Showing results for "The Story" in Biological Sciences

In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E. Lieberman—chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a leader in the field—gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years, even as it shows how the increasing...

A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, heard of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators - men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through eight-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave forty feet underground. It worked.

This is the story of how your life shapes your brain and how your brain shapes your life. Locked in the silence and darkness of your skull, the brain fashions the rich narratives of your reality and your identity. Join renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman for a journey into the questions at the heart of our existence. What is reality? Who are 'you'? How do you make decisions? Why does your brain need other people? How is technology poised to change what it means to be human?

California’s coast redwoods are Earth's tallest living beings, some reaching more than 350 feet high. They can also live for more than 2,000 years, outlasting entire civilizations. In this episode, we spend an evening with an ancient tree. Below ground, its roots tap into a forest-wide network; above ground, its branches harbor life in its many forms.

At the southernmost tip of South Africa, where fresh and salt water collide, a tiny seahorse appears to levitate. Seahorses are the ocean’s slowest swimmers, but they have one of the world’s fastest muscle contractions, using it to suction up their prey. In this episode, we meander through eelgrass with a male Knysna seahorse as he twines tails with his partner, changes color to match the sand, and even gives birth to a brood of tiny seahorses.

North Ronaldsay sheep have been roaming the shores of a Scottish isle for centuries. They outnumber people there by more than twenty to one. While most sheep graze in fields, the North Ronaldsay are a breed apart: they forage seaweed on the rocky beach. In this episode, we follow a lamb as she crosses the island’s ancient stone dyke and sees the ocean for the first time.

Red pandas have thick bushy ringed tails like raccoons, but they aren’t related to panda bears or raccoons—in fact, they have no close relatives anywhere on Earth. In this episode, we wander the Himalayas with a red panda and her cubs as they munch on bamboo, practice walking in the treetops, and settle in to nap together as the first snowfall of the year covers their forest home.

Follow the trails of hunters - the original storytellers - as they interpret signs, examine tracks, and chase and catch their prey (or fail to). Listeners can curl up with the best authentic hunting fiction and non-fiction, bringing the great Mount Kenya and the prairies of the American Bison into your living room. From Theodore Roosevelt and Gene Hill to Rick Bass and Charles Dickens, remember classic hunting tales and discover new stories of hunters’ luck, camaraderie, and use of smarts on the trail.

Platypuses are mammals unlike any other on earth. They lay eggs, ooze milk through their skin, and can sense electricity. In this episode, we travel with a platypus as he moves through his nightly routine on the island of Tasmania. He uses electroreceptors to hunt underwater and does a synchronized swimming courtship ritual with his mate, who then digs a burrow 40 feet deep into the riverbank to nest.

In the misty Puerto Rican El Yunque rainforest, coquí frogs no larger than your thumb fill the air with their distinctive two-note song: “co-quí, co-quí.” They alternate routines—one night singing to attract potential mates, the next hunting to fuel up for tomorrow’s performance. In this episode, we follow a singer and a hunter amid the vibrant nighttime chorus.

Sloths are the slowest mammals on earth. They can hardly see. They live in rainforests among jaguars, pumas, and countless other predators. Yet they survive. And they do it by being so incredibly slow, and living a life covered in algae. In this episode, we hang with a sloth in the jungle of Costa Rica as he spends a month digesting one single leaf, and we see the symbiosis and collaboration that surrounds him.

“A practical, heartfelt manual for anyone who needs to change minds and actions. Lisa Cron shares the art of practical empathy with leaders who care enough to make a difference.”—Seth Godin, author of The Practice A step-by-step guide to using the brain’s hardwired need for story to...

Fennec foxes’ ears can be up to half as long as their bodies. They use them to track movement across the Sahara Desert, including under the sand. In this episode, we follow a fox as he meanders home to his family through the sand dunes as they slowly shift with the wind.

Dung beetles might sound dirty, but the ancient Egyptians believed their god took the form of a dung beetle to roll the morning sun across the sky every day. In this episode, we roll with dung beetles around the world as they push their precious dung—often in balls many times larger than they are—over Florida pastures, Armenian highlands, and the vast South African savanna.

Elephants are the largest land animals in the world. They are also intensely social and have advanced long-term memories. In this episode, a parade of Asian elephants makes its way through the Sri Lankan forest to a lake for drinks and mud baths, stopping periodically for group naps. The female leading the parade uses infrasonic rumbles—inaudible to humans, but traveling as far as two miles along the surface of the Earth as seismic waves—to invite friends and family around the forest to join her at the reservoir.

Brown bears lead deeply cyclical lives. They need to gain sometimes hundreds of pounds during the warmer months to prepare for winter hibernation, a lifestyle that brings them into frequent contact with many other species’ cycles. In this episode, we meander through the Alaska peninsula with a bear and her cubs as she teaches them to hunt salmon at the falls, dig for clams along the coastal mudflats, and use the regional rubbing tree.

How can a blind person learn to see with her tongue or a deaf person learn to hear with his skin? What does a baby born without a nose tell us about our sensory machinery? Might we someday control a robot with our thoughts? And what does any of this have to do with why we dream? The answers to these questions are not right in front of our eyes; they're right behind our eyes. This book is not simply about what the brain is but what it does. Covering decades of research to the present day, Livewired also presents new findings from Eagleman's own research.

THE TIMES SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR A Sunday Times Bestseller 'Thrilling . . . the best book on the subject written for the general reader since the 1980s.' The Sunday Times 66 million years ago the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the earth. Today, Dr. Steve Brusatte, one of the leading...

The Origin Story: Eko-PodcastBrought to you by Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad & EkoGalaxy​- in collaboration with Roundglass SustainIn this 5-part ​series – we ​l​isten to giants in the field, who have walked the uncharted path and done right by ​t​he beautiful biodiversity of our shared planet.How did they come to be? What were their early connections with the natural world? And what are some of the lessons for the rest of us? We bring you... The Origin Story.This series is created in the hope that we live in, and leave, a planet –​ that is more just, more joyful & more diverse ...

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, as a friend and fellow author has written of him, was “youth incarnate,” and there is probably nothing that he wrote of which a boy would not some day come to feel the appeal. But there are certain of his stories that go with especial directness to a boy’s heart and sympathies and make for him quite unforgettable literature. A few of these were made some years ago into a volume, “Stories for Boys,” and found a large and enthusiastic special public in addition to Davis’s general readers; and the present collection from stories more recently published is issued...