The Univi Podcast

The polar bear, king of the Arctic, is one of the world's most recognizable animals. Images of the majestic beasts roaming across the ice cap, plunging into frigid waters, and playing with furry cubs have come to symbolize the beauty and grandeur of the Arctic. .Through informative and engaging language, Derocher carefully explains the sea ice ecosystem that is essential to the survival of polar bears. He addresses the threat of global warming to the Arctic-home to polar bears for tens of thousands of years-and describes in impressive detail their feeding habits, distribution, den ecology, and reproduction.

Dr. David Atheide is an author and sociologist, Emeritus Professor at Arizona State University. He deals with a variety of issues, however has recently turned his attention to fear and the media, more appropriately how media can use fear to manipulate a population and sell products or services.

Patrick Dixon is the researcher and author of the paper 'The Differenting Personal and Tactical Dimensions of Head Coaches in the NFL: Why is Bill Belichick Successful when others are not?

Belichick is of course the coach of the New England Patriots – an American football team that seems to have conquered the System of American Football – loved or despised the fact of the matter is Belichick has the most Super Bowl wins of all time. So for this episode deep dive into American Football, or Gridiron as we call it here down under and the statistical and probable anomalies of Bill Belichicks coaching career with the New England Patriots.

The paper is available for download here: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2574&context=cmc_theses

Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts heads the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program and holds the Peter Buck Chair in Human Origins at the National Museum of Natural History. Since joining the Smithsonian in 1985, Rick has dedicated his research to piecing together the record of Earth’s environmental change and human adaptation.

His ideas on how human evolution responded to environmental instability have stimulated wide attention and new research in several scientific fields. Rick has developed international collaborations among scientists interested in the ecological aspects of human evolution. He leads excavations at early human sites in the East African Rift Valley, including the famous handaxe site of Olorgesailie, Kenya, and Kanam near Lake Victoria, Kenya. Rick also leads the team that recovered the first long sediment core drilled from an early human site in East Africa; the core preserves a high-resolution archive of environmental dynamics over the past 1 million years.
Rick has also co-directed projects in southern and northern China that compare evidence of early human behavior and environments from East Africa to East Asia. He received his Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard University in 1982, after which he taught anthropology at Yale University and served as curator of physical anthropology at the Yale Peabody Museum.

Rick is curator of the Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and of the traveling exhibition “Exploring Human Origins”, leading a Smithsonian team touring the U.S. with the exhibition. Rick authored the exhibition companion book, What Does It Mean To Be Human? When he’s not time-traveling in the East African Rift Valley and elsewhere, Rick enjoys singing, Halloween, and the Phillies.

Articles by Rick: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/author/rick-potts/


Potts, R., Sloan, C., 2010. What Does It Mean To Be Human? National Geographic, Washington, DC.

Petraglia, M., Potts, R., 2004. The Old World Paleolithic and the Development of a National Collection. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology No. 48, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC (148 pages).

Potts, R., 1996. Humanity's Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability. William Morrow & Co., New York, 325pp.

Behrensmeyer, A.K., J. Damuth, W. DiMichele, R. Potts, H. Sues, and S. Wing (Eds.), 1992. Terrestrial Ecosystems Through Time. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 568pp.


Potts, R., 1998. Early Hominid Activities at Olduvai. Aldine de Gruyter, New York, 396pp. Republished in 2010 by Transaction Publishers. https://goo.gl/6yQ5Mp

Dr Baer is the Director of the Centre for Integrative Bee Research (CIBER) at the University of Western Australia. CIBER is the first large-scale organisation focused on honey bee research in Australia. It conducts research into an array of bee-related issues, including honey bee reproduction, immunity, ecology and how best to protect bees from future decline.

http://www.ciber.science.uwa.edu.au/

The Tasmanian Devil -A rare creature with a mytically ferocious temper made famous through the animated series Looney Tunes that is unfortunately under threat from a rare type of cancer eating through the tiny and remote population still in existence.

Dr. Rodrigo Hamede is a Wildlife Ecologist specializing in Infections Diseases who is tackling this form of virilant cancer known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease

http://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/zoology/rodrigo-hamede

Ever wondered about those mysterious creatures of the deep?! Dr. Tracey Sutton from Nova Southeastern University's research focuses on the ecology of marine systems, particularly those of the open ocean , with emphasis on the fauna and ecology of the deep-pelagic zone by combining observational, organismal and theoretical approaches to help understand Earth’s largest, but least known ecosystems.