Appearances

Sightings

It's published! The Tailored Brain: From Ketamine to Keto, to Companionship, a User's Guide to Feeling Better and Thinking Smarter is now available for purchase! It's a great read to start the new year!

Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis is now available in several languages.

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➤So pleased to get a chance to talk about creativity with Christie Aschwanden and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on their Emerging Form podcast. It was a fabulous, light, and yes, creative conversation.

➤Catch me in a fun conversation with the always delightful Bethany Brookshire at Science for the People, where we "talk about tailoring the brain with science: The good, the bad, and the totally not proven" and mutually about the concept of IQ.

✎ This essay in Salon by Mary Elizabeth William looks at the Elon-Muskian future our brains may be facing, including some information from The Tailored Brain, which it calls "fantastic and timely."

➤An amazing conversation with Shannon Palus for Slate's The Waves podcast, in which I offer up my 2-second advice for feeling better inside your head (hint: it involves trees)

➤Catch me here on KPCW/NPR's Cool Science Radio, having just a lovely chat with hosts Lynn Ware Peek and John Wells

➤Talking with a long-time fave of mine, Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon: "Our brain is not a slot machine"

➤Talking healthy brains in older age on the 40+ Fitness Podcast

➤ Here I am on Ideasphere, talking with host Guy Rathbun, who graciously understood what it means to be stuck in a winter storm

➤ Listen to me talk about The Tailored Brain on Wisconsin Public Radio! Callers had some nice ideas about social aspects of brain improvement.

✎ Book excerpt at Lithub! How a sense of awe can ignite creativity

✎ Me, at Vox: The brain benefits of exercising with other people

✎ Me, at Slate: One simple trick for being a better thinker

➤ Grok Science Radio Show and Podcast, with the host's little joke referencing a John le Carré book

➤ Back again at Here We Are podcast for another fun conversation with Shane Mauss

➤ Books on Pod: a good chapter-by-chapter overview of what you'll find in The Tailored Brain

➤ The Inquiring Minds podcast: Sizing up the notion of tailoring your brain (and saying "glutamine" instead of "glutamate," dammit)

🔑♪ IN OCTOBER: keynote speaker for the 22nd Annual Fall Science Meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America

🎥 Copperfield's Books, Northern California, August 11 at 6:45 p.m. Pacific time. Watch the video here.

🎥 Book Passage (San Francisco/Corte Madera), June 28 at 6 p.m. Pacific time: "A Public Talk about Private Parts," with Dr. Jen Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible and The Menopause Manifesto. Virtual event, no registration required. Watch it here.

🎥 The King's English, Salt Lake City, July 1 at 5 p.m. Pacific time. Free and virtual! Register here.

➤ Ologies podcast! Talking phallology with Alie Ward! OMG! In her inimitable language:

"Dongs. Schlongs. Peters. Intromittent organs. Gamete cannons. Biologist, gonad researcher and Phallologist Dr. Emily Wellingham joins to chat about peckers big and small, plain and fancy, barbed, coiled, colossal, pickled, and efficient. Also on the agenda: how the pressures of masculinity affect self-image, what actually contributes to a partner’s pleasure, what can cause willies to go wonky (and how to get back on track,) life beyond the binary and sensual turtles. Stick around to the end for friendly fellatio advice from penis-owners; boy howdy t’s a hard episode to pass up."

🎥 Zoom interview with "story merchant" Alain Guillot.

🎥 The Mystery of the Missing Penis. Video by MinuteEarth. I love this clever visual retelling of a story from my book about how researchers solved a Very Important Penis question thanks to century-old tuatara embryo samples.

🎥 The MinuteEarth team also made three great TikToks based on material from PHALLACY:

Light-detecting genitalia in butterflies
In these cave insect species, females have the intromittum (a broad term for organs that insert to transmit sperm)
More bells and whistles on an intromittum often implies less intimacy in mating

➤ Superhuman podcast with Ariana Sommer: "The Mighty Phallus Has Fallen: Dr. Emily Willingham Puts Male Genitalia In Its Proper Place"

➤ New Books Network: Emily Anthes, author of The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness, interviewed me for the Animal Studies podcast.

➤ Dave Asprey: Sexual Energy Series: The Shock & Awe of Penis Evolution #789

"A fun look at how evolution and the natural world prove that the penis doesn’t really have a reason to be cocky. Welcome to part 3 (of 6) of our Bulletproof Radio Sexual Energy Series! We’re bringing you lots of new information about sexual health, wellness, research, devices, and performance. We’re combining that with special offers, discounts and all kinds of resources on the Dave Asprey blog. Be sure to scan the show notes below for details! In this episode of Bulletproof Radio, we’re taking a look at penises in the animal kingdom and the lessons we can learn from them. Some shocking. Some entertaining. This fascinating topic is based on the book, “Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis,” by health, medical and science writer Emily Willingham, Ph.D. She’s also a research scientist specializing in the biological sciences."

