Shows
The Escaped Sapiens PodcastRegenerative Farming And Carbon Negative Beef | Will Harris | Escaped Sapiens #75In this conversation I speak with Will Harris, who is a fourth generation cattle farmer. Will originally ran a standard industrial farm, but increasingly became dissatisfied by the welfare of his animals. That started a journey to change the way his farm ran, and over the years he has converted his operation piece by piece into a regenerative farm. That means no more grain feed, no more confined feed lots, no more hormones, no more pesticides. The basic idea is to focus on improving the land in order to leave it better each year. Will has come up with...2024-12-041h 41The Escaped Sapiens PodcastWhat is Reality Made Of? Unscrambling the Quantum Omelet | Rob Spekkens | Escaped Sapiens #74In quantum mechanics the state of a physical system is described by a wavefunction, which provides information about the probabilities of various outcomes, such as finding a particle at a particular location in space. This differs dramatically from classical physics, where a particle is described by a definite position and momentum. As a result, quantum mechanics inherently involves a certain level of uncertainty. A key question is whether this uncertainty reflects a fundamental indeterminacy in reality itself or merely our limited knowledge of the physical system.
One possibility is that reality could be deterministic, and the wavefunction...2024-11-212h 04The Escaped Sapiens PodcastFeeding The Future : The Ocean Farmers | Shawn Robinson | Escaped Sapiens #56What is the future of our oceans? On this episode of the Podcast I speak with Dr. Shawn Robinson about marine ecology, aquaculture, and the politics and economics of what ends up on your plate. Shawn is a marine ecologist who did his graduate work at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia on the giant Pacific octopus (MSc) and at the University of British Columbia on biological oceanography off Vancouver Island (PhD). He began his career as a research scientist in 1988 with the Dept. Fisheries and Oceans at the Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, one of...2023-07-192h 13The Escaped Sapiens PodcastEngineering Life And Consciousness. | Michael Levin | Escaped Sapiens #42In this episode of the podcast I speak with developmental and synthetic biologist Michael Levin from Tufts University. Michael is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. He is also co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms. We discuss the implications of Michael's research in medicine and society including cures for cancer, regenerating limbs, and the creation of artificial super intelligences. We also address the criticism that this research sometimes from those who think that it is 'unnatural' to meddle with human biology. This conversation was supported...2022-10-171h 19The Escaped Sapiens PodcastWhat’s In An Eye? | Alex Müntz | Escaped Sapiens #41What are our digital lifestyles doing to our eyes? In this conversation I speak with Alex Müntz, who is a Romanian clinical scientist and research fellow in the department of ophthalmology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. From weird anatomy, to the disgusting mites that colonize your eyes, we talk about eye health and everything you never knew you didn't know about eyes.
This conversation was supported by the Andrea von Braun foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of...2022-10-011h 50The Escaped Sapiens PodcastIs warfare a science? | John Spencer | Escaped Sapiens #40This Episode of the Podcast was supported by the Andrea von Braun foundation. See http://www.avbstiftung.de/ for more information.
Is the study of urban warfare a science? In this conversation I speak with John W. Spencer, who is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, codirector of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast. The conversation ranges from John's personal experiences leading in war, to his experience on the ground doing research in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh, to explanations of many aspects of w...2022-09-261h 59The Escaped Sapiens PodcastGood News Everyone!►The Escaped Sapiens Website: https://www.escapedsapiens.com/
►The Andrea von Braun Foundation: http://www.avbstiftung.de/
2022-08-0707 minThe Escaped Sapiens PodcastGeography is Destiny | Ian Morris | Escaped Sapiens #39Note: This episode is not a paid advertisement for Ian's new book.
This is a conversation with archaeologist, historian, and professor of classics Ian Morris from Stanford University. We discuss how factors like soft power, and geography shape the flow of history, and what contemporary issues like Brexit and the conflict in Ukraine look like from the perspective of the last 10,000 years of history.
►Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/_qJDfkNnOC8
►For information about Ian's most recent book see: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157272/geographyisdestiny
►For more information about Ian's...2022-06-131h 19The Escaped Sapiens PodcastThe Robots Of Mars | Tanya Harrison | Escaped Sapiens #38On this episode of the podcast I speak with geologist and planetary scientist Dr. Tanya Harrison, to find out what it is like to do research with the robots currently being used to explore Mars. Tanya worked for years on NASAs Perseverance, Curiosity, and Opportunity rovers, as well as the with Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Part of Tanya's work was to select interesting locations for the Reconnaissance orbiter to take imagery of. Since working as a mission specialist with NASA rovers and orbiters, Tanya continues to work as a planetary scientist and scientific director at Planet Labs, and she is...2022-06-051h 53The Escaped Sapiens PodcastHacking The Blueprint Of Life | Michael Levin | Escaped Sapiens #37In this episode of the podcast I speak with developmental and synthetic biologist Michael Levin from Tufts University. Michael is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. He is also co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms. We discuss the way that organisms grow and regenerate. In particular - how does the large scale structure of our bodies form (the size, shape, arrangement of all the organs)? Michael and his colleagues are learning how to read, and overwrite the bodies bioelectrical signaling, which controls the way we...2022-05-021h 33The Escaped Sapiens PodcastThis is What You Will Eat On Mars | Daniel Schubert | Escaped Sapiens #36In this episode of the podcast I speak with Daniel Schubert from the German Aerospace Center about designing and creating bioregenerative life-support systems for use in hostile and alien environments. Daniel is the leader of the Eden initiative, which over the past few years has been testing greenhouse food production in Antarctica in preparation for the implementation of plant production in Moon and Mars Habitats. We discuss the unexpected challenges of growing plants in hostile environments, building economically viable space colonies, the value of space exploration, future plans for space faring systems, environmental destruction, and the future of humanity.2022-04-181h 10The Escaped Sapiens PodcastDo Animals Have Language? | Irene Pepperberg | Escaped Sapiens #35How complex does animal communication get? How much information is encoded in dog barks, the clicks of sperm whales, or the chirps of small birds? In this conversation I speak with Irene Pepperberg, who is an expert on animal communication and cognition, best known for her work with African grey parrots. We discuss the remarkable abilities of her birds, from large vocabularies and complex verbal understanding, to counting and puzzle solving, to even competing with young children on certain cognitive tests. We also touch on deeper questions about how animals might see the world, the link between intelligence and...2022-04-041h 32The Escaped Sapiens PodcastWhen Nuclear Powers Meet | Ankit Panda | Escaped Sapiens #34This is a conversation with Ankit Panda about nuclear proliferation and deterrence. Ankit Panda is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. An expert on the Asia-Pacific region, his research interests range from nuclear strategy, arms control, missile defense, nonproliferation, emerging technologies, and U.S. extended deterrence. We discuss: mutually assured destruction and mutual unacceptable damage - Kim Jong Un's foreign and domestic nuclear policies and capabilities. - The impact of Russian incursions into Ukraine on nuclear proliferation. - What the US, China, and Russia want from north Korea...2022-03-171h 18