We’ve been talking a bit about evolution lately,
and there is a phenomenon in evolution whereby a new species might come into being through natural selection, that is,
a beneficial mutation and subsequent adaptation to the environment that causes the species to explode, for its
population to bow out my geometric proportions. In culture and technology and society, the same thing happens with
memes, and one of the more recent memes that has seen this kind of explosion is the podcast. Seriously, have you seen
how many podcasts there are out there these days? I am going to start doing more posts about them, taking a look at
which ones are worth listening to. I subscribe to a few god ones on itunes and poke around the net for others.
So the first podcast that I think you should here is this one called JungleCast at Echoradio. Now, it’s somewhat unconventional,, in that
what you are hearing is a SoundScape, a walk and talk interview with a scientist named Dr. Ed Barnhardt, who in this
case happens to be studying the history of the ancient Maya at one of my favorite Maya sites: Palenque. I was in
Palenque years ago, and was thrilled to walk around the ruins and explore the jungles. Even to skinny-dip in one of the
nearby streams. But the podcast here is not about skinny-dipping. It is a rather sober and serious look at a scientists
work trying to figure out what happened to the Maya and how they lived.
The audio quality of these podcast
is superb. Which I really appreciate since I have grown quite tired of hearing podcasts done by someone into their
laptop using the built in speakers. So give this one a listen. I think you’ll really enjoy it.