Naturebang
Naturebang is a podcast from BBC Radio 4 that explores what it means to be human by looking to the natural world. Hosts Becky Ripley and Emily Knight combine science with storytelling and a philosophical twist. Each episode examines a different aspect of human behavior or experience through the lens of nature.
Episodes
Plants and the Mystery of Consciousness
The mystery of consciousness has been one of the most unsolvable problems across neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. How can a lump of matter come to be aware of itself? Is consciousness real, or an illusion? And even if I'm pretty convinced by my own conscious experience, how can I possibly know if something else is conscious too? Are you conscious? Is my dog conscious? Is the universe cons
African Wild Dogs and Democracy
For African Wild Dogs in the Okovango Delta, living with the pack has its ups and downs. You get help with the hunting, and there's safety in numbers, but there's also a lot of compromise. When the pack leaves, you leave, even if you were in the middle of a nap. All social-living animals from ants to zebras (and humans) have to figure out how to make decisions as a group, and the dogs have a parti
Rats, Risk and Reward
Jackpot! Lights are flashing, bells are ringing, and you collect your big reward. No, this isn't Vegas, but it might as well be. We're in a specially designed casino for rats, where they gamble in pursuit of the Big Win: delicious sugar pellets. For both rats and humans, a finely tuned ability to assess risk against reward is essential for navigating an unpredictable world. We're pretty good at it
Riverbeds and the Sedimentation of Ideas
What if all the ideas and values surrounding our lives are like pieces of sediment in a river? Some never quite settle and get swept away, lost to the currents of time. But some take hold, solidify, become part of the cultural bedrock that underpin our lives. With the help of a geologist and a philosopher, Becky Ripley and Emily Knight dig deeper into this metaphor, to unearth the sedimented histo
Giant Anteaters and Power Posing
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight look to the animal world to question why we "power pose". Anteaters are masters of it. When feeling threatened, they rear up on their hind legs and extend their arms out wide to show off their huge claws. It is a posture that is designed to make them look more intimidating to predators or competing rivals. Does it work like this for us? If we take up more space in a p
Grooming Apes and the Origins of Kissing
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight discover the hairy history of the human kiss. Where did it come from? Why do we like doing it? And how is it good for us? Featuring Dr Adriano Lameira, primatologist turned evolutionary psychologist from the University of Warwick, and Dr Dean Burnett, neuroscientist, lecturer, and author of The Idiot Brain and The Happy Brain, among others. Produced and presented by E
Photosynthetic Clams and the Problem of Power
How do we extract the maximum amount of power from the sun? Becky Ripley and Emily Knight enlist the help of a giant, thousand-year old clam. And end up in the depths of space...Featuring Professor Alison Sweeney at Yale University, and Mike Garrett from the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics.
Produced and presented by Emily Knight and Becky Ripley
Running Wild and the Science of Endurance
Why do animals move the way they do? And why do we humans love to run? Becky Ripley and Emily Knight enlist dogs, horses, armadillos, and some uncooperative rabbits to find out.Featuring Professor Lewis Halsey from the University of Roehampton, and Dr Andrew Yegian from Harvard University.
Produced and presented by Emily Knight and Becky Ripley.
Red Deer and Authority of Voice
Do lower voices demand more power? Do we take them more seriously? And is this a bias that needs to be challenged more in today’s world? Becky Ripley and Emily Knight compare the bellowing roars of red deer stags to dig deeper into the psychology of human and animal voice.Featuring David Reby, Professor of Ethology at Jean Monnet University, and David Puts, Professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvani
Magpies and Altruism
Why do we help each other out? Even when it gets us nothing in return? Becky Ripley and Emily Knight explore the existence of altruism, with the help of some mischievous magpies.Featuring Professor Dominique Potvin from the University of the Sunshine Coast, and Dr Abigail Marsh from Georgetown University.Produced and presented by Emily Knight and Becky Ripley.
