A Breakdown of Beavers

On this show, we’ve been talking about uncertainty from a variety of different angles. We’ve heard how uncertainty can be a spark for creativity and scientific discovery. We’ve discussed how uncertainty can go unseen and make science really difficult. And we’ve explored some of t ... Show More

Science is an iterative process. Progress comes from people coming up with ideas that are sort of right and then new evidence and ideas coming in to update them to become even more correct. Underlying this process is a willingness by scientists to accept that they might be wrong ... Show More

Today’s episode of Uncertain is about the ways that studies can leave us overconfident and how “just-so stories” can make us feel overly certain about results that are still a work in progress. And sometimes studies get misleading results because of random error or weird samples ... Show More

Beavers are incredible creatures and significant ecosystem manipulators, but they’ve also been subject to various written and illustrative inaccuracies. Medieval bestiaries often depict the common beaver as a weird-looking dog that bites off its own testicles when pursued by moun ... Show More

Beavers are incredible creatures and significant ecosystem manipulators, but they’ve also been subject to various written and illustrative inaccuracies. Medieval bestiaries often depict the common beaver as a weird-looking dog that bites off its own testicles when pursued by moun ... Show More

Beavers are incredible creatures and significant ecosystem manipulators, but they’ve also been subject to various written and illustrative inaccuracies. Medieval bestiaries often depict the common beaver as a weird-looking dog that bites off its own testicles when pursued by moun ... Show More

Today, we give a dam about beavers. These busy rodents don’t just chill and go with the flow — it turns out their grabby paws are actually helping hands in the fight against climate change. We dive into how this works with ecologists Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Ben Dittbrenner. Fin ... Show More

The Ealing Beaver Project has found success as two new beaver kits have been born in a park in London after being reintroduced last October. Marnie visits the site to learn more about the benefits they bring - but beavers are just a drop in the river of urban rewilding. We find o ... Show More

<p>Deer in headlights! Alligators in crosswalks! A possum in the oven? If you love wildlife, this is a must-listen to avoid killing critters with your car. Ben Goldfarb wrote the book on road kill and we chat about: wildlife crossings, skunk smells, moose impacts, ocelot facts, w ... Show More

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert chats with wildlife conservation biologist Dr. Joel Berger about the challenges of conservation in a changing world, as well as conflict between mountain goats and bighorn sheep over mineral resources uncovered by a changing clim ... Show More

The desolate Alaskan tundra - a landscape that has literally been frozen solid for thousands of years - is suddenly caving in on itself. Colonizing beavers are engineering new wetlands that thaw the soil, rapidly releasing greenhouse methane into the atmosphere. Beavers can survi ... Show More

Beavers are in fact, very busy. They're builders and solid family members, husbands and wives. Learn all about N America's largest rodent in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.