This conversation is about the history of life and earth. I speak with evolutionary biologist and author Olivia Judson, who is best known for her book 'Dr. Tatiana's sex advice to all creation''. Oliva thinks of the history of life on earth in terms of 5 energy epochs, in which life has worked out how to make use of different kinds of energy. These epochs are geochemistry, light, oxygen, flesh, and fire. Olivia explains her fascination with the transformation of life over time, and with what it means to be alive 4.5 billion years into earth's history. Olivia is currently in the final stages of authoring her next popular science book on just this topic.

►Watch Conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NgN5M4UWOMY

►For more information about Olivias work see: https://aeon.co/essays/the-insight-of-darwins-work-on-corals-worms-and-co-evolution

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0138

At 1:14:38 Olivia accidently says cyanobacteria instead of Coccolithophores.

At 1:57:12 Olivia accidently says 20,000 base pairs instead of 20,000 genes. Genes are sequences of base pairs. The typical Bacteria have between 2000 and 5000 genes, corresponding to several million base pairs.

These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity. The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests.