I heard a talk from Mahadevan when I was in grad school, probably around 2010. It was one of the most inspiring talks I heard in my time at Caltech (he was visiting from Harvard). Much of the talk was dedicated to understanding how variable cellular growth creates the visible macroscale structure in plants, from leaves that ripple to flowers as complex as irises. He also had a notable demonstration with an rubber tube glued to an elastic band where he showed how these two structures with different tensions reliably cause the tube to fold into a “knot”, which is the basis for how our hearts form from a folding vein in utero.
Funny because I was thinking about that just a few days ago within the context of Lamarckism and Darwinism.
Sometimes Nature is so eerily on point it seems that function shapes form and form shapes function via environmental pressure, molding everything via adaptation and survivorship making them persistent.
I didn't know Steven Strogatz held podcasts!
As an extra FYI, they also have other nice episodes about science and mathematics.