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PODCAST

New Books in Science

New Books Network

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

science natural sciences

All Episodes

36:45

Marcia Bjornerud, "Turning to Stone: Discovering the...

New Books in Science ·

2025/03/02

Today I talked to Marcia Bjornerud about Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks (Flatiron Books, 2024).Rocks are the record of our creative planet reinventing itself for four billion years. Nothing is ever lost, just transformed. Marcia Bjornerud’s life as a geologist has coincided with an extraordinary period of discovery. From an insular girlhood in rural Wisconsin, she found her way to an unlikely career studying mountains in remote parts of the world. As one of few women in

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59:39

Shoumita Dasgupta, "Where Biology Ends and Bias...

New Books in Science ·

2025/02/10

Dr. Dasgupta is a geneticist and internationally recognized anti-racism educator. In this book, she provides a powerful, science-based rebuttal to common fallacies about human difference.Well-meaning physicians, parents, and even scientists today often spread misinformation about what biology can and can’t tell us about our bodies, minds, and identities. In this accessible, myth-busting book, Dr. Dasgupta draws on the latest science to correct common misconceptions about how much of our social

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50:57

William A. Selby, "The California Sky Watcher:...

New Books in Science ·

2025/02/03

Often stereotyped as the land of unflaggingly perfect weather, California has a world-renowned reputation for sunny blue skies and infinitely even-keeled temperatures. But the real story of the Golden State's weather is vastly more complex. From the scorching heat of Death Valley to the coastal redwoods' dripping in dew, California is home to a dizzying array of landscapes and bespoke weather patterns. In The California Sky Watcher: Understanding Weather Patterns and What Comes Next (Heyday Books,

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40:54

Bruce Lieberman and Niles Eldredge,...

New Books in Science ·

2025/01/19

One of the twentieth century's great paleontologists and science writers, Stephen Jay Gould was, for Bruce S. Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, also a close colleague and friend. In Macroevolutionaries: Reflections on Natural History, Paleontology, and Stephen Jay Gould (Columbia UP, 2024), they take up the tradition of Gould's acclaimed essays on natural history, offering a series of wry and insightful reflections on the fields to which they have devoted their careers.Lieberman and Eldredge explore

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35:16

Patchen Barss, "The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and...

New Books in Science ·

2025/01/18

When he was six years old, Roger Penrose discovered a sundial in a clearing near his house. Through that machine made of light, shadow, and time, Roger glimpsed a “world behind the world” of transcendently beautiful geometry. It spurred him on a journey to become one of the world’s most influential mathematicians, philosophers, and physicists. Penrose would prove the limitations of general relativity, set a new agenda for theoretical physics, and astound colleagues and admirers with the elegance and

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65:34

Mariam Motamedi Fraser, "Dog Politics: Species...

New Books in Science ·

2025/01/15

Do dogs belong with humans? Scientific accounts of dogs' 'species story,' in which contemporary dog-human relations are naturalised with reference to dogs' evolutionary becoming, suggest that they do. Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Mariam Motamedi Fraser dissects this story. This book offers a rich empirical analysis and critique of the development and consolidation of dogs' species story in science, asking what evidence exists to support it, and

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39:22

Camilla Nord, "The Balanced Brain: The Science of...

New Books in Science ·

2025/01/15

There are many routes to mental well-being. In this groundbreaking book, neuroscientist Camilla Nord offers a fascinating tour of the scientific developments that are revolutionising the way we think about mental health, showing why and how events--and treatments--can affect people in such different ways.In The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health (Princeton UP, 2024), Nord explains how our brain constructs our sense of mental health--actively striving to maintain balance in response to our

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44:13

Willingness for climate action in South Korea and...

New Books in Science ·

2025/01/12

Climate change is among the most significant challenges facing modern society, and it impacts everyone across the world. How do people in different socio-cultural contexts perceive the climate crisis, and how willing are they to engage in climate-related action? In this episode, we will compare perceptions about climate change and willingness for climate action in South Korea and Finland, two countries that represent very different cultural backgrounds. Dr. Jingoo Kang and Dr. Sakari Tolppanen from

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36:11

New Books in Science ·

2025/01/12

Beyond the Sea: The Hidden Life in Lakes, Streams, and Wetlands (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024) is an exciting foray into Earth's inland waters, the remarkable species they contain, and the conservation challenges of protecting them.In Beyond the Sea, he introduces readers to the world's most remarkable and varied inland waters, including massive lakes that fill only once a century, groundwaters miles beneath our feet that host unique microbes, volcanic lakes more corrosive than battery acid, and

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75:44

Cordelia Fine, "Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex,...

