Each week, UnDisciplined takes a fun, fascinating and accessible dive into the lives of researchers and explorers working across a wide variety of scientific fields.
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UnDisciplined: What is the predatory impact of wolves in Yellowstone?
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Wolves were once naturally abundant in Yellowstone national park, but starting in the 1870s they fell prey to humans who hunted them until their numbers were non-existent. And this was all to protect the “big game species,” like bison and elk. But the perceived “threat” that wolves were to these species wasn’t really correct, due to their very phys…
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UnDisciplined: What can we learn from how farmers adjusted to ancient climate cycles?
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One of the things that is often missed when we talk about climate change and agriculture is that climate shifts have always impacted where we can plant and what we can grow. And one of the best ways to really see this is to track how corn production has moved across North America for thousands of years.Andrew Gillreath-Brown’s work was funded by ht…
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UnDisciplined: Where did climate denial come from? (Part 2)
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For decades the basic principles of climate science were not at all controversial. To understand what changed we have to go back into the past. That’s what David Lipsky does in his latest book, The Parrot and the Igloo. (Part 2 of 2)By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Where did climate denial come from? (Part 1)
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For decades and decades the basic principles of climate science were not at all controversial. And then, something happened. But to understand why, we have to go back into the past. (Part 1 of 2)By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Did human-caused climate change actually start thousands of years ago?
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Archeological anthropologist Todd Braje points out that humans have been impacting global climates and ecologies for millennia. And he says that if we really want to understand our future, we need to understand that part of our past.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: When climate scientists are under attack, who has their backs?
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Since 2011, the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund has supported hundreds of researchers who have been attacked, sued, defamed, and threatened — and this year the organization has been busier than ever. The group’s director, Lauren Kurtz, says she’s happy that her organization is being sought out by scientists in need—and really sad that there is a…
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UnDisciplined: Does crop insurance sometimes do more harm than good?
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Anne Schechinger, isn’t opposed to federally subsidized insurance, but she believes it’s long past time that we look very hard at places like the Lonestar State and ask whether things need to change.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: We might be able to engineer our way out of global warming. But should we?
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It's possible that a nation suffering from the extreme effects of climate warming might take simple steps that could change the global atmosphere. There’s not much to stop it from happening, so Ben Kravitz says the the world needs to be prepared.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: What do wolves tell us about our relationship with nature?
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John Vucitech suggests that it’s not just the science that matters when we’re talking about our longstanding views on wolves–it’s also a matter of compassion, and of understanding.By Matthew LaPlante, Raegan Edelman
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UnDisciplined: What can we do to save the coral reefs? Here’s one, um, cool solution.
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Coral reefs are some of the oldest, most diverse ecosystems on Earth. But they’re also among the most vulnerable. So, what do we do? Mary Hagedorn has an idea: Let’s collect as many as possible and freeze them.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Should we all trash talk a little bit more?
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Rafi Kohan’s latest book tells the story of trash talk, and explains why the practice of leveling vicious insults at our rivals might not be all that bad.By Matthew LaPlante, Raegan Edelman
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UnDisciplined: How can we find hope in a changing world?
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Bill Weir once felt as though he was watching the American story change in staggering ways. But now he wakes up each morning with more wonder than worry.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How can we reconnect with nature?
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Brittany Gowan says that no matter where you are, and no matter how far you might feel from the world as it once existed, you can still connect to nature.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How to survive the end of the world
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If you have a gnawing sense that this is end of the world as we know it, then know this: You’re not alone. And Athena Aktipis has some advice for you.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How is climate warming impacting groundwater storage?
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Until recently, there hasn’t been a great way of assessing groundwater storage, or understanding how climate change is impacting it.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Can we predict the next snowpocalypse?
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Matthew’s recent paper looks at the potential connections between ocean temperatures and epic winters, like the one we experienced in the Mountain West in 2022-23.By Matthew LaPlante, Raegan Edelman
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For 21 years, the pub event series known as Nerd Nite has cross-crossed the globe, making science accessible and fun.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How do you land on an asteroid?
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In The Asteroid Hunter, Dante Lauretta chronicles the quest to retrieve a sample from Bennu, which is one of the large asteroids that is most likely to collide with the Earth.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Can a personal creed help young people connect in a rapidly changing world?
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The young adults who comprise Generation Z live in a world of far less violent crime relative to the generation before them. So, why are so many of them struggling? Educator John Creger thinks he has part of the answer: They often need help understanding who they are in this world.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Why do people police language?
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Anne Curzan might seem like a strange sort of English teacher. The veteran professor doesn’t believe in “right” and wrong” when it comes to grammar. Rather, she wants people to be able to make informed choices about language.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How long can apes remember each other’s faces?
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Laura Lewis met a bonobo named Louise as part of a study on the capacity of bonobos to remember the faces of apes they’d spent time with decades earlier. And Louise remembered.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: What is it like to leave an evangelical church?
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Like many Americans, Sarah McCammon grew up in a deeply evangelical family, where she was plagued by fears and deep questions about her belief system, but scared to leave.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Is there more undiscovered life in the Great Salt Lake?
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Until recently, nematodes weren’t known to live in the Great Salt Lake. And, in fact, very little lives there — because the lake’s salinity makes most life untenable. But, as it turns out, these tiny worms were doing just fine.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: What’s ‘fair’ when it comes to climate action?
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When humans debate climate policy, the questions asked are often posed in terms of what will work best. Fairness isn’t always, or even often, taken into account. But Stacia Ryder thinks that needs to change.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Are food companies responsible for the epidemic in diabetes, cancer and dementia?
