The Tardigrade Chronicles

On the Season 1 finale of "The Tardigrade Chronicles", we explore the processes of aging in the natural world, examining discoveries from life forms that have managed strategies to extend lifespan and how they have influenced the blossoming field of innovations to prolong the human healthspan. We dive into how bats are uniquely able to fend off the effects of aging and how dogs inform us...

On Episode 7 of “The Tardigrade Chronicles”, we explore the critical life-sustaining fluid known as blood.  This dynamic complex fluid is known for volume regulation, sustaining life through carrying oxygen, and being the front-line strategy for lifeforms to respond and communicate immune challenges. We trace the natural evolution of blood and the discoveries and innovations divined from existing...

In part 1 of our series exploring the material designs inspired by nature and uncovering the innovations driven by an understanding of adhesion at interface of living systems and their environment, we are sticking to adhesion.  From barnacle glue to shark skin and gecko feet, we examine the principles evolved in nature to stick and to prevent sticking, and how we have invented new materials based...

Water is so fundamental to life on Earth that it has become one of the primary things we search for beyond our planet. From Mars to the Moon and beyond, the presence of water may tell us whether life (or something like it) could exist elsewhere in the cosmos. In this episode, host Alan S. Rudolph is specifically focusing on extremophiles: organisms capable of surviving conditions that would destro...

In episode 4 of "The Tardigrade Chronicles", host Alan S. Rudolph is exploring the fascinating history and future of brain-machine interfaces, drawing on his career at DARPA and his own experience working in the laboratories of Dr. Miguel Nicolelis and Dr. John Chapin - and the unforgettable moment he first watched laboratory rats take a drink using only their thoughts. From cochlear implants to N...

On the third episode of "The Tardigrade Chronicles", host Alan S. Rudolph turns his focus to vision, and the ongoing efforts that have been made to replicate or improve upon the evolutionary designs of visual systems. From the Cambrian Explosion to today, the power of sight has been one of the most useful biological traits an organism can have, and this episode helps illuminate the myriad of ways...

In Episode 2, "Olfaction", host Alan S. Rudolph is focusing on the evolution of chemical detection across species, from insect antennae to dogs' noses, and how these systems are now being utilized in medical devices like electronic noses and in environmental sensors such as electronic bee hives, among other innovations. Whether to detect a mate, a predator, or a pie cooling on a wind...

On the first episode of "The Tardigrade Chronicles", host Alan S. Rudolph is covering locomotion, or using the natural ability of quadrupedal, bipedal, and flying animals to inform the movement of robotics (swimming, however, is a story for another time). Tune in to discover the challenges of replicating natural motion, the force dynamics of something as “simple” as insect hexapods to th...

"The Tardigrade Chronicles" is a new video podcast about nature’s principles and designs and how they translate into real-world impact. Hosted by Alan S. Rudolph, an evolutionary biologist with a career spanning academia, industry, and government, each episode of "The Tardigrade Chronicles" will tackle an idea - an evolutionary insight - and how it became something more: a new...