According to this overly familiar story, differences between the sexes are shaped by past evolutionary pressures―women are more cautious and parenting-focused, while men seek status to attract more mates. In each succeeding generation, sex hormones and male and female brains are thought to continue to reinforce these unbreachable distinctions, making for entrenched inequalities in modern society. In Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society (Norton, 2018), psychologist Cordelia Fine wittily explains why past and present sex roles are only serving suggestions for the future, revealing a much more dynamic situation through an entertaining and well-documented exploration of the latest research that draws on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy. She uses stories from daily life, scientific research, and common sense to break through the din of cultural assumptions. Testosterone, for instance, is not the potent hormonal essence of masculinity; the presumed, built-in preferences of each sex, from toys to financial risk taking, are turned on their heads. Moving beyond the old “nature versus nurture” debates, Testosterone Rex disproves ingrained myths and calls for a more equal society based on both sexes’ full, human potential. Cordelia Fine is a Canadian-born British philosopher of science, psychologist, and writer. She is a full professor in the History and Philosophy of Science programme at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Brandon Keim, "Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World" (Norton, 2024)

    Brandon Keim, "Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World" (Norton, 2024)
    Jan 1 2025
    What does the science of animal intelligence mean for how we understand and live with the wild creatures around us? Honeybees deliberate democratically. Rats reflect on the past. Snakes have friends. In recent decades, our understanding of animal cognition has exploded, making it indisputably clear that the cities and landscapes around us are filled with thinking, feeling individuals besides ourselves. But the way we relate to wild animals has yet to catch up. In Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World (W.W. Norton, 2024), acclaimed science journalist Brandon Keim asks: what would it mean to take the minds of other animals seriously? In this wide-ranging, wonder-filled exploration of animals’ inner lives, Keim takes us into courtrooms and wildlife hospitals, under backyard decks and into deserts, to meet anew the wild creatures who populate our communities and the philosophers, rogue pest controllers, ecologists, wildlife doctors, and others who are reimagining our relationships to them. If bats trade favors and groups of swans vote to take off by honking, should we then see them as fellow persons—even members of society? When we come to understand the depths of their pleasures and pains, the richness of their family lives and their histories, what do we owe so-called pests and predators, or animals who are sick or injured? Can thinking of nonhumans as our neighbors help chart a course to a kinder, gentler planet? As Keim suggests, the answers to these questions are central to how we understand not only the rest of the living world, but ourselves. A beguiling invitation to discover an expanded sense of community and kinship beyond our own species, Meet the Neighbors opens our eyes to the world of vibrant intelligence just outside our doors. Brandon Keim is an independent journalist specializing in animals, nature, and science. His work appears regularly in the New York Times, Atlantic, Nautilus, National Geographic, and elsewhere. Kyle Johannsen is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 37 mins
  • Charles Foster, "Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness" (Metropolitan Books, 2021)

    Charles Foster, "Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness" (Metropolitan Books, 2021)
    Dec 29 2024
    How did humans come to be who we are? In his marvelous, eccentric, and widely lauded book Being a Beast, legal scholar, veterinary surgeon, and naturalist extraordinaire Charles Foster set out to understand the consciousness of animal species by living as a badger, otter, fox, deer, and swift. Now, he inhabits three crucial periods of human development to understand the consciousness of perhaps the strangest animal of all—the human being. To experience the Upper Paleolithic era—a turning point when humans became behaviorally modern, painting caves and telling stories, Foster learns what it feels like to be a Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherer by living in makeshift shelters without amenities in the rural woods of England. He tests his five impoverished senses to forage for berries and roadkill and he undertakes shamanic journeys to explore the connection of wakeful dreaming to religion. For the Neolithic period, when humans stayed in one place and domesticated plants and animals, forever altering our connection to the natural world, he moves to a reconstructed Neolithic settlement. Finally, to explore the Enlightenment—the age of reason and the end of the soul—Foster inspects Oxford colleges, dissecting rooms, cafes, and art galleries. He finds his world and himself bizarre and disembodied, and he rues the atrophy of our senses, the cause for much of what ails us. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, natural history, agriculture, medical law and ethics, Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness (Metropolitan Books, 2021) is one man’s audacious attempt to feel a connection with 45,000 years of human history. This glorious, fiercely imaginative journey from our origins to a possible future ultimately shows how we might best live on earth—and thrive. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at galina.limorenko@epfl.ch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 2 mins