🎥 The Northern California Science Writers Association: Beyond the genital handshake: A conversation about the vagina and penis by authors Jen Gunter & Emily Willingham

Video here!

➤ The Sunday Magazine, CBC Radio: Life lessons from the animal penis.

Life lessons from the animal penis: Science writer and biologist Emily Willingham speaks to Common about her book Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis. She takes us through the wide world of penises in the animal kingdom and how they compare to the relatively-boring human penis, how the penis plays such an outsized role in our conception of masculinity — and what's at stake for men, boys and society at large when we reduce a person down to a body part.
Also, "Spiky, hypodermic, or long: Biologist who studied animal penises says it shouldn't be a 'measure of a man'", transcript here.

➤ The Brain & Brand Show with Timothy Maurice: Phallacy of Power, Equality Beyond the Penis.

Timothy interviews penis researcher and author of "Phallacy, Life Lessons from the Animal Penis”. Together, they explore how our understanding of genitalia has influenced gender inequality. They also discuss what we can learn from the ongoing studies of both the vagina and the penis about just how similar we are, and what we should be focused on if we hope to achieve gender equality.

➤ Science Friction with Natasha Mitchell: Phallacy! Life lessons from the animal penis.

From d*ck pics to the world's Weinsteins and Epsteins, is it time to reconsider what makes a penis...a penis? ... Emily Willingham thinks it's time to put the human penis into perspective ... for the sake of all of humanity.

✎ Q&A and coverage of PHALLACY at Scientific American in China [Mandarin].

✎ Coverage of PHALLACY in Smithsonian Magazine.

"The more scientists learn about penises, the more they realize how varied sex organs are. Just ask Emily Willingham, a biologist and journalist who’s been studying penises for over a decade. Her book, Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis, hit shelves in September. Phallacy plunges readers into the wild and wacky world of animal genitalia while exploring the social and cultural significance of penises as symbols of power and identity."

➤ Nerdette: Your Weekend Starts Here: Fleets, Sweets And Animal BLEEPs [the bleeps are penises, ofc]

"We have a conversation you’ve all been waiting for: Emily Willingham tells us about her new book titled Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis. It’s wild!"

🎥 Georgia Center for the Book at DPCL: Health & the Human Experience Author Q&A

Thursday, November 12, 1:30 Pacific VIDEO POSTING SOON

➤ Taboo Science Podcast: Episode 003, Penises (natch)

I talk with Ashley Hamer of Discover about, well, penises.
"How does the human penis measure up to the rest of the animal kingdom? What can the shape of the penis tell us about human mating? And what is up with society's obsession with the penis?"

✎ Review of PHALLACY in the New York Post (!!!), which I, um, didn't see coming.

"For a thorough stroll through this portion of the biological world, there’s “Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis” (Avery), out now, by science writer Emily Willingham. ... But, unlike all of these other animals, Willingham says, human genitals aren’t the most important organs when it comes to copulation. Rather, she writes, it’s the human mind that “deserves to be re-centered as the most fundamental element of our sexual behaviors.”

✎ Review of PHALLACY by Bethany Brookshire at Science News

"In Phallacy, biologist and science writer Emily Willingham takes readers on a historical, evolutionary and often hilarious tour of the penises of the planet. 'Nothing gets clicks like a story about dicks,' she writes. 'Even if it’s about a penis that’s 1.5 millimeters long and millions of years old.' Along the way, she puts the human penis into much-needed perspective."

➤ Talk Nerdy Podcast: A Conversation with Cara Santa Maria

🎥 Facebook Live with Dr. Carin Anne Bondar

Video here

🎥 Webinar: Kavli Conversations on Science Communication NYU

Phallus Fallacies and Whale Snot: Writing About Weird Biology for More than Just Laughs: A conversation with Emily Willingham, Nick Caruso and Mara Grunbaum.
Video here.

✎ A great review of PHALLACY from one of my favorite writers, Aatish Bhatia.

Only available to his Patreon subscribers, which is money well spent. He's also incredible at interactives and extremely clever enterprises he calls "web experiences." About PHALLACY, Bhatia writes: "... while on the surface this is a book about the biology of penises, it also a deeply feminist read that makes many important critiques of how male dominance has skewed our perspectives of science and society. Highly recommended."

✎ Wall Street Journal

Review: ‘Phallacy: Life Lessons From the Animal Penis’ Review: Genitalia Tales. Science has diligently studied the male organ. The female? Not so much.
“If you like did-you-know books, and your tastes run a little outré, then PHALLACY is worth a look...Ms. Willingham has written an amusing book, willing to tackle pressing issues.”

✎ Wired