Mark Williams is a professor of cognitive neuroscience with over 25 years of experience conducting behavioral and brain imaging research. His latest book “The Connected Species: How the Evolution of the Human Brain Can Save the World” explores how humanity’s ability to connect and cooperate has made us a successful species, but is also responsible for many of society’s chronic problems.
Do you want to be more creative? Learn how you can unlock your own natural powers of creativity as Norwegian author and journalist Hilde Østby discusses her latest book “The Key to Creativity: The Science Behind Ideas and How Daydreaming Can Change the World.”
Have you ever wondered what happens when you hit the like button on Facebook or other social media apps? Come take a journey with us into the hidden infrastructure that supports all of our online activities with investigative journalist Guillaume Pitron.
Join us as we delve into the world of technological innovation inspired by nature with award-winning author and science journalist Kristy Hamilton.
Bryn Nelson is a Seattle-based journalist who specializes in scientific, environmental, medical, and travel-related stories. His crappy new book is called “Flush: The Remarkable Science of an Unlikely Treasure” and it’s all about humanity’s relationship to our poop.
Jonathan Silvertown is a professor of evolutionary ecology at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of numerous books on ecology and evolution. His most recent book is called “The Comedy of Error: why evolution made us laugh.”
Simon Prentis is the author of “SPEECH! How Language Made Us Human”, an acclaimed exploration of human history through the lens of language. He is an experienced translator and interpreter who has worked with different cultures and languages in over fifty countries.
Johan Anderberg is a Swedish journalist and writer who has been a regular contributor to a number of Swedish and international media outlets, including Fokus, Sydsvenskan,andTheWall Street Journal. His book “The Herd: how Sweden chose its own path through the worst pandemic in 100 years” will be published in the U.S. this month.
Vincent Ho is an academic gastroenterologist who works as a researcher and senior lecturer at Western Sydney University in Sydney, Australia. He is also a practicing doctor who sees patients with all kinds of gut problems. In his spare time he created a website and YouTube channel called Gut Doctor and is the author of the upcoming book “The Healthy Baby Gut Guide” due out in June of 2022.
Mycologist Keith Seifert discusses his new book “The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi: Exploring the Microscopic World in Our Forests, Homes, and Bodies.”
Fred Pearce is an English author and journalist based in London. Over his 20-year career, he has traveled to 87 countries to write about the environment, science, and development issues. In this episode of The Sciencentric Podcast, he spoke about his upcoming book “A Trillion Trees: Restoring Our Forests by Trusting in Nature.”
Our guest in this episode is Dina Fine Maron, an Investigative Reporter for National Geographic covering Wildlife Crime. Dina was previously a health editor for Scientific American magazine and holds a master’s degree in public health. In short, she knows a lot about wildlife trafficking and public health, and those appear to be two important factors in the origin of COVID.
Our guest in this episode is Rémy Marion — author, photographer, and documentary filmmaker. Rémy is a member of France’s national society of geographers and explorers, and an authority on bears. In particular, brown bears and polar bears, which he has been observing in the wild since the 1980s.
Our guest in this episode is German chemist, journalist, author, TV host and YouTube star Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim. Her first book, “Chemistry for Breakfast: The Amazing Science of Everyday Life,” has recently been translated into English It follows a typical day in Mai’s life, drilling down into the molecules that make it all happen.
In our inaugural episode, we spoke with science and environmental journalist Rachel Nuwer about her book “Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking.” We talked about her process for writing the book, the time she spent with actual wildlife traffickers, and what can be done to stop the illegal […]
Zach Elliott is an architecture student, author, and creator of the YouTube channel “The Paradox Institute.” In this episode, we talk about how he got interested in the topic of sex and gender as a non-scientist, how intersex conditions are misused in discussions of transgender rights, his step-by-step guide for […]
In this episode, we’re speaking to award-winning French journalist and documentary filmmaker Guillaume Pitron. For the last decade or so, Guillaume has been following the global trade in rare earth metals. There are around 30 of these metals and they can be found in virtually all of our electronic devices […]
George Zaidan is the executive producer for the American Chemical Society and a former co-host of CNBC’s “Make Me a Millionaire Inventor.” Most recently, he authored the book, “Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and On Us”.
