Welcome to Episode 97! Today we'll be exploring the evolution of the animal lineage, starting way back over a billion years ago with the ancesetral Opisthokonta. We'll look at how the earliest multicellular creatures formed the first animals, and the first lineages of animals that really took off and successfully colonized the worlds oceans, with descendents still swimming around to this day.

Episode 97 - Early Metazoan Evolution

Welcome to the Biologic Podcast, an audio exploration of the incredible world of living things.

The journey begins at the dawn of life, almost 4 billion years ago. In this ancient eon, biochemical reactions gave rise to ordered systems (the cell) capable of replication. The key to this replication is the genome, and the DNA itself.

At this point, the journey expands in scope; we will explore the process of evolution, then move through hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history until we come to the modern day, to survey the modern world's biodiversity. Then we'll take a step back to look at the ecological interactions of all this life, and the resulting biomes that define the surface of our planet Earth.

Our journey through the biological realm takes a sudden turn; having learned about life at the grandest scale, we now return to the ground, to look in greater detail at the various organisms that share this world with us. We first explore the physiology & diversity of plants, and then same for the fungi. Moving from flora to fauna, we explore the physiology & diversity of animals, up to and including the human being. 

The path is long and the lessons hard, but for the ever-curious listener, there are many great discoveries and insights to be had in the world of the biological.

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Welcome to Episode 108! Today we'll be exploring the unique and diverse relationships that humans have with the many types of molluscs that share this world with us. They are part of our myths and legends, they are sources of food and medicines, and they've inspired countless technologies. We have a surprisingly close relationship with these most alien-like of Earthly creatures. 

Episode 108 - Humans & Molluscs

Welcome to Episode 107! This is part 2 in a 2-part series on the cephalopods. Today we will explore the evolutionary history of the coleoids, a "recent" branch of cephalopod. We will also examine their alien anatomy, their unusual life cycle, and their shockingly sophisticated intelligence. 

Episode 107 - Cephalopoda II - Coleoidea - The Squid, Cuttlefish, and Octopus

Welcome to Episode 106! This show is part 1 in a 2-part series on the cephalopods. Today we will explore the evolutionary history of the cephalopods, and take a closer look at the physiology and life cycle of the descendants of the strange, basal lineage of nautiloids.

Episode 106 - Cephalopoda I - Nautiloidea - The Nautiluses

Welcome to Episode 105! Today we'll be exploring the wild world of gastropods, including their unique and bizarre physiology, as well as their even more bizarre reproductive strategies. It'll be a thoroughly entertaining and provocative episode, exploring the biology of a quiet, innocuous, and infinitely weird group of invertebrates. 

Episode 105 - Gastropods - Slugs and Snails

Welcome to Episode 104! Todays show will dive into a particularly strange and unusual type of animal life; the bivalves. Despite most bivalves being blind, immobile piles of slimy goo encased between two shell plates, they are remarkably fascinating creatures, with many critically important ecological contributions that help make aquatic habitats more habitable for all kinds of life. 

Episode 97 - Early Metazoan Evolution

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