Episode 08: Being Human with Robert Sapolsky

2025 was another exciting year in human origins research! In this episode, four scientists and Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share their picks for the top discoveries of the year. Support this show and the science we talk about. Your tax-deductible gift to The ...  Show more

This episode features two stories from the Science Podcast. First, Science writer Ann Gibbons tells the story of three ancient hominin species that lived side-by-side in South Africa's Cradle of Humankind. Then, anthropologist Melanie Beasley discusses her new study on why chemic ...  Show more

Today we uncover an invisible killer hidden, for over a hundred years, by reasonable disbelief. Science journalist extraordinaire Carl Zimmer tells us the story of a centuries-long battle of ideas that came to a head, with tragic consequences, in the very recent past. His late ...

In an episode we first aired in 2014, we meet a man named Dennis Conrow, who was stuck. After a brief stint at college, he’d spent most of his 20’s back home with his parents, sleeping in his childhood room. And just when he finally struck out on his own, fate intervened. He l ...

Gazing up at the night sky is a universal human experience, likely as old as our species itself. But how did our ancient ancestors feel about what they saw in the heavens, and how did it shape their lives? In Episode Two of our three-part Fascination miniseries on unusual archaeo ...  Show more

In this episode, first aired in 2012, we have two stories of brains pushed off-course. We relive a surreal day in the life of a young researcher hijacked by her own brain, and hear from a librarian experiencing a bizarre and mysterious set of symptoms that she called “gravitat ...