The home of the Biopedia podcast
A bit of a silly topic today. What is the average life expectancy of hobbits in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium? Along the way, we will learn something about current and historic human life expectancy.
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TBA
Sound Effect by freesound_community from Pixabay
As requested by listener GT, we are going to talk all about moles today! Join us for the evolutionary history of the Talpidae family, English prophecies about moles, how much a mole head is worth in 2026 money according to the 1533 Vermin Act, and a lot of Red List data.
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Last week we introduced some discussion on bee/pollinator declines. This week, we will discuss a perspective by Jaboury Ghazoul- a professor at ETH Zurich- who argued in a 2005 paper that labelling a pollinator decline crisis was, in fact, premature.
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Once again adapting a blog post into an episode, we are going to be examining a paper from 2016 which gives a potential new perspective on bee/pollinator declines. It argues that the contribution of non-bee pollinators to pollination services might be greater than we think.
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TBA
There is a number we use in genetics to represent how inbred a particular individual- e.g.: Charles II of Spain, Ptolemy XIII or Danaerys Targaryen- is. On today's episode, thanks to guidance from a blog post I found very helpful on the subject, we are going to take you through how this number is calculated for some simpler cases.
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The term phylogenetic tree often gets bandied about, but how exactly do you construct one? Using three exemplar snake species and the differences in amino acid sequences in a common protein, let's build one together and explore how the process works.
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We're going to be adapting an old Biopedia blog post today and examining how biofilms might be relevant in the generation of Alzheimer's.
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Happy seventh Darwin Day! Today on the podcast, we are going to examine the family tree of Charles Robert Darwin. Let's explore more than ten generations of Darwins, starting all the way back in the 16th century with William Darwin Sr.
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I have become a father! My firstborn daughter is here and is of course wonderful. However, the fact of her existence means that there may be some disruption to the podcast schedule. Thank you for your understanding!
As part of a triple feature with After Alexander and Autocrat, we will be discussing the olive tree today. Let's explore the biology and ecology of a tree species that is central to a myth covered on Autocrat, in a city which After Alexander explores the history of…
Sources for this episode:
TBA