How are cephalopods like us, but also completely alien? How can they become so intelligent when they have such short lives? How do they coordinate a distributed set of brains?
In this episode, we talk with Danna Staaf, a science communicator and marine biologist with a lifelong love of cephalopods. Danna earned a PhD from Stanford University studying baby squid, and she has written several cephalopod-themed books. Our conversation focuses on Danna’s most recent, The Lives of Octopuses and Their Relatives: A Natural History of Cephalopods, a beautiful exploration of the diversity of these wacky, wonderful creatures. We discuss cephalopod evolution, morphology, and reproduction, focusing on several fun facts that you can pull out at your next dinner party.
Cover art: Keating Shahmehri. Find a transcript of this episode on our website.
Shifting mutational landscapes (Ep 120)
Big Biology Presents: The Naked Scientists Podcast
Biology as its own metaphor (Ep 119)
Dog in the Machine (Ep 118)
The time of your life (Ep 117)
Rewilding biology (Ep 116)
Does a porpoise have a purpose? Agency and goals in evolution (Ep 115)
Follow the data: the search for COVID’s origin (Ep 105)
Cooperation versus conflict and the path to multicellularity (Ep 107)
How power explains the history of life (Ep 114)
The Entangled Organism (Ep 112)
Evolution of the Invaders (Ep 111)
Tempest in a barcode: how rapidly can we (and should we) identify new species? (Ep 110)
Nothing in biology makes sense except through time (Ep 109)
The dialectical biologists: challenges of studying evolution in nature (Ep 108)
Long-term experimental evolution in the wild (Ep 106)
Big Bio Bonus Episode: We’re Hiring!
Little Biology: Why can’t I regrow my arm?
Sleeping beauties: the mystery of dormant innovations in nature and culture (Ep 104)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
DNA Today: A Genetics Podcast
Short Wave
Unexplainable
Speaking of Psychology
Stuff To Blow Your Mind