Curious science, loose jokes, strange examples.
Here We Are follows long, curious conversations with scientists and science-minded guests. The mood is relaxed, but the subjects range widely, from dung beetles and birdsong to emotional intelligence, virtual education, viruses, and the history of life.
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Here We Are is a conversational science show with a comic edge and a patient attention span. It is built less around tidy lessons than around following a question until it gets interesting. The conversations move easily from jokes to explanation. A guest may start with birdsong in noisy cities, then end up talking about ecosystems, pollution, and what sound can reveal about environmental change. An episode on dung beetles can become a tour through navigation, animal behavior, life history, and the practical consequences of losing beetles from a farm. The show enjoys that kind of path. It likes odd entry points because odd entry points often lead to clear science. The register stays casual even when the ideas are technical. Guests are not rushed through their expertise, and the interviewer often pauses to restate a point or ask the basic question a listener might be holding back. That makes the show especially friendly to people who are interested in science but do not want a lecture. Recent episodes touch virtual education, the metaverse, evolutionary history, nature and nurture, emotional intelligence, mosquitoes, ticks, viruses, and the strange luck of being alive at all. Some conversations are playful. Others carry real weight, including public health stories about La Crosse virus and prevention work in affected communities. The show’s personality comes from the contrast: goofy curiosity on the surface, serious respect for scientific detail underneath. It is especially strong when biology and human meaning overlap. Evolution is not treated as a settled fact to nod at and move past, but as a way to ask why bodies, minds, animals, and social behavior work the way they do. The result is warm, nerdy, and unusually spacious. It gives science room to be funny, grim, beautiful, and deeply strange.
Made for: For listeners who like science conversations that are accessible, funny, and willing to wander into the details. It fits people drawn to evolution, psychology, ecology, public health, and the everyday weirdness behind technical ideas.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by letting scientists explain at length while keeping the room loose and human. It does not flatten odd topics into quick facts; it follows dung beetles, birdsong, viruses, classrooms, and emotional intelligence until the bigger pattern appears.
Globetrotting and mind exploring comedian Shane Mauss interviews scientists each week on journey to answer the biggest questions about the meanings of life (as well as a bunch of other random stuff you never imagined you would care about). Favorite topics include: psychology, biology, evolution, cognitive biases, behavioral economics, mating, animal behavior, neuroscience, and the subconscious
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Shane Mauss turns candid questions and expert correction into approachable conversations about evolution, animal behavior, and the mechanisms behind living systems.
Here We Are lets scientific conversations develop through Shane Mauss's candid curiosity. He asks guests to clarify mechanisms, tests ideas against everyday intuitions, and readily admits when he has misunderstood a detail.
A beetle rides falling dung; Shane Mauss makes you want to know what happens after landing.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A road-trip intro gives way to a clear, odd tour of dung beetle life history.
The episode starts with a host speaking from his car on a long drive, and that roadside looseness carries through as it moves from travel talk and show updates into a University of Tennessee Knoxville NIMBIOS conversation about dung beetles.
A plainspoken look at virtual training, metaverse awkwardness, and the limits of shiny tech.
The episode sits with a practical question: what happens when virtual tools can stage an experience before the real one is ready. Through examples ranging from virtual audiences to metaverse gatherings, it keeps circling the same unease, that technology can make something…
Henry Gee turns oxygen from a familiar necessity into a striking pivot in life's history.
A Very Short History of Life on Earth finds its cleanest turn in oxygen: the thing now treated as essential to life was once poisonous to almost everything alive.
Birdsong becomes a precise way to listen for change in an ecosystem.
Birdsong becomes a way to hear environmental change in this conversation with Liz Derryberry of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The episode considers whether urban noise alters what birds signal, how they pick up those signals, and why that matters as bird populations…
A reflective science conversation about how people assign purpose, and the evidence that keeps those stories in check.
This episode welcomes Marlene Zuck back for a season-one return conversation about adaptation, spurious explanations, and the human habit of assigning purpose to odd traits.
Butterflies, plant defenses, and the molecular tricks insects use to survive.
Here We Are gives this visit to butterflies enough space to feel both curious and precise. It lingers on plant defenses, caterpillar survival, and the narrow chemical ties that can bind insects to certain food plants.
Health, work, and agency under pressure.
Science fiction thinking for a platform-shaped world
Shane Mauss interviews return guest Michael Garfield about science topics including psychology, biology, and evolution.
Shane Mauss interviews evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk about her new book 'Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test'.
Comedian Shane Mauss interviews psychologist Hillary Anger Elfenbein about intelligence research and the positive manifold.
Here We Are's "Butterflies!
Kimberly Sheldon, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, describes how a failed plant project in Ecuador led her into dung beetles.
Shalonda Reeves, an assistant professor in STEM education at the University of Tennessee, explains how virtual reality and augmented reality fit into educational technology from pencils and paper to online labs.
Host Shane Mauss opens with an extended personal update on tour dates and a Las Vegas residency before welcoming back paleontologist Henry Gee to discuss his book "A Very Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters." Gee reads the book's opening paragraph aloud, describing a supernova whose scattered elements seeded our sun, then explains that life likely began not in a gentle setting but near superheated hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean.
Shane Mauss talks with evolutionary biologist Liz Derryberry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, about how bird song evolves and responds to human noise pollution.
Medical veterinary entomologist Becky Trout-Frixell of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville explains La Crosse virus, a mosquito-borne pathogen named after her hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin, that infects roughly 80 children a year, mostly in southern Appalachia.
Comedian Shane Mauss introduces his live podcast, discussing his fascination with evolution and science, and how he combines comedy with scientific interviews.
Host Shane Mauss interviews scientist Marlene Zook about her book and life's big questions, continuing their conversation from years ago.