Up Next
Back to Show
It's Okay to Be Smart
Why Are There As Many Males As Females?
Season 6
Episode 5
In almost every animal species on Earth, equal numbers of males and females are conceived. Why is that? Especially in populations like lions or elephant seals, where most males don’t get to mate? That’s survival of the laziest, not survival of the fittest. It turns out that in most cases, an equal balance of the sexes is the evolutionary stable strategy.
Support Provided By
27:56
We learn about all the reasons that Earth’s climate changes, natural and otherwise.
12:31
Turns out, we can blame it all on neutron stars and some oddities of the periodic table.
10:00
Join Joe in this whirlwind tour of the endocrine system to find the answers.
8:29
Is Everest the tallest mountain on Earth? The answer is not as simple as you might think.
17:59
Turns out we’re all at risk of being overconfident about something.
19:10
There's an absolutely weird, but surprisingly common phenomenon called sensory adaptation.
11:50
Scientists in Florida can recreate a Category 5 hurricane in a box the size of a bedroom.
10:41
Are humans still evolving? And how have our technological advances affected the process?
19:07
Illusions teach us how our brain constructs a three-dimensional reality using 2-D images.
22:18
Joe talks biology with science communicator extraordinaire Prof. Brian Cox.
9:42
We explore why animals like whales, elephants, and other large animals not get cancer.
10:16
The real magic of mirrors is far stranger and more interesting, as you’re about to learn.