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Welcome to the Biologic Podcast, an audio exploration of the incredible world of living things.
The journey begins at the dawn of life, almost 4 billion years ago. In this ancient eon, biochemical reactions gave rise to ordered systems (the cell) capable of replication. The key to this replication is the genome, and the DNA itself.
At this point, the journey expands in scope; we will explore the process of evolution, then move through hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history until we come to the modern day, to survey the modern world's biodiversity. Then we'll take a step back to look at the ecological interactions of all this life, and the resulting biomes that define the surface of our planet Earth.
Our journey through the biological realm takes a sudden turn; having learned about life at the grandest scale, we now return to the ground, to look in greater detail at the various organisms that share this world with us. We first explore the physiology & diversity of plants, and then same for the fungi. Moving from flora to fauna, we explore the physiology & diversity of animals, up to and including the human being.
The path is long and the lessons hard, but for the ever-curious listener, there are many great discoveries and insights to be had in the world of the biological.
Episode 64 - Fungal Sensoria
Fungi sense the world with a variety of cellular and chemical structures, giving them a unique perspective of reality.
33:0528/10/2019
Episode 63 - Fungal Chemicals
The fungal lifestyle is built upon the diverse array of chemicals they can produce to engage in symbioses with other organisms, to break down detritus food, to parasitize other organisms, and to defend themselves from various threats.
31:1914/10/2019
Episode 62 - Fungal Nutrition
Fungi do not have mouths to eat their food, nor do they have roots like plants. There's the mystery: how exactly do fungi acquire the nutrients they need to stay alive?
34:5630/09/2019
Episode 61 - Fungal Development
Welcome to the world of fungi! We will begin our exploration of this exotic branch on the tree of life, with fungal development & physiology.
36:1717/09/2019
Episode 60 - Humans & Plants
Plants are fundamental to human existence. Without them, we would not, and could not, exist. This episode will explore the deep relationship between humans & the vegetable world.
42:1502/09/2019
Episode 59 - Angiosperms
The angiosperms are all those plants equipped with the most revolutionary development in floral reproductive capacity; the flower. The angiosperms and their colorful flowers have radically influenced Earths ecosystems for tens of millions of years.
36:0119/08/2019
Episode 58 - Gymnosperms
The gymnosperms are the mighty seed plants that, like the dinosaurs, once dominated the biomes of the planet. Though less dominant today, the gymnosperms retain a global presence, and a heavy influence in regional ecology.
35:3015/08/2019
Episode 57 - Ferns
The ferns are an unassuming branch of the Kingdom Plantae; they prefer the shade under the canopy, they unfurl their leaves with the elegance of a violinist, and they quietly dominate the undergrowth of forests around the world.
35:5415/08/2019
Episode 56 - Bryophytes
The bryophytes are an ancient lineage of simple plants, so simple they don't even have true vasculature systems. These small plants have a subtle but influential role in their ecology, and they serve as an evolutionary bridge between the simple algae, and more complex plants.
35:1415/08/2019
Episode 55 - Green Algae
The green algae the most primitive of all the photosynthetic organisms in the plant lineage. They are the root of the family tree, the origin of the green vegetables, and the living legacy of the plant transition from water to land.
27:5715/08/2019
Episode 54 - Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a process through which plants capture the energy in sunlight to synthesize sugars, but more fundamentally, its the process by which light energy is converted into chemical energy, which sustains the entire chemical superreaction known as 'life'.
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Episode 53 - Plant Reproduction
Throughout their evolutionary history, plants have evolved diverse and complex means of reproduction, including spores and pollen grains, cones and flowers, and a wide range of symbiotic animal pollinators.
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Episode 52 - Plant Sensoria
The plants use a variety of mechanisms to sense the world around them; they can feel and respond to the water content of the soil, the temperature & humidity, and even to the presence of herbivores.
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Episode 51 - Plant Nutrition
Plants derive their nutrients from both the ground and the air; mineral nutrients are absorbed from the soil in which the roots are growing, and carbon is absorbed from the leaves as they sway in the air.
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Episode 50 - Plant Hydration
Due to the nature of their physiology, plant hydration involves a number of variables with disproportionate ecological impact, from the roots holding the soil together, to the evaporation influencing the climate.
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Episode 49 - Plant Development
A brief introduction to the basics of plant physiology, covering basic plant development from young seed to mature adult.
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Episode 48 - Tropical Forest
The tropical forests are some of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, dense with vegetation, and home to a breath-taking abundance & variety of exotic creatures.
37:0915/08/2019
Episode 47 - Temperate Forest
The temperate forests account for a colossal portion of the Earths landmass, carpeting vast swathes of land with trees, ferns, flowers, and all manner of fauna.
33:3215/08/2019
Episode 46 - Boreal Forest
The boreal forests are the conifer-heavy woodlands in the northern reaches of the world; these forests endure brutally long, cold winters, and short summers with heavy sunlight. Beyond the forests lies vast expanses of tundra, and beyond that, the icy pole.
39:5515/08/2019
Episode 45 - Deserts
The deserts are an extreme biome, characterized by scorching heat during the day, freezing cold at night, and an ever-present lack of water that dominates the very evolution of the organisms that live here.
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Episode 44 - Wetlands
The wetlands are an incredibly complex and ecologically vital transitional zone between the bodies of water like rivers, lakes, and oceans, and the dry land itself.
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Episode 43 - Oceans
The Earth's oceans are the largest biomes on the planet, and the womb of all Earth's life. From the emergence of the first cells, to the emergence of land-based organisms, the oceans have always been a fertile and fruitful place.
