The Escaped Sapiens Podcast

In this episode of the Podcast I speak with Professor Munjed Al Muderis about a new technology that is allowing amputees to walk again. Osseointegration is the direct structural and functional connection between living bone and the surface of a load-bearing artificial implant. While dental implants have long been standard, surgeons are now starting to use this technology to reconstruct missing lim...

In this episode of the Podcast I speak with Professor Munjed Al Muderis about his escape from Iraq as a refugee. In 1999 Munjed was forced to flee Iraq after a busload of army draft evaders were brought into the hospital where he worked to have the top of their ears amputated under Saddam Hussein's orders. The senior surgeon in the operating theatre refused the orders and was immediately interroga...

On this episode of the podcast I speak with Professor Hans-Georg Moeller from the University of Macau. Georg's work focusses on Chinese and Comparative Philosophy (specifically Daoism) and on Social and Political Thought (specifically Social Systems Theory). We discuss the role that morality plays as a potent social engineering tool for establishing order and power. While morality is usually thoug...

On this episode of the podcast I speak with Professor Philipp Huebl about moral myopia, political division, and the spread of "bull$&%t" and misinformation. Bull$&%t, in this case, is something that lies somewhere between lies and truth, or something created by those that are indifferent towards the truth. Philipp is a visiting professor in philosophy and cultural studies at the Universität der Kü...

On this episode of the podcast I speak with Professor Frederike Ambagtsheer about the illegal trade and trafficking in human organs. Frederike has a background in criminology and public international law, has a doctorate on organ trade, and is currently researching organ trafficking at Erasmus MC's Transplant Institute in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. In this conversation we discuss what is currentl...

On this episode of the podcast I speak with Yanis Varoufakis about the role of banks and politicians. Yanis is an economist, politician, author and Secretary-General of MeRA25. He is perhaps best known for his role as the Greek Minister of Finance during the Greek credit crisis. In our discussion we cover some fairly big questions: When banks are bailed out, who really foots the bill? Who are the...

On this episode of the podcast I speak with Ola Wikander about the field of “Nuclear Semiotics”, the scholarly discussion concerning communicating information about nuclear waste disposal into the far future. Ola is a Ugaritologist, Hebraist, Semitist, author, and Senior Lecturer at Lund University. He specializes in ancient languages and religions of the near east, and in particular the texts of...

For many people the question of whether or not women are treated more unfairly than men is so obvious that is obscene to challenge the assumption. But if we are genuinely interested in creating a more equal society, then as society develops our biases should be routinely returning to with sober eyes. How should those issues that affect men, such as conscription, incarceration rates, suicide rates,...

In this episode of the podcast I discuss the state of marine fisheries with Professor Trevor Branch from the University of Washington. Trevor specializes in data synthesis and constructing mathematical models to determine the health of fish populations. Often in the media one sees stories of collapsing fish populations and dire predictions of species extinction and a future with empty seas. The go...

In 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 so...

What 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 conver...

This 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 co...

Note: 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...

On 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 Reconnaiss...

In 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...

In 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...

How 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 u...

This 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...

This is the second part of a two part conversation with Mark Benecke, forensic biologist, forensic entomologist, NRW state chairman for German's Die Partei, chairman of the Pro Tattoo association, and much more. Both halves can be watched independently for the most part. Mark investigates how insect life develops at crime scenes. Because he works all over the world, I was wondering if he had seen...

This is the first part of a two part conversation with Mark Benecke, forensic biologist, forensic entomologist, NRW state chairman for German's Die Partei, chairman of the Pro Tattoo association, and much more. We discuss modern forensic techniques, the impact of wealth and power on justice and the law, training to become a forensic scientist, what forensic entomology can teach us about the drop i...

This is a conversation with Planetary Astronomer Andy Rivkin. Andy is the co-investigation team lead for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, being designed, built, and managed by the Applied Physics Lab at John Hopkins University. The DART mission is the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space. We discuss the current re...

This is a conversation with archaeologist, historian, and professor of classics Ian Morris at Stanford University. Ian has written extensively about the progress of civilization from hunter gatherer times until now. We discuss the drivers of civilization, and the impact that religion and war have on technological and social development. ►Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/f05Ogv0Wr24 ►For more inf...

This is a conversation with Thomas Sunn Pedersen, Director of the Stellarator Edge and Divertor Physics Division at the Greifswald branch of the Max-Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Germany. Thomas explains the progress that has occurred in fusion research over the past few decades, and how far away are we are from creating practical fusion reactors. He also discusses the obstacles that still...

In this episode of the podcast I speak with Glen Peters who is research director at the Center for International Climate Research in Norway. Glen's research focuses on human drivers of climate change, the global carbon cycle, bioenergy, sustainable consumption, international trade and climate policy, emission metrics, and more. The underlying political and economic drivers of climate change are co...

One of the most interesting features of human intelligence is that it comes with personality. We aren't all the same and our thoughts aren't purely logical. They are instead sculpted by our level of hunger, how tired we are, the presence of mind altering drugs in our systems, our sexuality, stress, and any number of internal and external factors. So how did humans end up with our peculiar psycholo...