20
Apr 2021
What can DNA tell us about the migration of the earliest modern humans and other hominins? In episode 97 of Parsing Science, we talk with João Teixeira from the University of Adelaide about his research which examined the genomes of modern humans to investigate the interbreeding between ancient huma...
9
Feb 2021
What can a video game teach us about our epistemic philosophy? In episode 93, Luke Cuddy from Southwestern College’s philosophy program talks with us about the video game The Witness, which presents players with a multitude of increasingly sophisticated and frustrating puzzles that perhaps result fr...
29
Dec 2020
What do changes in our beliefs about the death of our pets over the past century say about the relationship we have with our companion animals? In episode 90, Eric Tourigny from Newcastle University's School of History, Classics and Archaeology discusses his research into historic pet cemeteries a......
15
Dec 2020
How can drones help us find settlements long-lost to time? In episode 89, Jesse Casana from Dartmouth College's Department of Anthropology discusses his research into using multi-sensor drones to collect data about a major Native American settlement in what is now Southeastern Kansas. His article ......
13
Oct 2020
How are Black women using social media to develop community and identity? In episode 85 we talk with Kyesha Jennings from North Carolina State University Department of English about her analysis of what the wildly popular meme "hot girl summer" - drawn from lyrics by hip-hop phenomenon, Megan Thee......
15
Sep 2020
Why do religious leaders abstain from some pleasures? In episode 83, Manvir Singh from Harvard University's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology discusses his research into why shaman healers among the a group of people off the coast of Indonesia observe costly prohibitions, such abstinence or......
18
Aug 2020
Is it an actual conspiracy, or just a theory about one? In episode 81, Tim Tangherlini from the University of California Berkeley’s Folklore Program discusses his research into how conspiracy theorists interpret and use what they believe is “hidden knowledge” to connect multiple human interactions...
17
Mar 2020
Can even a single-celled organism truly learn? In Episode 70, Jeremy Gunawardena with the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School talks with us about his replication of an experiment originally conducted over a century ago, which suggested that at least one single-cell organism - t......
12
Nov 2019
Sure, you might have a tongue piercing. But would you consider something far more extreme for a bump on the social ladder? In episode 62, we're joined by Dimitris Xygalatas from the University of Connecticut, who talks with us about how extravagant and painful rituals can foster greater subjective......
30
Apr 2019
Can the sharing of drum break samples among musicians help us better understand how networks of artists collaborate? In episode 48, Mason Youngblood from the City University of New York discusses his research into the cultural transmission of digital music samples through collaborative networks of......
25
Dec 2018
While we often associate archaeology with the study of cultures whose eras have long-since come and gone, artifacts from the recent past can tell us about culture as well. Part one of our conversation with P.J. Capelotti from Penn State University Abington concerned terrestrial archaeology. In par...
11
Dec 2018
Ordinary objects from the recent past often hold secrets about our cultural history. In episode 38, P.J. Capelotti from Penn State University Abington talks with us about the history, archaeology, and anthropology of exploration as he writes about it in his recent book Adventures in Archaeology: T...
30
Oct 2018
Almost lost to history, these toys quite literally put quantum mechanics at one’s fingertips. In episode 35, Jean-François Gauvin from Université Laval in Canada discusses how he came to understand the purpose and value of unique toy blocks that ended up on his desk at Harvard University in 2014 a...
18
Sep 2018
Can auditory errors and illusions better help us understand how the brain works? In episode 32 Mike Vitevitch from the University of Kansas talks with us about his research into the cognitive mechanisms underlying the Speech-to-Song auditory illusion. His open-access article "An account of the Spe...
15
May 2018
We set out talk with David Kernot from Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Group about William Shakespeare's true identity, but soon discovered his work has implications on national security and suicide prevention, as well as diagnosing Alzheimer's years before it can be otherwise identifie...
1
May 2018
What might migration patterns tell us about how modern languages came about? Vanderbilt University's Nicole Creanza talks with us about her research into how migration during the colonial era contributed to the development of the creole language, Sranan. Her open-access article "Using features of ...
20
Feb 2018
Sam Mehr and Manvir Singh from Harvard's Music Lab talk with us about their research suggesting that people across the world can detect the social purpose of other cultures' songs based only on how they sound. Their open-access article, "Form and function in human song" was published in Current B...
23
Jan 2018
Bill Clark from the University of California Los Angeles discusses his research applying the endowment effect of Prospect Theory to decisions of why people move from, or stay in, their homes. His open-access article, "Prospect theory and the decision to move or stay," co-authored with William Liso......
3
Oct 2017
The rich archaeological records of human space exploration can tell us much about human behavior, geopolitics, and the history of science and technology. In this episode we're joined by Alice Gorman of Flinders University in South Australia. Alice tells us about her research that explores archae......