In this episode, we speak with Carin Bondar, a biologist, writer, TV host, and public speaker. Carin is probably best-known for covering the topic at the forefront of everyone’s mind: sex. In various forms, she has documented all the strange and fascinating ways that animals approach enterprise reproduction–including us.
Anthony David is Director of the University of College London Institute of Mental Health. For twenty-eight years he was a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Academy of Medical Sciences. His […]
Brian D. Earp is a cross-disciplinary academic whose work draws on philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, history of science and medicine, and ethics. He is the Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and Research Fellow in the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at […]
Mark Changizi is an evolutionary theorist, author, and entrepreneur. His work focuses on the ultimate foundations underlying why we think, feel and see as we do. He has made important discoveries such as why we see in color, why we see illusions, why we have forward-facing eyes, why the brain […]
David A. Steen is a wildlife biologist who specializes in snakes and other “creepie crawlies.” He is the author of the award-winning science blog Living Alongside Wildlife where he writes about natural history, ecology, and his own research. He’s also been called the “best biologist on Twitter”, using his presence […]
A little over a week ago, Google announced they had achieved something called “quantum supremacy”, a powerful new way of computing that makes use of quantum principles. Google claims it’s quantum processor can tackle a really difficult computational problem in about two and a half minutes–a task that would take […]
There is a growing body of scientific literature about video games. Not how their made, but how they impact our brains and our lives. Researchers are looking at questions like: do violent video games make us more violent in real life? Can games be addictive? Or, how much time sitting […]
We may marvel at the precision and efficiency of computers, wishing our brains operated in much the same way. We’d remember everything perfectly, we’d never feel bored or get distracted, we’d have laser-like focus, we’d be on all the time…. But not so fast, says our guest, neuroscientist Henning Beck. […]
In this episode, we’re talking about the most exciting thing to happen in biology in the last ten years, the development of the CRISPR-CAS9 gene-editing system, more commonly known as CRISPR. It’s a molecular tool that allows scientists to make precise changes to DNA, even within living cells. In the […]
Daniel Pauly is a professor of marine biology at the University of British Columbia and principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project, which seeks to understand the impact that fisheries have on the world’s oceans. His new book, “Vanishing Fish: Shifting Baselines and the Future of Global Fisheries”, is […]
The gut microbiome is the collection of microbes living in our digestive tract and concentrated in the large intestine. Science is revealing that a healthy microbiome has a number of important benefits related to digestion, weight loss, the immune system and even our mood. What we eat has big impact on the health of our gut microbes.
One of the most polarizing political issues of the day is President Trump’s proposed border wall. An Executive Order he signed in 2017 calls for a “contiguous, physical wall or other…impassable…barrier” along the entire U.S. Mexico border. The idea being that an unbroken, impassable wall would help deter illegal immigration […]
Who can forget the classic 1993 movie Jurassic Park? In that film, scientists extracted dino DNA from mosquitoes trapped in amber fossils and used it to bring back all kinds terrifying creatures–from the mighty T-rex to overgrown velociraptors. Fast forward to 2019 and we’ve yet to create dinosaurs, or any […]
About six years ago, a wildlife biologist noticed a pack of mysterious creatures living on Galveston Island, a barrier island off the Gulf Coast of Texas. The creatures looked an awful lot like coyotes, but also red wolves, an ancient coyote-wolf hybrid that had been extinct in the wild for […]
As adults, our odds of dying doubles about every eight years. However, a high-profile paper published in Science this summer seems to tell a different story; past age 80 those increasing odds slow down and almost completely level off past 100, In this episode, we speak with Saul Newman, a […]
Is the broiler chicken an icon of the anthropocene — an era when humans are are radically altering the biology and geology of the planet? A new paper out of the UK says so and we take a look at the authors’ argument.
Last week a scientist in China made the shocking announcement that he had used the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to create HIV-resistant babies. Here’s what we know so far and why it’s a problem. Check out the audio-only version on iTunes or Soundcloud.