Where does biological innovation come from? Why do some innovations wait millions of years for their spotlight?Life must constantly innovate for evolution to occur, but many forms of biological innovation often lie dormant, sometimes for millions of year

What makes a pest? Why are some animals revered in one culture and vilified in another? How do our ways of life bring us into conflict versus companionship, and what do these interactions mean for us and them? Rats, squirrels, coyotes, pigeons...often, we

What is inherency? What are the potential flaws with our understanding of biological function?On this episode, we talk with Stuart Newman, professor at New York Medical College. In his recent paper, Inherency and agency in the origin and evolution of bi

What is NEON? What hopes and concerns do we have for large-scale research projects in ecology?On this episode of Big Biology, we talk about the challenges of doingbig biology! The National Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, is a US National Scienc

Big Biology celebrates its 100th episode!Youre only 100 once, and though we hope there will be many more episodes to come, we wanted to celebrate this milestone with something special. A recurring theme from many of our conversations with guests on the

On this episode, we take a break from the regular format to talk with Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher of The Night Science Podcast, a show that explores the creative side of science with guests from across the globe. Itai is a professor in the Department of

What is the infinitesimal model? How has our understanding of complex traits changed recently?On this episode, we talk with Nick Barton, an evolutionary quantitative geneticist at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. Quantitative genetics h

What is mutation bias? How does it affect evolution?In this episode, we talk with Arlin Stoltzfus, a research fellow at the University of Marylands Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research. Arlin studies mutation bias the idea that some typ

What are network motifs, and how and why do they matter to biological networks?On this episode, we talk with Uri Alon, systems biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, about biological networks. In the early 2000s, Uri discovered some of the funda

Why do humans look so different from one another? Why do we have different types of hair and different skin colors? And what do these traits have to do with the concept of race?On this episode, we talk with Tina Lasisi, incoming professor at the Universi