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Ultra-processed food and the companies that produce them contribute significantly to the epidemic in diabetes, cancer, dementia, and other chronic disease. Is it time to regulate these products like tobacco? And will it take a class action suit to make that happen? Erik Peper believes so.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Why do humans use the past to inform the future?
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Memory is not a rigid, static picture of what came before. Rather, it’s a nebulous, ever-changing conceptualization of who we were, what we believed, what happened to us, and what was happening around us.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Robots, AI and the future of human connection
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There is precedent for humans connecting with other living things, like getting attention, love, and companionship from dogs and cats and a few other animals that have been domesticated to provide partnership. Now, there’s a new option for meeting this need — social robots — who may end up being even better at fulfilling the human desire for connec…
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UnDisciplined: Should species be named after horrible people?
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When an Austrian bug collector discovered a new species of beetle in the 1930s, he bestowed upon it the name of a person he greatly admired. He called it Anophthalmus hitleri — and sent Adolf Hitler a note announcing the onomastic tribute. After nearly 90 years, should species still be named after horrible people?…
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UnDisciplined: Can you still travel the roads that Julius Caesar built?
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Long before Julius Caesar became one of the most powerful rulers in the world, he was a relatively unknown curator of the Via Appia, a road stretching from Rome on the Tyrrhenian Coast to the Salento Peninsula on the Adriatic Sea. Our guest John Keahey traversed the Via Appia, and he joins us to talk about it.…
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UnDisciplined: What have we learned from 50 years of the Endangered Species Act?
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A new book by Lowell Baier is not just a history of The Endangered Species Act, but an explanation of what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong in the implementation of this historic federal statute.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Were Utah’s pioneers slave owners?
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Slavery in the United States is often thought to be an institution of the American South, but western states played a part as well. In Utah, a law passed in 1852 made slavery and the slave trade legal, and this law was passed under the urging of the first territorial governor, Brigham Young. Historian Paul Reeve joins the program to discuss newly u…
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UnDisciplined: Navigating the future of the global water crisis
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Water crises are nothing new. Indeed they’ve influenced the very course of human history again and again but we’ve never had a planet with 10 billion people on it before, and so can we solve the water crisis at a global scale?By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How bugs may help us get to Mars
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If we are going to go to Mars, we’re going to need to bring a lot of things that we need to live that the red planet, so far as we can tell, just doesn’t have... and that includes bugs.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How inclusivity benefits men and women on the autism spectrum
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Autism Spectrum Disorder exists on a continuum of behaviors, capabilities, and deviations from norms — and for a very long time, that spectrum didn't include much space for girls.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Rethinking sexual harassment prevention in the workplace
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Almost all large organizations — from government entities to universities to private businesses — engage in sexual harassment prevention training. And yet the problem persists.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: With natural disasters rising in frequency, the US needs to rethink emergency management
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The recent disaster in Maui was the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, and it has highlighted a gaping hole in the country's disaster response.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Why you should become a 'student of seed'
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Consider for a moment what our world would look like without seeds.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Carl Nassib came out while playing in the NFL - here's what the media thought about it
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There are no openly gay players in any of the five major men's sports leagues in the United States. But that's not because there are no gay players in those leagues.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: The surprising side of climate change - why you don't have to fear the future
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There's a force that people don't think much about — the existential terror of accepting the truth about global warming. But what if we didn't have to be afraid?By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How the Great Salt Lake is becoming hostile to life
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As the Great Salt Lake has shrunk in recent years, it has become an increasingly hostile place to life of all kinds.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How to protect yourself and your home from wildfires
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Under climate warming, the risk of wildfires is increasing. So, we're all going to need to adapt.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: The economic evolution of an icon
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The top-grossing movie of 2023 is a movie about a doll that is known for creating toxic expectations about girls' bodies and also paving the way for girls to be anything they want.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Clenched fists and full beards: two pieces of evidence suggesting humans evolved to fight
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Humans have evolved to do lots of things. And one thing scientists are now coming to recognize is that we also evolved to fight — with each other.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: This asteroid is about to pass dangerously close to Earth
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The OSIRIS-Rex mission has picked up a piece of the asteroid Bennu projected to pass close to Earth. Precautionary? Maybe. But there's a big enough risk that we're doing something about it.By Matthew LaPlante, Raegan Edelman
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UnDisciplined: 'It's one of the most lonely feelings': The realities of mainstream schooling for deaf children
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85% of deaf children attend mainstream public schools and many deaf advocates will say this is a good thing, but good intentions and good educational practices are two different things.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Romeo and Juliet — an age-old tale of love, death and pandemics
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Romeo and Juliet has always been about life in a pandemic, we're just starting to notice it.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: What the life of Ira Hayes can teach us about the price of heroism
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Ira Hayes has been commemorated in movies and songs, but his actual life after WWII is still shrouded in a lot of mystery.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: The US is not prepared for the dangers of zoonotic diseases
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There is no national strategy, let alone a global one to mitigate the dangers of diseases that spread from animals to humans.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: Linguists identify a new dialect emerging in South Florida
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There are many ways Latino people and cultures have influenced the country. Some linguists say that an entirely new American dialect is taking shape right now, in Miami.By Matthew LaPlante
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UnDisciplined: How women changed American journalism
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In American history, women have largely been left out of newsrooms, so how has that changed history?By Matthew LaPlante
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