Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:07 — 15.0MB) | Embed
The urge to merge: hives, colonies and multicellular life When does cooperation become identity? How and why did single celled life, which was doing just fine, end up forming plants and animals made up of trillions of cells? By taking a look at birds, army ants, coral reefs and giant jellyfish, we try to understand …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:15 — 16.9MB) | Embed
The molecular clown car: DNA and your cells If your cell’s nucleus was about as tall as Brad, your DNA could stretch for more than 200 miles. How do such long molecules fit inside such tiny cells? While we’re on the subject, just how much information is in DNA? Join us for a look at …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:43 — 14.3MB) | Embed
Living cells that make their living inside other living cells Inside the membrane of most of your cells are what look like little cells, with their own membranes and DNA. These little cell like things do important things, without which your cells couldn’t function, and you couldn’t live. The thing is, once upon a time, …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:15 — 13.4MB) | Embed
Comes the oxygen When oxygen first began to accumulate in our oceans and our atmosphere, most of what was alive at the time couldn’t take it. The oxygen was a terrible poison. Even those life forms that could stand the extra O2, had trouble when the oxygen reacted with the iron in the ocean, and …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:00 — 13.1MB) | Embed
Brad got older, and Phil got bolder. Since the one brother had a birthday and got all lazy, the other brother made a new show, and went all crazy. Join us while the inmate, (Phil) takes over the asylum, (the podcast.) No animals were provably harmed in the making of this show.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:52 — 19.5MB) | Embed
What was the first food? The energy we need in order to live comes from the food we eat. Other organisms use other forms of energy. But what about the first organisms? Where did their energy come from? Along with a look at how living cells use energy, we try and figure out what was …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:12 — 13.2MB) | Embed
Prebiotic evolution part 2: DNA and RNA DNA cannot copy itself. It needs enzymes, very large complicated proteins to replicate from one cell to a new one. The way the proteins are produced requires DNA and RNA. All three types of molecule have to be present in a cell for the cell to work. What …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:04 — 12.5MB) | Embed
Prebiotic evolution part 1: proteins Most of the way your cells do what they do is by using proteins. Proteins are made by life. But if life makes proteins and life needs proteins, where did the first proteins come from? Join us for part 1 of our investigation of the evolution before evolution—the building up …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:05 — 12.4MB) | Embed
The solar system’s greatest hits After gravity managed to make some decent sized planets, they started getting smashed together with almost planet sized bits and pieces. These impacts may be responsible for our oceans, and perhaps even for life on our planet, but it was not an easy ride. Join us for a look at …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:31 — 13.2MB) | Embed
From gas and dust, to all of us The general idea is simple—a cloud of gas and dust collapses in on itself, driven by gravity, until roughly in the middle of it, our sun began to shine. But the details are somewhat odd, especially when we compare our solar system to what we’re able to …