In this episode, the gang has a conversation about the various factors affecting total global diversity and how these factors might affect patterns of radiations. Also, Amanda finds a new twitter handle, James drinks a few 11% alcohol beers,  Curt details Winnie the Poo's crack addiction, and the whole podcast is routinely interrupted by random people showing up during the recording. Also, congrats to Dr. James Lamsdell for successfully defending his thesis.

References:

Rabosky, Daniel L. "Ecological limits and diversification rate: alternative paradigms to explain the variation in species richness among clades and regions." Ecology Letters 12.8 (2009): 735-743.

Moen, Daniel, and Hélène Morlon. "Why does diversification slow down?."Trends in ecology & evolution 29.4 (2014): 190-197.

In this episode, the gang is all back in the same zip code and celebrate by having a long discussion on the origin and extinction of the large mammals from the Cenozoic known as the Megafauna. Somehow this gets.... weird. Meanwhile, James defends the Star Wars Empire, Curt argues why turtles should be ninjas instead of mere heroes, and Amanda confuses Michael Bay with Roland Emmerich. Also, congrats to Dr. Amanda Falk for defending her thesis. 

References:

Anthony D. Barnosky et al. Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene Extinctions on the Continents Science 306, 70 (2004);

Tao Deng et al. Out of Tibet: Pliocene Woolly Rhino Suggests High-Plateau Origin of Ice Age Megaherbivores Science 333, 1285 (2011);

 Prescott, Graham W., et al. "Quantitative global analysis of the role of climate and people in explaining late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109.12 (2012): 4527-4531.

Lorenzen, Eline D., et al. "Species-specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans." Nature 479.7373 (2011): 359-364.

With thesis defenses on the horizon, the group looks to a comforting and familiar topic to escape their morose nerves; mass extinctions. Specifically, they discuss two papers about patterns of survivorship across mass extinction events and use this as a springboard to talking about general macroevolutionary patterns. Also, James fires Curt, Amanda fires James, and Curt decides to host his own private podcast in the middle of the real podcast with special guest Amanda. SPOILERS for House of Cards in the first 30 seconds of the podcast.

References:

Jablonski, David. "Survival without recovery after mass extinctions."Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99.12 (2002): 8139-8144.

Thorne, Philippa M., Marcello Ruta, and Michael J. Benton. "Resetting the evolution of marine reptiles at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108.20 (2011): 8339-8344.

Vrba, Elisabeth S., and Stephen Jay Gould. "The hierarchical expansion of sorting and selection: sorting and selection cannot be equated." Paleobiology(1986): 217-228.

Vrba, Elisabeth S. "Levels of selection and sorting with special reference to the species level." Oxford surveys in evolutionary biology 6 (1989): 111-168. 

In this episode, the gang “gives the people what they want” by talking about two papers that look at a giant theropod dinosaur from the Iberian Peninsula. Also, Curt discusses alternate Star Wars history, James requests that everything be cut, and Amanda goes “full dragon”.

References:

Cobos et al. / Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 399 (2014) 31–41

Hendrickx C, Mateus O (2014) Torvosaurus gurneyi n. sp., the Largest Terrestrial Predator from Europe, and a Proposed Terminology of the Maxilla Anatomy in Nonavian Theropods. PLoS ONE 9(3):

In celebration of the podcast’s one year anniversary, the gang decides to discuss two papers about live birth in the fossil record. At least.... that was the plan.... however the second paper proves to be far more problematic than the gang had bargained for. What started off as a simple, breezy pun takes a... darker turn. Isn’t that how all birthdays go, though?

Meanwhile, James discusses the importance of proper breeding in selecting your animal metaphors, Curt tells the apocryphal story of the podcast’s “history”, and the whole gang talks at length about the secret xenomorph invasion during the Triassic. Also, the gang gets a whole new set of microphones and everyone is super excited about them, especially James’ heater which occasionally stops by to say hello.

Sound effects used in this episode come from http://www.freesfx.co.uk/

In this episode, the evil forces of internet lag and food coma conspire to destroy the podcast gang.... and evil pretty much succeeds. However, despite being utterly defeated, the gang still has time to discuss several interesting papers about form and function in evolution, including one recent paper about forams. Also, James talks about disturbing cereal box mascots, Amanda claims to get drunk on only one glass of wine, and see if  you can count how many times Curt leaves to go get a beer (the real answer might surprise you).

In response to the slightest amount of "success", the gang immediately tries (and fails) to sell out the podcast with James and Curt racing to the bottom in a soulless attempt to cater the show to potential sponsors. They also have a #detailed #discussion on the #famous #Cambrian #arthropod #Anomalocaris.

#pleasedon'tsueus

#hashtag

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. If only we had known that, despite our best intentions, we weren't prepared for the sheer insanity of trying to podcast about the ambiguous Burgess Shale taxon Wiwaxia. The conversation somehow drifts to the Kama Sutra, seething contempt, giant desserts, vomiting, snot, yiffing, spiny koopas and zoomers, and the evil nature of goats. Thankfully, James manages to summarize everything at the end in a way that EVERYONE can understand. 

Brought to you by the letter W.

In this episode, it becomes painfully obvious that James has been escaping the terrible winter rain by playing a bunch of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag since he somehow manages to take a discussion on macroecological patterns of the tropics and turns it into a discussion on pirates. Also, Amanda forgets Billy Mays's name, Curt tortures James by describing scenes from Final Destination and the podcast stops dead when a bunch of cats decide to throw down. All in all, a pretty normal start to a new year.