From Cells to Us…How!? | The Biology of Life Explained
From Cells to Us…How!? | The Story of Life and Biology is a storytelling biology podcast for people who are curious about science—even if they never thought of themselves as “science people.”
We start at the origin of life and move forward through evolution and the history of biology, unpacking how single cells became everything from bacteria to humans. Along the way, we explore the big questions: How did life begin? How did it change? And how did we figure it out?
Expect 90s references, pop culture callbacks, and memorable analogies that make complex biology click.
No textbooks. No prerequisites. Just curiosity, storytelling, and a sense of humor.
Hosted by Jackie Mullins—genetics researcher, phlebotomist, biomedical engineer, and lifelong biology enthusiast who believes science deserves better storytelling.
Episodes
12 episodes
EP 12 - From one to many (multicellularity)
For three billion years, life went solo.Then one day, some cells forgot to separate after dividing — and that tiny accident changed the history of Earth.In Episode 12 of From Cells to Us… How?!, we explore the rise of mul...
Ep 11 - Sexual Reproduction
Sex Didn’t Evolve to Make BabiesWhat if I told you sex didn’t evolve to reproduce?A billion years ago, single-celled organisms were already doing something that looks a lot like sex — and it had nothing to do with babies.No...
Ep 10 - Inside the cell city
Episode 10: Inside the Cell City 🧬What if your cells weren’t just blobs… but fully functioning cities?In this episode, we take a tour inside the eukaryotic cell — where proteins are built, packaged, shipped, and even recycl...
Ep 9 - The cell that ate the sun (photosynthesis)
A cell eats another cell… again.But this time? It doesn’t just get energy — it gets the ability to make food from sunlight.In this episode, we dive into chloroplasts, photosynthesis, and the moment life figured out how to turn sun...
Ep 8 - Rise of the Eukaryote
Episode 8: The Rise of Eukaryotes — The Cell That Changed Everything | The Mitochondria and the Nucleus How did life become complex?In this episode, we explore how eukaryotic cells evolved from simple prokaryotes throu...
Ep 7 - The Great Oxygenation Event
Oxygen — the thing keeping you alive right now — was once a toxic waste product that triggered the first mass extinction in Earth's history. In this episode we're talking about the Great Oxygenation Event: the day cyanobacteria accidentally poi...
Ep 6 - The Great Split
LUCA had kids. And like all kids, they went their separate ways. Today we're covering the first great split in the tree of life - when LUCA's descendants branched into Bacteria and Archaea. Same genetic code, completely different everythi...
Ep 5 - The Genetic Code - Part 2
Life learned to speak in Episode 4. Now it’s time to speak clearly. Tina gets her anticodon. Rick becomes Darth Vader. The wobble gives evolution room to experiment. And LUCA emerges - the ancestor of all life on Earth.
Ep 4 - The Genetic Code - Part 1
How did life go from random chaos to organized machinery? Three-letter words. In this episode, we meet the RNA family - Mary, Rick, and Tina - and discover how they invented the genetic code. The same code you, me, E. coli, and blue whales all ...
Ep 1 - The First Cell
How did life begin from non-life?In this episode of From Cells to Us… How!?, we go all the way back—before biology had a name—to explore how chemistry on early Earth may have produced the first living systems.We talk ligh...