Underground Fungi and the Market Economy
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight dig deep into the underground web of plant roots and mycorrhizal fungi networks. Here lies a 400 million year old market economy, founded on the trading of resources. Nutrients are traded for carbon. Carbon is traded for nutrients. And the exchange rate between the two is constantly in flux, to level supply with demand. This highly-evolved symbiosis between plant and
Crafty Cuttlefish and Theory of Mind
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight explore whether we can ever know what others know, and how we figure out if they're telling fibs. Beneath the surface of the ocean, darting around in the dappled sunlight of the reef, you can find some of nature's most prolific liars. The cephalopods. Squid, octopus and cuttlefish; filthy con artists, the lot of them. They communicate with each other, and with both pr
Burying Beetles and the Politics of Parenting
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight tackle a topic we love to fight about: parenting. How should we raise our kids? How much love is too much?Good parenting begins at home. And 'home', in this case, is a decomposing mouse corpse, rolled into a ball and buried 5 inches beneath the soil of the forest floor. Naturally. This is the home of one of nature's most diligent little parents, the black and orange G
Dr Orangutan and the Evolution of Medicine
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight explore the ancient origins of medicine. What makes us sick? What makes us well again? And do animals medicate like we do?Deep in the rainforest of Sumatra, one clever orangutan called Rakus has pretty much got it figured out. Astonished researchers spotted him making and then applying a plant-based medicinal paste to a painful wound. It was anti-bacterial, anti-funga
Rainbowfish and the Mysteries of Memory
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight dive into the watery world of rainbowfish to confront the age-old myth that fish have bad memories. In actual fact, they are much more intelligent than we like to think, with an incredible capacity for learning and memory, as seen in almost all fish species. Their ability to remember complex things over a long period of time means they can build social relationships,
Drunk Moose and the Drive to Get Loose
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight tackle a serious question. One of supreme scientific importance: do animals get wasted?From drunk moose stuck in trees, to wasted wallabies asleep in opium fields, to dippy dolphins puffing on toxic pufferfish; stories abound about animals who seem to be using their free time to get sloshed. But do these stories, delightful as they are, stand up to scrutiny? In the na
Zebra Finches and Learning a Language
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight find out what it takes to learn the language of your people, with the help of some extremely chatty little birds.The song of the zebra finch has been compared to a 90's dial-up modem running triple-speed, or an alien fax machine. But to a female zebra finch, it's a song of irresistible seduction. The males learn their song in a very similar way to the way we learn lan
Buff Geese and Gym Rats
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight investigate physical fitness in the animal kingdom, and ask why animals never seem to have to go to the gym.Consider the Barnacle Goose, getting ready for one of the most phenomenal physical challenges of the animal world: the annual migration. They leave their sedentary summer life, floating about eating reeds, and take off to fly 2,700 miles. And what do they do to
Killer Whales and the Mystery of the Menopause
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight dive into the underwater world of killer whales, where tight-knit family pods are led by the eldest post-reproductive matriarch, to better understand why we have a menopause. Matriarchal killer whales usually stop being able to reproduce in their thirties or forties, but continue to live for decades longer. This phenomenon of having a long post-reproductive life is kn
Chuckling Chimps and the Evolution of Laughter
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight look to the giggles and guffaws of the animal kingdom to ask where human laughter has come from. At least 65 species have been identified as making 'play vocalisations', a sort of animal version of laughter, according to a recent UCLA paper studying animals at play. Rats giggle in ultrasound, elephants have a play-specific trumpet, and kia parrots cackle from the tree
Cockatoos and the Power of the Beat
Rhythm is everywhere in the biological world. The rhythm of heartbeat, the rhythm of breathing, the rhythm of gait and walking. In fact, in 'The Descent of Man', Charles Darwin wrote that the perception of rhythm is "probably common to all animals and no doubt depends on the common physiological nature of their nervous system.” And yet, recent studies have shown that even our closest living relati
Frozen Frogs and Preserved People
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight look to the freeze-thaw abilities of the North American wood frog to ask whether we can freeze ourselves in order to return to a future world...Early March is breeding season for the North American wood frog. They are frisky because they’ve just thawed out having spent the winter not just in hibernation, but frozen at -18°C. How do they do it, and still survive? And w
Great Tits and Group Think
You may think 'culture' is one of those peculiar things unique to humans, like dancing to pop music or yelling at the TV. But you'd be wrong. Animals may not flock to the Opera, but they absolutely do have 'culture'; habits; traditions; ways of doing things that are passed down from one generation to the next. Animal culture has been studied in fish, mammals and even insects, and one of the longes
Lazy Ants and the Power of Doing Nothing
We've all seen the Attenborough documentaries, full of the hurrying and scurrying of life on earth, the drama constantly unfolding. The natural world is a BUSY place... Or is it?The surprising truth is, away from the cameras, most animals spend most of the time doing absolutely nothing at all. It's not just the sleepy sloths and the cat-napping cats, even the critters with reputations for being th
Rivers and the Rights of Nature
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight ask whether giving legal rights to things like rivers and forests changes how we think about the world that lives around us.The Whanganui River, in New Zealand, is a legal person in the eyes of the law. It is legally defined as a living whole, from the mountains to the sea, and two local Maori tribe members speak on its behalf as its legal representatives. Other natio
