Glowing Vomit, Cricket Serenades, and the Evolution of Communication

The life of a biologist may not be what you expect. It is not all white lab coats and microscopes. There are remote islands, makeshift shacks that serve both for sleeping and a field laboratory. For this guest, it also includes cricket serenades and nighttime scuba dives in the ocean filled with glowing displays of shrimp vomit. Really, vomit! Dr. Biology sits down with biologist Niko Hensley to learn about his research into the world of animal communication. This is the first episode in a series of podcasts recorded at the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology conference – also called SICB.

Learn more: Strange Cricket Silence

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Chapters

• 1:49 Evolution of communication
• 2:45 Do only animals communicate?
• 3:34 The world of tiny shrimp
• 3:50 Bioluminescence
• 4:12 The story of sea fireflies
• 5:42 Scuba diving in pitch dark
• 6:27 Glowing vomit
• 9:59 Cricket serenades
• 11:06 Rapid evolutionary change
• 12:48 Glowing vomit, Starry Night, or animal fireworks?
• 14:01 The world of biology and science is not always what you might think it is.
• 16:13 Science shack on a remote island
• 17:00 Nikos' makeshift lab
• 18:09 Picking a favorite study animal
• 19:12 Learning the skills to be a biologist (here, scuba diving)
• 20:29 Who is the "we" in science?
• 22:12 Three questions
• 22:21 When did you know you wanted to be a biologist?
• 23:17 What would you be or do if you were not a scientist?
• 25:23 What advice do you have for future scientists?
• 28:23 Sign-off