Evolutionary Psychology (the podcast)

What is stress? Is it useful? What is the endocrine system? Why do we need it (and why isn't a brain enough)? In this episode, we talk to Jenn Byrd-Craven (Oklahoma State) about all things stress and endocrine. Other topics include development, supposedly "over-active" stress responses, rage-bait, chilling out, obesity, parenting, status, teaching history, and much more.  

More about Jenn Byrd-Craven:

https://byrd-cravenpsychobiologylab.mystrikingly.com/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MYyZEL4AAAAJ&hl=en

Along with Pete Richerson, Rob Boyd (ASU) is one of *the* founders of cultural evolution, and one of the key figures in connecting human behavior with evolution. A very special episode with one of the greats! To top it off, we have Rob's former PhD student (and previous guest) Cristina Moya, in the role of guest host. 

More about Rob Boyd:

https://www.robboyd.net/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyd_(anthropologist)

https://search.asu.edu/profile/1952328

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YucHqSsAAAAJ&hl=en

Are we one, or do we contain multitudes? In this episode, we explore the bizarre and fascinating world of microchimerism with Amy Boddy (UCSB). 

 

More about Amy Boddy:

https://www.anth.ucsb.edu/people/amy-boddy

https://boddylab.com/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jnNIBc4AAAAJ&hl=en

What is status? What is inspiration? What is personality? It all sounds simple and obvious, but in this episode with Patrick Durkee (CSU Fresno), we make "the familiar strange" and think through how an evolved mind may figure out how to invest our time and energy, what inspiration means, and what personality really is. 

More about Patrick Durkee: 
https://www.pdurkee.com/

https://csm.fresnostate.edu/about/directory/psych/durkee-patrick.html

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=uj4K4rQAAAAJ&hl=en

In this episode, we talk with Katrine Whiteson (UC Irvine) about her amazing work studying the human microbiome. We cannot stress enough how much we learned from this episode, from how to prevent your gut bacteria from becoming trashed by antibiotics, how to shop for food that will feed your healthy microbes and prevent blood sugar spikes. Other topics include: what's missing form our modern gut bacteria, the relationship between eating, cancer, and immune function, hunting for phages, and much more. A great example of using evolution to better understand our health. 

More about Katrine Whiteson:
https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=6103
https://kwhiteson.bio.uci.edu/