Recombination Nation

Roger's Bacon is an evolutionary biologist who turned his tool set on the related problem of how cultures mutate, compete, hybridise and evolve.He writes fascinating deep dive articles at Secretorum on substack: https://www.secretorum.lifeAnd runs the Seeds of Science blog to give a wider audience to pioneering thinkers: https://www.theseedsofscience.pubSign up to Recombination Nation on Substack...

Steve is an independent crop breeder in southern Australia breeding a host of uncommon crops from similar climates in the Andes. We dive into his work back crossing maize to its ancestor (teosinte), plus his early work preparing to wide cross mauka and arracacha. Steve is pursuing the true zero input approach to breeding staple crops which can produce on unirrigated soil with minimal nutrient...

Glenn Roberts is the founder of Anson Mills, an extraordinary project to bring traditional landrace staple crops back from the brink of extinction in his part of the humid south eastern USA. This interview digs into how he achieved such an extraordinary feat, looking for clues to how others could follow his example in their own bioregions.Read much more about Anson Mills here:...

Andiru is a conlang enthusiast who took things the next step and created the auxiliary language Baseyu along with a dedicated community of enthusiasts. Auxiliary languages are designed to be small, simple and accessible enough for anybody to learn them as a new global common tongue- kind of like the Tower of Babel in reverse.You can check out the project here: https://baseyu.comBrowse the...

Okan learnt two of the most successful constructed languages- the sprawling, romantic Esperanto and cute minimalist Toki Pona.After covering the history of these languages we delve deeper into the dynamics of experimental language communities, the psychology of conlangers, and the potential interplay of culture, technology and experimental languages in the near future.Drop me a message on...

Malcolm Collins is an unclassifiable frontiersman for the coming century of chaos, a hardened fighter from the trenches of the culture wars, and a pronatalist who put his own blood line on the line by having a gaggle of embryo selected children with his lovely wife Simone, who cohosts their Based Camp podcast.You can watch their diverse discussions at Based Camp:...

Chuck Chan is an accomplished amateur crop breeder from the humid cloud forests of California, adapting plants to his little pocket of Andean climate. He has made the most of his challenges by breeding a host of rare crops which struggle in other places, particularly the root crop Mashua, and papaya relative Vasconcellea along with numerous other projects. We also delve into how he manages his...

Gail Tverberg was a star during the 2000s oil crisis, producing data rich reports on the TheOilDrum.com in a way that only a trained actuary could pull off. She has continued to impress me in subsequent years with her uncommon knack for digging into the numbers beneath the stories that others are trying to spin.In this interview we discuss the current state of the energy crisis, why a handful of...

From razor tongued darling of the peak oil movement to bette noire of the culture wars, James Howard Kunstler simply cannot keep from running his mouth, rustling feathers and shining a spot light on the absurdity and obscenity of modern civilised life as it staggers toward the dust bin of history.You can read his weekly blog here: https://www.kunstler.comHis latest fiction book, following a 12...

Sean Dembrosky runs Edible Acres, a permaculture nursery in New York. We explore his recent successes with edible Canna, and his appreciation for persimmons, plus all the ins and outs of managing a huge range of plants for sale.Check out the nursery: https://www.edibleacres.orgTake a tour of his gardens on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/EdibleAcresSign up to Recombination...