A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth w/Henry Gee
Here We Are
Shane Mauss
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2023
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Henry Gee is the author of ‘A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth’ - winner Royal Society Science Book Award 2022 and more notably, one of Shane's favorite books :)
Henry is a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and editor at Nature. He is also a hilarious, charming, wonderful guy who articulates the story of our existence in a poetic and accessible way.
Learn more about him, his books, and his other writings here https://occamstypewriter.org/cromercrox/about-henry-gee/
The paperback version of this book is available for preorder now
Listen to Henry's first appearance on the show here: https://www.herewearepodcast.com/episodes/episode-360-46-billion-years-in-2-hours-henry-gee
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody, we have a fantastic show for you today. Return guest Henry G man. I cannot talk enough about his book a very short history of life on earth. This is one of my favorite episodes of the show so fantastic and not only that this is this is one of my first recordings since coming back from a winter break at all sorts of crap that I had to work on. |
| 0:28.0 | And all sorts of exciting things being announced one I have a residency starting in Las Vegas Sundays April 23rd psychedelic Sundays at area 15 in Las Vegas. They are partners with meowulf the artist collective if you've ever heard of them. |
| 0:50.0 | Such a perfect venue. It's not a casino or anything. It's just this really immersive epic awesome art space. Look it up if you haven't checked it out. There's I'm going to have some sneaky ticket links on Shane Moss MA USS dot com maybe even by the time that you're watching this or very soon there they're not announcing it just yet because it's actually a new room. |
| 1:17.0 | That they built in this show is part of a big announcement for for the show in this new room. So that's going to be like March 4th or something like that. It's going to be announced. I'm so excited. I'm still in rally at the moment trying to make mom mom fest to happen here and everything fell apart a whole long story. |
| 1:44.0 | So it's getting pushed back to sometime next year find a different location stuff like that. But we are instead going to have a mind under matter. And here we are get together. I'm basically telling fans of mine that I want to like all hang out in Vegas that if you want to come to my May 14th show. |
| 2:09.0 | That whole weekend come that's not no extra fee or anything just whatever you find for playing tickets or or casinos hotels or whatever like there's a palestation right by area 15 that I've stayed there for under $100 a night and it's decent good. It's just off the strip. So it's a really good deal. |
| 2:33.0 | And and so I'll just we'll figure it out on discord. If you're if you're not on discord, but you're interested in hearing more hit me up. I can I can send you a link. There'll be more details coming soon. But my guess is like probably just a whole bunch of us will walk around on the strip on the Saturday. And I'll just have the whole weekend Friday. Saturday. Sunday will probably like go to area 15. There's this amazing. Omega Mart. |
| 3:02.0 | Weird art installation. It's this whole alien world essentially. It's so cool before my show Monday. I'll be around to to hang out with people and just play it by ear. There's a bunch of cool stuff to do outdoors. And this is kind of |
| 3:23.0 | planning this off the kind of by the seat of my pants a little bit because I was disappointed there's not going to be a camp out festival this year. There's all sorts of good stuff in the works. |
| 3:38.0 | I'm starting a science communication nonprofit that's going to be the takes a long time to start a new profit nonprofit, but it's in the works and it's going to be the umbrella for for here we are and for |
| 3:51.0 | for the festival and some of my other science communication like stand up science when I start bringing back that and touring with that as well. |
| 4:01.0 | So many things happening and last minute I decided to line up some shows to do a Vegas warm up show. So I am basically be lining it from from |
| 4:17.0 | Raleigh to LA for some cool opportunities that came up in both Vegas and LA for me. And so in the in the area already if you're listening to this. |
| 4:30.0 | This is next Tuesday February 28th. I'm in DC go to Shane Moss comfort for these dates March 2nd. I'm in Charleston, South Carolina March 3rd. I'm in Greensboro, North Carolina March 4th. I'm in Raleigh March 7th. I'm in Asheville March 8th Atlanta. And I'm working on so that's just how far I've gotten with the booking. |
| 4:56.0 | But I'm filling in new dates all the time. And so basically going from Atlanta, maybe up through Nashville, through Arkansas, Oklahoma City, maybe Denver. And I need to get to Vegas by by the 3rd week of March to do some stuff with the space and then get to LA shortly after to do a bunch of podcasts and promotion and stuff. |
| 5:25.0 | So I might I might be flying to New York, quick after that to do a bunch of podcasts and promotions. So everywhere that I'm going, I'll be lining up a lot of last minute pop up shows. So make sure go to Shane Moss calm and join my email list because things are just happening really fast with all of this. I just had a lot of like cool opportunities happen recently, especially after a really crazy two months of winter. |
| 5:55.0 | Finally, all of the puzzle pieces started coming together and and and I'm very excited about what this year is now looking like for me. This show in Vegas, it's a it's a immersive psychedelic comedy show. |
| 6:15.0 | It's, you know, I toured with my show a good trip to the 111 city tour back in 2016, 2017. I'm now bringing a version of that show and an updated version of that show that's going to be morphing and changing into a completely different show as well. |
| 6:32.0 | I am bringing that to the best venue for this show. It's going to be six Sundays in a row to start with the intention of continuing the show after that is starting April 23rd. If you've seen my comedy central tales from the trip, which another one just came out yesterday at the time if you happen to be listening to this at the day that it was released. But again, if you go to |
| 6:59.0 | the Shane Wallace YouTube page, you can you can find that as well. That's one all about with both me and remain nasor talking about an experience that we had at the festival, really fun story. And |
| 7:17.0 | so yeah, I have I have the the creator of comedy central tales from the trip doing some animation for the show in Vegas. I have another VJ that's been doing digital art and a video jockey. So adding and video immersive experiences to domes and walls and all sorts of like projection art to make that kind of immersive psychedelic experiences for people. |
| 7:45.0 | So he's helping add some atmosphere to my show and putting cool backgrounds and adding to some of my stories and some of the ideas and and I'm just so absolutely thrilled to be putting all this together. And I have like just not been in the mood to do stand up. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Shane Mauss, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Shane Mauss and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

