The Grand Scheme of Things
What Science can tell us about our place in the universe. In addition to being educational, I have been told that it is a great way to help you go to sleep. Please feel free to use it for either purpose and spread the word. Some great banjo playing too.
Episodes
12 episodes
Episode 12- Food Aversions and Prehistoric Drug Use
In this episode I talk about the age old battle between animals that want to eat plants and plants that don't want to be eaten. One of the defenses that plants use is to create toxins that poison the animals. This is why so many plants are a so...
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Episode 12
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31:05
Episode 11 - A Short History of You: The Paleolithic Renaissance, Language and Agriculture
In this episode I discuss the history of tool making and artistic expression in hominin species over the last 2.5 million years which culminated in the Paleolithic Renaissance 50.000 years ago. I suggest that this advancement was a result of th...
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Season 1
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Episode 11
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31:59
Eposode 10 - A Short History of You: Migrations, Tools and Art
In this episode I begin to explore what makes us different from all other animals; how we developed language and abstract thought, art and creativity. We look at the sudden appearance of complex tools and sophisticated art 40 to 50 thousand yea...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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35:33
Episode 9 - A Short History of You: Mammals to Modern Humans
Here we trace the evolution of humans from mammals to modern humans. The discussion covers the extinction of the dinosaurs and how mammals took over their environmental niches; the emergence of primates from the pro simians to monkeys, ap...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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31:32
Episode 8 - A Short History of You: Single Cell to Mammal
In this episode I touch on the highlights of your development from a single celled organism to becoming a mammal including the invention of sex, becoming a multicelled organism, moving out of the ocean to wetlands then dry land, the invention o...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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25:50
Episode 7 - A Short History of You: Genes to Proteins
In this episode we examine not only how DNA can replicate itself, but how genes build bodies and run them. DNA is simply a long chain of molecules called nucleotides.These chains are a code for the construction of proteins that are lin...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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40:34
Episode 6 - A Short History of You: From Big Bang to Cells
In this episode I describe the events that happened from the big bang to the advent of cells. Hear about how subatomic particles formed hydrogen atoms and how these atoms were transformed into the elements inside of stars. Find out how these el...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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31:58
Episode 4 - Free Will: History and Philosophy
Do we really have Freedom to choose? Here I look at the origins of the belief in Free Will and why It Just may be an illusion.
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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27:20
Episode 3 - Past, Present and Future: The stubbornly Persistent Illusion
Is time real and universal, or is it just an illusion? Newton Vs. Einstein and other hot topics Including the Great Second Law of Thermodynamics.
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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37:24
Episode 2 - Emergence: How everything in the universe is connected
In this episode I will tell you about how and why Science is organized into different Disciplines and how the knowledge of all the different Scientific disciplines is related by the phenomenon of emergence. We will see why the whole is mo...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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31:01
Episode 1 - The Nature of Science: How it is different from other ways of knowing
In the first episode I introduce you this series of podcasts by explaining what Science is and how to distinguish it from other ways of understanding the world. I talk about whether the universe obeys natural laws, and discuss whether anything ...
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Season 1
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Episode 1
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25:35
