How did life originate on Earth? Why is it that eukaryotes but not bacteria or archaea evolved large size and complicated body forms? How likely is that life has arisen independently elsewhere in the universe?

On this episode, we talk with Nick Lane, a biochemist and professor at University College London, about his 2015 book The Vital Question. Nick argues that protolife arose in alkaline hydrothermal vents deep in the early Earth’s oceans. The key early event was the evolution of metabolism powered by proton gradients. In other words, metabolism came first, and all of the rest of traits we think of as universal to life -- DNA, RNA, proteins, transcription, and translation -- came later. He also invokes an energetic perspective on the origin of eukaryotes, arguing that the acquisition of mitochondria distributed energy production through the cell volume, provided vastly more energy per gene, and allowed the dramatic expansion of eukaryotic genomes that in turn support the astonishing diversity of eukaryotic forms we see today.

This episode was originally aired in October 2020.

How and when did humans domesticate the horse? How did horses shape our language, culture, and history?

On this episode, we talk with Dr. Ludovic Orlando, a research director for the French National Center for Scientific Research and founding director of the Centre for Anthropobiology & Genomics of Toulouse. Ludovic is also the author of the new book Hor…

How do animals use medication and can humans learn from them? What are the evolutionary consequences of animal self-medication?

In this episode, we talk with Jaap de Roode, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Biology at Emory University and author of the book Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves. Jaap’s research on monar…

What impact has the Trump administration had on biology and the scientific community? How do scientists study genomic adaptation and vulnerability?

On this episode we talk with Dr. Katie Lotterhos, Associate Professor in the Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences at Northeastern University. Katie is also the Secretary for the American Society of Naturalists, and she helped to coordinate and implement a survey of scientists to understand the impacts of the Trump administration’s policies on ecology, evolution, marine science and environmental science. In the first half of the episode, we talk with Katie about carrying out this survey, discuss some of the main themes of the results, and how the results can be used in the future. Then, we talk about Katie’s research where she uses oysters as a study system to understand the genomic basis of local adaptation and genomic vulnerability of populations to environmental change.

Cover art by Brianna Longo.

What’s the value of risk-taking in research? How is studying the mechanisms of transgenerational inheritance in C. elegans unorthodox and insightful? How can AI help improve aspects of biology, namely the peer review process?

In this episode, we talk with Oded Rechavi, professor in the Faculty of Life Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel …

How do non-adaptive processes shape biological diversity and complexity? What is effective population size and what important role does it play in evolution?

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Dr Mike Lynch, Regents Professor and the Director of the Biodesign Center for Mechanisms of Evolution at Arizona State University. We talk with Mike abou…

Where, when, and how did Homo sapiens appear? What do we know about the complex set of ancestral hominins that preceded us? How recently did other hominin lineages live and what happened to them?

On this episode, we talk with Kate Wong, a senior editor at Scientific American, about her article, The Origin of Us. Our understanding of hominin evolution over the past several million years has been transformed by exciting new fossil finds and new DNA sequence data. We talk with Kate about the biggest news, the luxuriant evolutionary bush from which our ancestors emerged in Africa, and her favorite fossil species.

Find more articles from Kate here: Stories by Kate Wong

Cover Art by Brianna Longo

What can we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how do we apply that knowledge moving forward?

On this special episode of Big Biology, we’re bringing you the highlights from a conference called “Covid Conversations,” which was hosted at the University of South Florida last December. The event brought together scientists, public health experts, medical doctors, historians, students, philosophers, and community leaders—for one big, open conversation about COVID-19. The episode shares the different perspectives these speakers had on the virus, the pandemic response, and our future preparedness to disease.

This episode is hosted by Caroline Merriman, a Big Biology intern and a research fellow with the Association of Public Health Laboratories program, and Kailey McCain, a PhD student in Marty’s lab at USF and a former Big Biology intern.

Cover art by Keating Shahmehri

How can grad students advocate for science policy? How can science communication make research more accessible and inclusive?

On this episode of Big Biology, we bring back our “Student Spotlight” segment. We talk with JP Flores, a PhD student studying bioinformatics and computational biology at UNC Chapel Hill. JP does more than just research, he is also deeply engaged in science communication and hosts the award-winning podcast From where does it STEM? He has also worked in science policy as an intern at the NIH and is part of the Science Policy and Advocacy Group at UNC. Earlier this year, JP helped to organize the Stand Up for Science 2025 protest and as a result of the movement, co-founded the non-profit Science for Good.

What role does media play in conservation efforts and inspiring future generations of scientists? How can science communication make scientific knowledge accessible to the public, especially for communities underrepresented in science?

On this episode, we talk with Dr Rae Wynn-Grant a researcher at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management …