Screaming Marmots and the Sound of Fear
Why are some sounds more frightening than others? Are there evolutionary origins behind the things we find scary? And is there anything more blood-curdling than a full throated scream?Becky Ripley and Emily Knight tune in to the sounds that send the shivers down our spines, via a frightened Marmot in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and a brand new kind of musical instrument known as the 'apprehen
Mongooses and the Magic of Trust
As our global society becomes ever more mobile, with people migrating across borders and making new homes among strangers, how do we figure out how to fit in? Trust is the glue that holds society together, but trust - as we all know - must be earned. Becky Ripley and Emily Knight take a trip to the African savanna, to see what a mob of dwarf mongooses can teach us about migration, integration, an
Cuckoo Chicks and the Supernormal Stimulus
Why do we want the things we want? What really drives us? And how in control of our instincts are we? All questions you might ask the humble cuckoo. This dastardly bird - a 'brood parasite' - famously leaves its eggs in another bird's nest and flies off, never to be seen again. The enormous chick hatches, kills all its nest-mates, then runs its adoptive parents ragged with round-the-clock feedings
Bull Elephants and the Importance of Dads
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight get to grips with fatherhood in the animal kingdom by way of the largest land animal on earth, a fully grown bull elephant. Like the majority of mammals, male elephants aren't directly involved in raising the youngsters - that's left to the matriarchal herd composed of grandmothers, mothers and daughters. But you'd be wrong to think that means they don't have an influ
Octopuses and the Mind-Body Problem
What is this thing we call "consciousness"? It feels like a non-physical thing that somehow exists as a separate entity to our physical body. We might think of it as being located up in our brain where our internal chatter is generated, but the 'mind' still somehow feels separate to the 'brain'. Then along comes an octopus to complicate the matter. Octopuses clearly have consciousness and high int
Dragon Lizards and the Gender Spectrum
Sex is simple. Or so we're taught; animals can be male or female. But even the briefest glance at the animal kingdom tells us that this simply isn't true. Some creatures have only one sex; some have three; some have none at all. Some animals are two sexes at the same time; some flip flop between them when the time is right. When evolution came to solve the problem of procreation, she did it in a m
Slime Mould and Problem Solving
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight celebrate the intelligence of a brainless slime mould. As single-cell protists, with no brain and no nervous system, slime moulds do not 'think' in human terms, but they can calculate and navigate complex systems with incredible efficiency and objectivity. With some help from a few oat flakes, because slime mould loves oats. One species in particular, Physarum Polycep
Naked Mole Rats and Life Extension
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight examine the naked mole rat, a saber-toothed sausage of a rodent, which seems to defy the mammalian laws of aging. It lives way longer than what is expected of a rodent and is now the focus for much medical research as scientists try to understand more about their aging process in the name of human life extension. Of course, we all want to age slower and live longer, b
Ants and Social Distancing
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight find out what ants teach us about surviving a pandemic. As social animals, we're particularly susceptible to disease, so perhaps there are lessons to be learned from other sociable species in how we manage this. Ants are one of the most social species on the planet, and it turns out they know a thing or two about self-isolation and social distancing.The story of how w
Dog Poo and the Challenge of Navigation
Naturebang is back. Becky Ripley and Emily Knight are again trying to make sense of what we humans are all about, with a little help from the natural world. And this week, they’re getting lost.Navigating our world is a challenge faced by every creature that moves. From dung beetles mapping the desert dunes, to eels circumnavigating the globe, each finds its own way about with unerring accuracy.
Vole-love and Fidelity
Ah, true love. Who can quantify that heady rush, the joy of another’s company, the unshakable bonds between one lover and another? Well, vole experts can.This tiny rodent is not just an anagram of love, it can also teach us a lot about why we fall. And why we sometimes stray. Prairie Voles form life-long monogamous bonds, together until death they do part. Almost identical Meadow Voles don’t, livi
Parasites and Personality
If you think you’re in control, think again.What invisible forces might be guiding your behaviour, your decisions, your most intimate emotions? Becky Ripley and Emily Knight take a trip into the bizarre nightmare world of the undergrowth, and watch ‘zombie ants’ stumble forward, blindly following the orders of the deadly fungi controlling their brains. Parasites often get the upper hand of their h
The Portuguese Man O'War and the Individual
Strange things dwell out in the open ocean. Bobbing atop the waves, Becky Ripley and Emily Knight meet one such creature, the Portuguese Man O’War. With its bulbous air-sacs and trailing tentacles you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a jellyfish, but you’d be wrong. It’s a colony, a society of tiny individual animals, who work together to eat, hunt and reproduce as one.In the Age of the Individual,
Sea-Sponges and the Illusion of Self
The humble sea sponge has been around for over 500 million years. We may think of them as ‘simple’ animals, with no brain, no nerves and no organs. But they have a pretty good party trick up their fleshy sleeves. Push a sponge through a mesh, until all that remains is a cloud of cells. Pour those cells into a tank, and watch as the cells reform themselves, like the terminator, back into a sponge.B
Starlings and Social Networks
Starling murmurations, those swirling, shifting sky-patterns made by hundreds of birds moving in synchrony, are one of nature’s greatest spectacles. How do they avoid crashing into each other? Becky Ripley and Emily Knight delve into the maths behind the movement with some computer modelling to help them chart the flight patterns, and discover the secret.As for us humans, sadly we don’t fly togeth
Welcome to Naturebang
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight look to the natural world to answer some of life's big questions. Science meets storytelling, with a philosophical twist.
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