We Know Some Stuff: Recent Episodes
Louis A. Colaruotolo
Why do all your plants die? Will robots take over the world? Do squirrels like pizza?
Current and recent graduate students have the answers to these questions. We certainly don't know everything, which is why you are listening to We Know Some Stuff
Your avocado is ripe for the next 1362 seconds.... starting 1361 seconds ago. Timing a ripe avocado is tricky, but Angie Homez makes easy math out of it.
If cow burping infuriates you as much as it does Lucas Lopes, then you ought to listen up. Cows burp methane, but Lucas wants to know which cows burp more, to reduce green house gasses.
GLUTEN!!! If that terrifies or intrigues you, listen to Navneet Sharma talk about how she uses bean flour to bake better gluten free bread.
Much like when we sleep, soil also wants a cover... cover crops that is. Dan Colcuc talks with us about cover crops and how they can be used to recycle nutrients on farms.
You can breathe easy after you listen to Kristin Yates talk about the power of breath and the human body
When the white mold comes who defends the innocent and vulnerable soybean? Deus Mugabe of course! There is a hidden code in the genome of a soybean and Deus won't stop till he finds it.
From one talker to another, Katie and Vinny, the hosts of "Learn Real Good" podcast talk to me about science communication. Why we need it, and how we try to do it.
Click bait titles are killer, just like Serge Levesque's water disinfection system. Using electricity he is able to continuously clean and recycle water for agriculture.
Water! Seems simple, but there are many wet mysteries deep down. Hannah May tells us all about nutrients in water, and where those nutrients end up. And she recants potentially the first ever "water-science crime".
Peppers! Ring a bell? It might get more difficult to remember peppers if sneaky little pests keep eating them. But Serena Leo is here to tell us about a wasp hunts those pesky pests
Who's telling mites to buzz off? Alvaro De la Mora Pena. Or well... he is finding bees who kill mites! These bees are here to make honey and kill mites, and the honey has already been made
Rabbit Rehab. As adorable as it sounds, it is a serious topic. Pauline Kosmal is going to teach us all about bunny rehab, what to do if you see an abandoned bunny, and how we can make a bunny's transition back into the wild a little easier.
Cherry on top of ice cream!? No that's too simple. Try putting the cherry on top of herbicides! Nima Nalin does it everyday! Also find out how to kill your tomato plants and more!
Brains! Who needs them!?
This just in, Abdalla Albeely has just informed me that we need them. He studies the brain and its association with schizophrenia, and tells us all about it in this episode.
Computers can do more than just play space pinball 2000! They can determine if an x-ray of lungs belong to a person with COVID. But somebody needs to teach them (the COVID thing, not the pinball). Jenita Manokaran is the teacher for this artificially intelligent COVID spotter
Leaky pipes, busted roof, or the construction of gentrified condos next-door are all great reasons for you to migrate out of your current home. But animals have slightly less autonomy, and when they move, they like to bring diseases with them. Sam Allen is in charge of diseases when it comes to moving populations of animals.
Everyone that I know that goes to the arctic often talk about how awesome the freshwater invertebrate are up there. And since Dani Nowosad is the only person I know who goes to the arctic often, the reviews are all 5 stars.
Someone has to teach computers to go up stairs… I guess… Either way, Val Bauman is the one to teach them. She programs AI to recognize if a user is going up stairs or not.
Grab a material and look at it closely. closer. no, closer. Are you seeing that material at the nanoscale? That’s where Sarah Martell operates. She tunes materials at the nanoscale to improve their functionality, and that’s a big job!
Listen to what she sees and says about it
Selecting an episode to listen to is very stressful, but would you pass that stress down to your future children? Michael Lim wants to know if chronic stress is passed down from generation to generation. But don’t stress, he talks all about it in this episode.
Planning to listen to this episode on a casual 160 km run? Alex Coates would encourage it, but warns about the dangers of over-training! You can’t run from reality, so you better listen up!
Keeping an eye on how body parts develop is difficult, especially when that body part is eyes. Tara McDonnell looks at the development of eyes.
Listen to what she sees and says about it below
Keeping an eye on how body parts develop is difficult, especially when that body part is eyes. Tara McDonnell looks at the development of eyes.
Listen to what she sees and says about it below
Teachers teaching teachers! What madness is this! Serena McDiarmid is learning how to best teach children with refugee experiences so we can have teachers who are armed with the knowledge to help all children succeed.
Listen to what she has to say about it below
Can oceans read and write? What does it mean to be ocean literate? And how can you become ocean literate? Lisa Chen knows how, and she working on making the world more ocean literate.
Listen to what she has to say about our oceans below
Peptides be doing shady stuff sometimes. And i’m not about to trash talk no peptides, mainly because Sorina Chiorean would get upset with me. She makes peptides that do cool things (not deceitful things)
Listen to what she is cooking up in the peptide kitchen
Picture a beautiful mountain, like the one on a bottle of water. Picture the snow on that mountain. Now picture that melted snow in the bottle. How much of that snow makes it into the places where they get that water?
Caroline Aubry-Wake climbs mountains to figure it out!
Exercise and eat right? Nah…. But what if you had extra motivation? What does it take to make a behavioral change, and what if that motivation is pregnancy?