43:2715/08/2019
Episode 42 - Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the raw variation in the living things that inhabit some region of the world. Some habitats are barren, with low biodiversity, but other habitats are nutrient-rich & fruitful, populated by a wide diversity of organisms and characterized by the associated ecological complexity. B
41:1415/08/2019
Episode 41 - Ecosystem & Biosphere Ecology
The ecosystem is the consummate totality of a regions ecology, including not just all the organisms & their interactions, but also their interactions with the physical environment, and the geochemical cycling that sustains it all. The biosphere is the totality of all ecosystems on the planet; it is the thin layer of life that clings to the cooling crust of our world.
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Episode 40 - Community Ecology
When countless individuals and populations live in a certain habitat, it creates a diverse biological community, consisting of numerous species of plant, fungi, arthropod, and vertebrate.
45:3915/08/2019
Episode 39 - Population Ecology
When individuals live together, their collective behavior has a larger, meta-effect on the environment, quickly entangling the population into the larger ecological web that sustains their habitat.
43:5415/08/2019
Episode 38 - Behavioral Ecology
The actions of an individual can have far-reaching effects. Behavioral ecology seeks to understand how individual organisms behave in their social and geophysical environment, and in turn, how the behaviors of the individual effect the world around them.
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Episode 37 - Introduction to Ecology
A brief introduction to ecology, including the relationship between organism & physical environment, the relationships between organisms, and the geochemical nutrient cycling that sustains the biosphere.
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Episode 36 - Viruses
The viruses are pathogenic conglomerations of biomolecules, existing somewhere in the ambiguous void between true life, and unliving physical chemistry. Some say the viruses are not alive, others say they are the oldest branch on the tree of life...
37:2903/07/2019
Episode 35 - Animals
The animals are dynamic biochemical superstructures; they are mobile food-processing tubes, equipped with a variety of appendages and morphologies adapted to a particular habitat & ecological niche.
38:2703/07/2019
Episode 34 - Fungus
The fungus are the quiet decomposers, playing a critical role in the recycling of biomatter. Without fungus to break down dead biomass and return those nutrients to the wild, the biosphere would collapse.
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Episode 33 - Plants
The plants are photosynthetic organisms, capable of turning the raw energy in sunlight into biological chemicals, which then sustains the entire food chain with carbon & nutrients.
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Episode 32 - Protista
The protista are a diverse group of organisms, including both single celled and multicellular species. From an evolutionary perspective, they are the bridge between bacteria, and complex macroscopic life.
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Episode 31 - Archaea & Bacteria
A brief introduction into the diversity of life, beginning with the oldest lineages on Earth; the Archaea & Bacteria.
37:2020/06/2019
Episode 30 - Future Evolution of Earth Life
In the presence of Human development and pollution, and extreme climate change, what does the future hold for the evolution of Earth life?
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Episode 29 - The Holocene
The Holocene marks the most recent ~10,000 years of natural history, including the rise of Human civilization and the wholesale transformation of the Earths surface.
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Episode 28 - The Phanerozoic Eon III: The Cenozoic Era
The Cenozoic Era began with the destruction of the dinosaurs, and would see the rise to dominance and wild diversification of the birds and the mammals, including the emergence of a curious primate species.
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Episode 27 - The Phanerozoic Eon II: The Mesozoic Era
The Mesozoic Era saw the evolutionary emergence and rise to dominance of the dinosaurs, and the emergence of early bird and mammal ancestors.
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Episode 26 - The Phanerozoic Eon I: The Paleozoic Era
The Paleozoic Era saw the rapid emergence of increasingly complex life forms that filled the sea and the land, but they would all face extinction during the events known as the Great Dying.
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Episode 25 - The Precambrian
Life on Earth is billions of years old. This ancient natural history comes to us in the form of fossils and genetic relationships, revealing the incredible story of the evolution of life.
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Episode 24 - Human Evolution
All populations are subject to perpetual evolution, and Humans are no exception; peer into our distant past and observe the evolutionary history of the Human species.
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Episode 23 - Phylogenetics
As all living things are fundamentally related, phylogenetics is the study of these genetic relationships, and the evolutionary history of the many diverse lineages of Earthly life.
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Episode 22 - Divergence & Speciation
When populations groups diverge, whether they're separated geographically, temporally, or behaviorally, they find themselves on the pathway to speciation.
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Episode 21 - Mechanisms of Evolution
Besides natural selection, evolution is influenced by mechanisms like gene flow, the random walk of genetic drift, and the novelty-generating phenomenon of genetic mutations.
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Episode 20 - Natural Selection
The forces of natural selection remove from the gene pool those lineages too unfit to survive in a given habitat, while those with good health survive to make healthy offspring, and their lineages tend to perpetuate.
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Episode 19 - Introduction to Evolution
A brief introduction to evolution, including its mechanisms, selective pressures, runaway effects, and the fundamental importance of evolution as a guiding force for the perpetuation of life.
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Episode 18 - Gene Modification
Genetic information is complex; there's the gene sequence, the regulation of gene expression, and there are even mechanisms to modify genes, allowing a single gene to produce multiple different proteins.
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Episode 17 - Gene Expression
The gene itself encodes raw information, but this is just the beginning of gene expression, which is a complex, highly-regulated, and tightly-coordinated process.
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Episode 16 - DNA Synthesis & Repair
New DNA molecules are generated through a complex replication process, and mutations can be repaired with a variety of mechanisms.
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Episode 15 - Transcription & Translation
The genome encodes information to 'build' the organism; the process of transcription encodes the DNA information into RNA, and translation encodes the information into polypeptide chains, which form proteins.
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