The Escaped Sapiens Podcast

This is part two of an interview with Oliver Boyd-Barrett. This episode of the podcast focuses on the effects of developments in science and technology on our society - and in particular on the science of propaganda. I speak with Professor Oliver Boyd-Barrett from Bowling Green State University about the influence that social media, cyber warfare and hacking, bot armies, troll farms, and other tec...

Steve Callahan is an inventor, sailor, Naval architect, and author. In 1981 Steve lost `Napoleon Solo', a ship he designed and built, during a storm in the mid Atlantic, and spent the next 76 days adrift on an inflatable rescue boat. Steve very kindly agreed to share his story. We discuss the event itself, but also the way that it has shaped his view of the world, and subsequently coloured his lif...

Matthew F. Ferraro is an attorney and former intelligence officer who writes widely on national security and legal issues. Matt is currently a counsel at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and a visiting fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University. (The views Matt expressed here are his own.) In this episode of the podcast we discuss the deve...

Tim Flannery is a Mammologist, palaentologist, environmentalist, conservationist, and explorer. He was named Australian humanist of the year in 2005 and Australian of the year in 2007. Tim served as chief commissioner of the Australian Climate Commission and is currently leading the Climate council. He has discovered more than 30 mammal species, and and discovered cretaceous fossils that that exte...

Jonathan McDowell is an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who studies black holes, quasars and X-ray sources in galaxies, as well as supporting the development of data analysis software for the X-ray astronomy community. In addition to his research Jonathan runs `Jonathans Space Report', which is a newsletter that has been running since 1989 that reports on recent...

Rene is an Associate Professor of Sociology, History of Medicine, American Studies, and Public Health (Health Policy) at Yale university. Her research focuses on gender and medicine. We discuss the historic lack of research attention in men's reproductive health, and the impact this has had, and continues to have on the individual lives of men, as well as on health policy and research funding. ►Wa...

On this episode of the podcast I speak with Professor Josh Bongard who is one of the inventors of Xenobots. We discuss their development, their potential applications, and the moral and philosophical implications of their creation. ►Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3B5WnPoXXpQ ►Check out Josh's staff page at the University of Vermont for more information: https://www.uvm.edu/cems/cs...

Deanna Barch is a professor of psychology, radiology, and psychiatry at Washington University. Deanna is a key contributor to the Human connectome project, which aims to build a network map of the anatomical and functional connectivity within the healthy human brain, as well as to produce a body of data that will facilitate research into brain disorders such as dyslexia, autism, Alzheimer's diseas...

How good is our understanding of the human brain, and how close are we to being able to simulate it? In this episode Steve Furber discusses SpiNNaker, an artificial neural network realized in hardware that incorporates over one million processor cores, and which is designed to simulate 1% of the neurons in the Human brain.   Find out more about Steve's work here: https://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/pe...

Luisa von Albedyll discusses travelling to the arctic as part of the MOSAiC expedition. Polar bears, melting ice, global warming, and the beauty of the arctic. Note: At the beginning of the interview, Luisa states rough numbers on the decline of Arctic sea ice extent and thickness. Here are the exact ones: Sea ice decline: In 1979, 7.05 million km2 of the Arctic ocean were covered at the end of th...

Katherine Moseby discusses the threats to Australian wildlife in arid zones, and in particular the threats due to introduced species such as feral cats, foxes, and rabbits. She explains how insurance species of certain endangered species are kept safe on small islands, and behind electrified fences. Her work will hopefully one day allow Australian native species to roam once again beyond the fence...

Brian Nosek discusses the reproducibility project, a crowdsourced collaboration of 270 authors, which attempted to repeat 100 published experimental and correlational psychological studies. When the results of the study were released in 2015 it was a shock to the scientific world: only 36% of the studies replicated, and of those that replicated, many of their results were smaller than those in the...

This is the story of a conservationist and explorer. Julian Bayliss discusses his expeditions to the isolated and untouched rainforests of east Africa, in an effort to document and protect their rich biodiversity. We talk new species discovered, mysterious artefacts, and being chased by warthogs and African bees. Find out more about Julian's work here: https://julianbayliss.co.uk/

Fiona Wood discusses the difficulties in treating burn injuries, and describes some of the new techniques that are being used today to reduce infection, scaring, pain, and long term complications. To find out more about the great work being done by Fiona and her collaborators: https://www.fionawoodfoundation.com/fiona-wood  

Michael Boyle Discusses the rise of advanced drone technology, and its impact on conflict. Find out more about Michael's research and publications here: https://www.fpri.org/contributor/michael-boyle/

Iain Kerr discusses the new threats facing whales, including boat strikes, bycatch, resource depletion, environment destruction, plastics, and pollution. He also discusses the possible solutions, including the use of remote controlled drones to do non-invasive sampling of whale health. Find out more about Iain's work at Ocean Alliance here: https://whale.org/

Robert Zubrin discusses the prospects of finding life on mars. Find out more about Robert's work at the Mars Society here: https://www.marssociety.org/news/2020/12/14/an-important-request-from-dr-robert-zubrin/

Lee Cronin discusses his work generating life in the laboratory, and the kind of processes that may have led to the origins of life on earth. Lee is the Regius Chair of Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow in the UK. You can find out more about the work being done in the Cronin Lab here: https://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/cronin/

Robert Zubrin discusses establishing a new branch of human civilization on the Red Planet. Find out more about Robert's work at the Mars Society here: https://www.marssociety.org/news/2020/12/14/an-important-request-from-dr-robert-zubrin/ Find out more about mars direct here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/009457659290130B

Kelly Lambert Discusses the impacts that our experiences and environment might have on our mental resilience, stress, anxiety, and general cognitive function.  Find out more about Kelly's work at the University of Richmond: https://www.kellylambertlab.com/

Dave Goulson discusses the reasons for the decline in insect populations. Find out more about Dave Goulson's work at the University of Sussex at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/lifesci/goulsonlab/ In 2006 Dave founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust,  which is a charity that aims to reverse the decline in the bumblebee population and can be found at https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/ Dave's Youtube c...

Ben Novak discusses his work bringing back extinct species. Find out more about Ben's work in de-extinction with revive and restore at https://reviverestore.org/about-the-passenger-pigeon/ Some of Ben's research can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/9/11/548/htm https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3260s35t

Gregg Suaning discusses his work on bionic eyes and cochlear implants. Find out more about Gregg's work in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Sydney: https://www.sydney.edu.au/engineering/schools/school-of-biomedical-engineering.html