The Escaped Sapiens Podcast

Dec 04 2024 79 ep. 97 mins 48
The Escaped Sapiens Podcast artwork

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast attempts to give an authentic and unedited voice to the researchers and explorers extending the boundaries of what is humanly possible.

  Science  Technology
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Regenerative Farming And Carbon Negative Beef | Will Harris | Escaped Sapiens #75

Dec 04 2024 101 mins  
In this conversation I speak with Will Harris, who is a fourth generation cattle farmer. Will originally ran a standard industrial farm, but increasingly became dissatisfied by the welfare of his animals. That started a journey to change the way his farm ran, and over the years he has converted his operation piece by piece into a regenerative farm. That means no more grain feed, no

What is Reality Made Of? Unscrambling the Quantum Omelet | Rob Spekkens | Escaped Sapiens #74

Nov 21 2024 124 mins  
In quantum mechanics the state of a physical system is described by a wavefunction, which provides information about the probabilities of various outcomes, such as finding a particle at a particular location in space. This differs dramatically from classical physics, where a particle is described by a definite position and momentum. As a result, quantum mechanics inherently involve

The Future of Protein: Breeding The Super Tuber | Padraic Flood | Escaped Sapiens #73

Sep 16 2024 118 mins  
Wheat, soy, corn, potatoes—did we really domesticate the best crops nature had to offer? In this episode of the podcast, I speak with geneticist Padraic J. Flood, who specializes in population and quantitative genetics. Padraic left academia and a position in vertical farming to pursue a dream: the domestication of the Aardaker.The Aardaker is a small, unassuming plant native to

The "Self" Is An Illusion | Thomas Metzinger | Escaped Sapiens #72

Aug 26 2024 93 mins  
In this episode I speak with Professor Thomas Metzinger about how our strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerges out of objective events in the natural world. According to Thomas, no such things as selves really exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are what he calls `phenomenal' selves which our brains fabricate. In this episode I try to unpa

Alcohol And The Birth Of Civilization | Edward Slingerland | Escaped Sapiens #71

Aug 19 2024 73 mins  
Why is alcohol use so widespread? The usual thinking is that despite its negative effects, alcohol is pleasurable and that is why we drink it. But this can't be the whole story because if alcohol is really so bad then cultures that prohibit drinking should dominate over those that like to drink, or you might think that a genetic mutation that makes drinking less pleasurable would s

Building A Theory Of Everything | Stephen Wolfram | Escaped Sapiens #70

Aug 02 2024 113 mins  
This is a conversation with Stephen Wolfram about his proposed theory of everything. Stephen is a British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, and CEO of Wolfram Research. He also created Mathematica, and Wolfram|Alpha & Wolfram Language, and is the Author of 'A New Kind of Science' as well as a number of other books. Stephen's attempt to derive all of the law

Should We Deregulate Housing? | Bryan Caplan | Escaped Sapiens #69

Jun 25 2024 104 mins  
Housing regulation is often put in place for good reasons, namely comfort, safety, environmental protection, availability of utilities and services, and more. With each additional regulation, however, restrictions are being placed on what you can build, where you can build, and how quickly you can build it. Professor Bryan Caplan argues that our current mess of regulations dramatic

Decoding Human Speech From Brain Signals | Julia Berezutskaya | Escaped Sapiens #67

Jun 09 2024 82 mins  
Julia Berezutskaya is one of the worlds leading researchers working in the area of brain computer interfaces. She is part of the brain-computer interface group (dept. Neurology & Neurosurgery) at UMC Utrecht, where she works at the intersection of fundamental and clinical neuroscience research. A key goal of her work on the computational modeling of cognitive and neurobiologica

Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? | Carl Bender | Escaped Sapiens #67

May 17 2024 142 mins  
Carl Bender is an applied mathematician and mathematical physicist holding positions at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Heidelberg, Imperial College, London. He was also one of my own favorite lecturers. He taught me about perturbation theory and asymptotic series which are powerful mathematical tools for solving difficult problems in physics. I invited Carl o

Nuclear Energy: Rewards, Costs, and Advanced Reactors | Rachel Slaybaugh | Escaped Sapiens #66

Apr 21 2024 52 mins  
What role should Nuclear Power play in energy production? This episode of the podcast explores the case for Nuclear Energy. I speak with Rachel Slaybaugh, who was an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Division Director at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She also served as a Program Director at the Department of Ene