Herman Pontzer: Diversity: Humanity’s Superpower

With lessons learned from the Covid pandemic, he points to how we might better tackle the next, inevitable, global pandemic — at a time when science has been all but discarded from the leading government agencies responsible for public health.

Unlike most other land animals, we can live almost anywhere – from deserts, to mountains, rain forests, even the arctic. We are supremely adaptable, and that adaptability has led to our diversity – not only in our biology but also in our cultures.

Along with revelations about snake sex, their contributions to medicine, that flickering tongue and why slithering is a secret to their success, Stephen Hall goes at least some way to convincing Alan that snakes – “the ultimate other” – deserve our respect as well as our dread.

She’s had a love-hate relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald since she was a teenager. And she’s now written a wonderful new take on The Great Gatsby, reimagining the story with a cast of the Black elite in post-war Los Angeles.

An old friend of Clear and Vivid is back to enlighten Alan on some of the oddities of human behavior – both good and bad – and to talk about his entertaining new podcast, Father Offspring Interviews, hosted by his daughter.

From his long running role as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, to his recent Broadway appearance in Glenngary Glen Ross, and his new incarnation as an off-beat action hero in the movies Nobody and Nobody 2, Bob Odenkirk does it all.

With her Black scuba-diving companions she has sought to reveal the appalling cost in lives lost in sunken slave ships, while at the same time honoring those lives by telling their stories.

Alan joins his old friend to compare notes on staying happy when old; and Roger shares tips from a forthcoming book, including some that may seem counterintuitive – like don’t use common sense, believe everyone, and don’t pay attention to people in your way.

Tina Fey’s reimagining of a movie Alan made over 40 years ago has been a big hit for Netflix. She and Alan have fun talking about how she went about updating the story for a new generation.

Alan lets bots mostly run the show to see how much they can do and still be under human control. For a while, it seems to go well, but then dangers start to emerge— and it gets a little scary.