This week’s episode is with Dr. Matthew Herron, professor of Evolutionary Biology at Georgia Tech university. He found us through a series of articles on our blog about the emergence of multicellularity, and joined us for an excellent conversation on the topic. Over the course of the hour we covered all kinds of topics, from what the biology of Volvocine algae can tell us about our own multicelled nature, to more philosophical subjects like the emergence of life on earth, the value of careful speculation, and the way that basic science encourages us to pursue pure curiosity, simply for the sake of knowing what’s possible. Support the podcast by becoming a Patron @DemystifySci ªº¬˚∆≤≥≤≥ https://www.patreon.com/demystifysci ≤≥≤≥∆˚¬ºª Matthew Herron - https://www.matthewherron.net https://twitter.com/xprinceps Support us and Dr. Herron when you purchase his upcoming book: https://amzn.to/3neEkBY Tong et al, 2021 review or theories of initiation of multicellularity: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202111.0194/v1 ªº¬˚∆≤≥≤≥ Join the mailing list https://bit.ly/3v3kz2S​ ≤≥≤≥∆˚¬ºª Check our main channel, @DemystifyingScience for in depth-investigations: https://youtu.be/1OCL5Lq8m6s PODCAST INFO: Blog: http://demystifyingscience.com/blog Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3uhn7J1 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/39IDJBD RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/2be66934/podcast/rss Donate: https://bit.ly/3wkPqaD Swag: https://bit.ly/2PXdC2y SOCIAL: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/demystifysci - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/demystifyingscience - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/demystifysci/ MUSIC: -Michael Vignoia & Shilo Delay