Episode 50: Stand Up To Cancer (NCI Edition)

Loyal listeners, we’ve reached 50 episodes! It’s been a long and fun journey over these last few years, and we’re not done yet. We’ve got a ton of interviews coming up with some amazing women, and we’re kicking off our 50th interview with Dr. Christie Canaria, the National Cancer Institute’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) […]

Episode 47: Designer (Add)genes

After a much-too-long break we are finally back with another episode. Thanks for being patient! This episode is a fun one. We talk to Dr. Joanne Kamens, the executive director of Addgene. Addgene is a non-profit repository that was created to help scientists share plasmids. When scientists publish research papers, they deposit their associated plasmids at Addgene. Then, […]

Episode 32: Bureau of Land (Before Time) Management

Once, upon this same earth, beneath this same sun, long before you, before the ape and the elephant as well, before the wolf, the bison, the whale, before the mammoth and the mastodon… was the time of the dinosaurs. – The Land Before Time, aka best movie ever. We’re back for another round of science-y […]

Episode 31: Moon River (and Water)

Did you know that we’re looking for water on the moon? This week’s episode features Kathy Mandt, a senior research scientist at Southwest Research Institute and an adjoint professor at University of Texas – San Antonio. We talk about frost on the moon, planetary science and measuring photons with ultraviolet light. And the ever-present fight between […]

Have scientists found a fossilized dinosaur brain?

Could scientists really have discovered a fossilized dinosaur brain? That’s what a new study seems to be indicating. If so, it would be the first time scientists have ever found fossilized brain tissue from a dinosaur. Our podcast guest (her episode is coming soon!) Dr. Eugenia Gold studies dinosaur brain evolution, so we figured she’d be […]

Episode 23: My (Hominin) Hips Don’t Lie

Hey ‘Scopers, we’re back with a brand new anthropology-centric episode! Dr. Caroline Van Sickle, postdoctoral fellow in feminist biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joins us for an in-depth discussion about sex differences, the anatomy of the pelvis, and her work in the Rising Star Expedition. Grab a cup of coffee, plug in some headphones, and let us entertain […]

Episode 21: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistical Science

“Being a statistician means never having to say you’re certain.” ‘Scopers, can you guess what today’s episode is about? Hint: it involves statistics. The Center for Open Science (COS) is an organization with the goal of increasing openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research. Statistical and methodological consultant at COS, Dr. Courtney Soderberg, joins us for […]

Retraction Watch: Nerd tabloid or societal good?

We work hard for the privilege of being scientists. We study, we do research, we struggle and we fail. We spend time in dark rooms and cold rooms and mouse rooms and we work weekends and nights and holidays. And when we’re very lucky, we publish the product of all that effort. But stuff happens, […]

Did you hear? Pentaquarks!

If you weren’t too busy waiting for photos of Pluto, you might have heard some news coming out of CERN, Geneva, this week. LHCb, an experiment based at the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator there, announced that it had found evidence for a completely new type of particle – a pentaquark. That might sound slightly […]

The CRISPR gene revolution, all the cool kids are doing it

CRISPR: It’s all the rage. It’s time to pack up your pog collection and Lisa Frank organizational system. If you want to be cool right now and you happen to be molecular biologist, you should probably be ‘CRISPRing’ something. What is CRISPR? Isn’t that the drawer in my refrigerator where vegetables go to die? Is it even a […]