Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

Ep115 "What is color? Part 1: Why hunters wear orange"

Why do birds and bees choose different flowers? Why do mammals' eyes seem to be optimized for moving around at night, and what does that have to do with hairless humans getting angry? What does any of this have to do with road signs, camouflage, mantis shrimp, the sun, the dress that broke the internet, and women who can see more colors than you can?

Ep114 "Would you eat a self burger?"

Would you eat a burger grown from a human muscle cell? Would you rather use your own cell or someone else's? What does the future of lab-grown meat illuminate about neuroscience, our calculations of morality, and whether your grandchildren will have a different answer? What does any of this have to do with endangered species, the sacred versus the profane, brain plasticity, moral positioning, social belonging, stepping on the boundary between mental categories, flesh copyrights, and the future of personhood?

Ep113 "What's special about inventors?" (with Pablos Holman)

Why do some people jump into entirely new categories of possibility? And what does this have to do with self-driving ships, solar panels in space, shooting mosquitoes with lasers, skateboarding tricks, silent drones, and our future as a species? Join Eagleman with guest Pablos Holman, a venture capitalist, author, and connoisseur of invention.

Ep112 "How is computer code like magic?" (with Sam Arbesman)

What is code, and can it be thought of like a magic spell? Are we building a world so complex that we will lose the ability to understand its operations -- and has that already happened? What does any of this have to do with SimCity, or knowledge that already exists but no one has put together, or how coding will evolve in the near future? Join Eagleman with scientist Sam Arbesman, who has just written a book asking the question: what is code, really?

Ep111 "Might we be surrounded with undetected minds?" (with Michael Levin)

What is intelligence? If we look hard, can we find it in unexpected places: not just in brains but in all kinds of structures? How should we recognize it? And what does any of this have to do with a bipedal dog born without front legs, or making small new organisms out of single cells, or how Wikipedia might be like an axolotl, or why we are so blind to the vast variety of minds that might surround us? Join Eagleman with guest Michael Levin, professor at Tufts, about how we might discover intelligence all around us in ways we don't typically intuit.