New Books in Science ·

2025/01/11

Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in human development. According to this overly familiar story, differences between the sexes are shaped by past evolutionary pressures―women are more cautious and parenting-focused, while men seek status to attract more mates. In each succeeding generation, sex hormones and male and female brains are thought to continue to reinforce these unbreachable distinctions, making for entrenched inequalities in modern

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50:09

Other Minds with Peter Godfrey-Smith (EF, JP)

New Books in Science ·

2024/12/19

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch--spoke with him back in October 2021 about his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus

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41:15

Donald R. Prothero, "The Story of Earth's Climate in...

New Books in Science ·

2024/12/14

Over 4.5 billion years, Earth's climate has transformed tremendously. Before our more temperate recent past, the planet swung from one extreme to another--from a greenhouse world of sweltering temperatures and high sea levels to a "snowball earth" in which glaciers reached the equator. During this history, we now know, living things and the climate have always influenced and even shaped each other. But the climate has never changed as rapidly or as drastically as it has since the Industrial

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41:57

Kostas Kampourakis, "Ancestry Reimagined: Dismantling...

New Books in Science ·

2024/10/27

Recent social and political psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar. In the worst-case scenarios, however, this phenomenon can contribute to deeper social woes like misinformation, anti-science agendas, and even

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71:25

Francisco Aboitiz, "A History of Bodies, Brains, and...

New Books in Science ·

2024/10/19

Francisco Aboitiz is a professor at the Medical School and the director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds: The Evolution of Life and Consciousness (MIT Press, 2024) tells the story of life and nervous systems. It introduces the conceptual framework and terminology of evolution, gives a great overview of our current knowledge and a thorough discussion of open questions.The first part defines two basic

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55:09

Alan F. Blackwell, "Moral Codes: Designing...

New Books in Science ·

2024/10/06

Why the world needs less AI and better programming languages. Decades ago, we believed that robots and computers would take over all the boring jobs and drudgery, leaving humans to a life of leisure. This hasn’t happened. Instead, humans are still doing boring jobs, and even worse, AI researchers have built technology that is creative, self-aware, and emotional—doing the tasks humans were supposed to enjoy. How did we get here? In Moral Codes: Designing Alternatives to AI (MIT Press, 2024), Alan

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66:05

Bring Science to the Reviewing of Science:...

New Books in Science ·

2024/09/22

Listen to this interview of Paul Ralph, Professor, Dalhousie University, Canada. We talk about what's wrong with peer review — and how to fix it!Paul Ralph : "We don't want reviewers micromanaging style, complaining about the way the study is written. No, what we want — and need — is for reviewers to focus on the methodological details of the study: Was it done well? Are the results likely to be true?" For more, see Empirical Standards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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26:31

Camilla Nord, "The Balanced Brain: The Science of...

New Books in Science ·

2024/09/20

There are many routes to mental well-being. In this groundbreaking book, neuroscientist Camilla Nord offers a fascinating tour of the scientific developments that are revolutionising the way we think about mental health, showing why and how events--and treatments--can affect people in such different ways. In The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health (Princeton UP, 2024), Nord explains how our brain constructs our sense of mental health--actively striving to maintain balance in response to our

en

42:48

S4E4 In Defense of Bad Science and the Philosophy of...

New Books in Science ·

2024/09/04

What role does science play in shaping our laws? How do we distinguish between good science and bad science? Where does science hit its limits due to our human nature? And how do we separate orthodox belief from true knowledge? These are just some of the thought-provoking questions we'll explore in our upcoming philosophical conversation on science and human existence.Join us as we dive into these topics with Dr. William Allen, a distinguished scholar renowned for his expertise in political

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44:41

Kostas Kampourakis, "Darwin Mythology: Debunking...

New Books in Science ·

2024/09/03

Many historical ﬁgures have their lives and works shrouded in myth, both in life and long after their deaths. Charles Darwin (1809–82) is no exception to this phenomenon and his hero-worship has become an accepted narrative. Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods (Cambridge UP, 2024) unpacks this narrative to rehumanize Darwin's story and establish what it meant to be a 'genius' in the Victorian context. Leading Darwin scholars have come together to argue that, far from being a

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70:34

Directions of Peer Review in Software Engineering

New Books in Science ·

2024/08/27

Listen to this interview of Bram Adams, Professor at the School of Computing, Queen's University, Canada. We talk about current developments in peer review, as it is practised in software engineering research.Bram Adams : "As an editor, one thing you want to see in a review is a summary that clearly says, 'Okay, my overall scoring is this, and my reasons for that are (a) these few negative points but also (b) these few positive points.' But that, in my experience, is missing from reviews much more

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133 results

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