{"href":"https://api.simplecast.com/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthe-daily.simplecast.com%2Fepisodes%2F20210321-W_tLi4si","width":444,"version":"1.0","type":"rich","title":"The Sunday Read: 'Beauty of the Beasts' ","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/7f2f4c05-9c2f-4deb-82b7-b538062bc22d/73549bf1-94b3-40ff-8aeb-b4054848ec1b/the-daily-album-art-original.jpg","thumbnail_height":300,"provider_url":"https://simplecast.com","provider_name":"Simplecast","html":"<iframe src=\"https://player.simplecast.com/f79ea283-4aea-4935-a416-e8090cad7c2e\" height=\"200\" width=\"100%\" title=\"The Sunday Read: &apos;Beauty of the Beasts&apos; \" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"></iframe>","height":200,"description":"The bright elastic throats of anole lizards, the Fabergé abdomens of peacock spiders and the curling, iridescent and ludicrously long feathers of birds-of-paradise. A number of animal species possess beautifully conspicuous and physically burdensome features.\n\nMany biologists have long fit these tasking aesthetic displays into a more utilitarian view of evolution. However, a new generation of biologists have revived a long-ignored theory — that aesthetics and survival do not necessarily need to be linked and that animals can appreciate beauty for its own sake.\n\nToday on The Sunday Read, a look at how these biologists are rewriting the standard explanation of how beauty evolves and the way we think about evolution itself. "}