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 un ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Today
Sarah Hoiland, "Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club" (Temple UP, 2025)
A righteous sister identifies herself as a biker. She might wrench, or maintain, her own bike, and she prefers to ride with other righteous sisters. Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club (Temple UP, 2025) is Dr. Sarah Hoiland’s insightful ... Show More
44m 53s
Nov 19
Christina Jerne, "Opposition by Imitation: The Economics of Italian Anti-Mafia Activism" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
For more than 150 years, Italy has been home to a resilient and evolving resistance against the pervasive influence of mafias. While these criminal organizations are renowned for their vast international business enterprises, the collective actions taken to oppose them are less k ... Show More
56m 40s
Dec 2024
Charles Foster, "Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness" (Metropolitan Books, 2021)
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, de ... Show More
59m 18s
Oct 31
Jane G. Goldberg, "Wired for Why: How We Think, Feel, and Make Meaning" (2025)
WIRED FOR WHY: How We Think, Feel and Make Meaning. (Self-Published 2025) spans eighteen chapters exploring everything from how we manage to stay alive against all odds, to why language separates us from other species, to whether death might be a metaphor. It's a journey through ... Show More
1h 3m
Oct 2023
Dan Dennett Looks Back on His Career
<p>Get tickets for our event: <a href= "https://www.skeptic.com/event" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">skeptic.com/event</a></p> <p>Daniel Dennett, preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist, has spent his career considering the thorniest, most fundamental mysteries of the mi ... Show More
1h 28m
Sep 2024
Whitney Barlow Robles, "Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History" (Yale UP, 2023)
Dive into the world of animals with Whitney Barlow Robles in her captivating new book, Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History (Yale UP, 2023). Can corals truly build worlds? Do rattlesnakes possess a mystical charm? What secrets do raccoons hold? These questions reflec ... Show More
52m 3s
Dec 2024
Renée Bergland, "Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for poets, priests, and schoolgirls. The world began to change in the 1830s, while Darwin was exploring the Pacific aboard the Beagle a ... Show More
1h 3m
Sep 1
The Life Scientific: Sir Magdi Yacoub
What does it take to earn the nickname, ‘The Leonardo da Vinci of heart surgery’?That's the moniker given to today's guest - a man who pioneered high-profile and often controversial procedures, but also helped drive huge medical progress; carrying out around 2,000 heart transplan ... Show More
26m 29s
Aug 24
Christopher Kemp, "Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation" (Norton, 2022)
Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have―older than language. In Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation (Norton, 2022), Christopher Kemp embarks on a jour ... Show More
50m 51s
Sep 2024
The Road to Singularity: Ben Goertzel on AGI and The Fate of Humanity
<p>Dr. Ben Goertzel is a multidisciplinary scientist, entrepreneur, and author, originally from Brazil. He currently resides on an island near Seattle after living in Hong Kong. He leads prominent AI organizations like the SingularityNET Foundation, OpenCog Foundation, and the AG ... Show More
2h 25m
Nov 2019
John Edmonstone the Former Slave who Taught Darwin
John Edmonstone was born into slavery in the former Dutch colony of Demerara in the late 1700s but died a free man in Scotland having taught one of the greatest men in the history of science, Charles Darwin, the skill of taxidermy. We speak to Dr Angelina Osborne, independent res ... Show More
38m 1s
Aug 24
Nick Spencer, "The Landscapes of Science and Religion: What Are We Disagreeing About?" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The relationship between science and religion has long been a heated debate and is becoming an ever more popular topic. The scientific capacity to manipulate and change humans and their environment through genetic engineering, life extension, and AI is going to take a huge leap f ... Show More
38m 48s