The birds and the bees are just the beginning

I’ve always been fascinated with trying to find the biology behind the quirky and odd behaviors of the human animal. From our obsession with unhealthy food to limiting our reproductive success, humans do a lot of things that we could assume are ‘unnatural.’ In this collection of short essays, I find many examples from the animal kingdom that might surprise you when it comes to determining whether or not human behaviors are adaptive.

Sex Bytes is a web series that I created in order both to satisfy my unwavering curiosity for the world of bizarre animal sex, and to use these strange concepts as teaching tools for various subjects in biology and evolution. There’s no question that people are generally interested in sex. Therefore, sex (and all of the great before and after behavior) is a great way to introduce and discuss many different aspects of ecology.

I am a huge fan of Isabella Rossellini's ‘Green Porno’ films. I love her silly yet educational approach, and continue to be inspired by her wonderful work.

Olivia Judson’s book was among the first that motivated me to become a science communicator. Her comical approach to all kinds of sexual ‘conundrums’ has always been a favorite of mine.

This web series (which was actually the reason I was invited to speak at TED in the first place) takes a hard look at the weird and wonderful world of the evolutionary biology of sex. Based on the second half of my book, many of the stories are compared to human behaviors in a light-hearted way. We were very proud of the bold approach we took to this series. You will not find me appearing as a normal ‘science presenter’ in a lab coat or on a green screen. Our approach paid off — the series has had over 14 million views to date!

Anyone familiar with my work knows that I approach biological storytelling in a daring, unapologetic way. However, many people don’t know that I actually grew up as a trained classical ballet dancer and performer. I’ve recently started to use more of my performance abilities and musicality to create science music video parodies. Here’s my favorite so far, a parody of Miley Cyrus' ‘Wrecking Ball’ entitled ‘Organisms Do Evolve.'