Science Talks

Venom... it is a substance that many animals produce, including rattlesnakes, that helps them to survive by assisting with capturing their prey. Here, you will learn all about how ecology can influence the evolution of venom in rattlesnake populations from the Gulf of California. We interview lead author Samuel Hirst and discuss his recently published manuscript titled "Island Biogeography and competition drive rapid venom complexity evolution across rattlesnakes," published in the peer-reviewed

In this episode, Dr. Liz Bowman describes the importance of fungi in the lives of plants. We focus particularly on the invasive plant - Buffelgrass - and how fungal communities differ between populations in their native (African) and non-Native (Texas & Arizona) ranges. Surprisingly, fungus plays a very important role in the lives of plants! Listen in to hear about differences among these communities and our discussion of her recent paper titled "Invasive Buffelgrass, Cenchrus ciliaris,

This episode addresses how we know what temperatures and concentrations of atmospheric gases were long before humans could record it with modern instrumentation. Ice tells a story about what the environment was like tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago. Here we interview Dr. Dr. Kaden Martin, a scientists interested in major climate shifts over geologic time. Dr. Martin is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Dr. Martin graduated from Oregon State

In this episode, we interview Dr. Amrita Bhattacharya, an expert in the field of data science. She recently published the paper, Exceptions to the rule: When does resistance evolution not undermine antibiotic therapy in human bacterial infections?, which was published in the journal Evolution Letters in 2024. You can access the paper using this link.