Karishma Hosein is on the job to figure out exactly that!
You find a snake and might run away. Michael Allison runs towards finding snakes. You know snakes may be in a certain area, you stay away from that area. Michael knows snakes may be in an area and uses science to prove it!
Why is Michael looking for snakes under rocks using snake…. presents….. find out in this episode!
Who doesn’t love the part of the medicine commercial where the narrator talks really fast about all the side effects. Then they slip some absolutely terrifying side effect like “death”? Well wouldn’t it be even scarier if the people who made the medicine didn’t know why their medicine caused a specific side effect?
Good thing people like Toby are figuring out why a certain birth control treatment increases the susceptibility to HIV infection.
Land - important
Food - really important
People - incredibly important
But who is going to connect them all? That’s where Elisabeth Miltenburg comes in. She studies the connections between the foods native to the lands of the native people who settled in modern day Guelph many years ago. But why is the connection to food and land so important? Listen to what Elisabeth has to say:
Maybe you don’t produce honey, but that doesn’t mean you are not a bee. Furthermore that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve saving! Sage Handler saves the bees by studying the habits of cavity nesting bees. Listen to her buzz about bees
How do you convince someone to change the way they have done something for hundreds (maybe thousands) of years? Agricultural practices contribute a lot to climate change, so people like Lisa Ashton are working towards building bridges from science to policy and find incentives for farmers to adopt green practices to reduce their contribution to climate change. Listen to her build some bridges below!
Does wasted food scraps burn you up on the inside? Tara Allohverdi feels the same way! She burns food biomass (agricultural and food scraps) to make “biochar” a product similar to charcoal and great for giving plants nutrients they need to grow. Listen to Tara explain her burning passion for biochar.
Pumping iron and pumping blood! Your muscles need blood to flow through them when you exercise, and scientists want to know how, when, and why. Jeremy Cohen is one of those scientists and he is squeezing muscles to find out the answers to those questions.
Why do a job when you can program a computer to do it for you!? Even more so when you don’t even know if the answer to your problem is buried in a library of data. Bianca Lepe is the librarian behind telling a computer how to search for the right proteins to put into the next tuberculosis vaccine. She uses Natural Language Processing, but how about you just naturally process her spoken language by listening to the episode below.
Emotions! Who needs them!? Turns out you had emotions your whole life! But how does a child’s brain process emotions? Adaeze Egwuatu wants to see what kids are “thinking” when they see social images (pie vs. friends hugging). I’m thinking I want pie. Listen to how Adaeze is working to better understand this very expansive topic
Ever have a long stressful day at work? If so, you and squirrels may have more in common than you think. Alannah Grant studies squirrel stress. She is not a rodent therapist, but she does know a lot about the environmental factors that contribute to the stress levels of our furry neighbors. Who, what, where, when, and why? Let Alannah answer those question in this episode
Imagine you stepped through a portal into a parallel world that had all your same friends, family, and acquaintances. The two worlds are quite similar expect everyone is more extreme – they look better, seem to travel all the time, are deeply in love, etc. Do you think if you spent more time in this parallel, extreme world that it would have an impact on your thinking? Well most of us travel to this parallel world everyday through connecting to social media, and in today’s episode we explore how social media can change your thinking by the extreme content you view.
Wow that was well written! That’s because Josh wrote it! Listen to the episode to hear more!
Sara Striker does some real tear jerking work with onions. She fights the good fight against moldy onion leaves. But it turns out, finding the solution to eradicating onion mold is a moving target. So its a good think Sara never stops moving!
In the height of DIY and the rise of the glue gun, Andre St Amant emerges from the ashes. Andre is a synthetic chemist and he is one the forefront of making innovative antibody drugs. Maybe you have heard of them before, maybe not, but after this episode you will know all about them and how he glues toxic stuff to proteins.
NERDS ASSEMBLE! Cagney Coomer assembles the nerds in her community and gets young girls interesting in becoming scientists. How does she do it? She makes science relevant. Cagney is a co-founder of Nerd Squad Inc. which focuses on getting young black and brown girls interested in science in and out of the classroom. This non-for-profit is making some waves, listen to her tell us all about it
What’s cooking in the chemistry lab? Marc Lennon knows. As a synthetic chemist Marc makes new things; sounds vague, but that’s because it is super complex. Good thing he is here to explain the ins and outs of synthetic chemistry.
Oh Jake Barnett has been in school for like 100 years. He went to school to teach, taught, and is back in school learning again. Along this way he learned a thing or two about learning, and now he is going to teach us how to learn and teach. That was confusing, let’s leave the teaching to him….
Birds are small, so their brains are small. But I think a bird has outsmarted me before on multiple occasions (not proud of it). Good thing we have people like Jeremy Spool who study bird brains so we can finally find a way to best the birds, and understand why they sing so loudly in the morning!
Ice skating, stamp collecting, rearing giant silk moths in buckets in your garage, baking. All of these are hobbies. Kit Straley might bake a little, not sure if she ice skates, and I don’t think she collects stamps, but I do know she raises giant silk moths. We all have hobbies and this is Kit’s. But what does it take to raise moths? Listen to Kit tell us what to expect when you are expecting (to raise moths).
Do you feel yourself drifting off? Does reading this make you sleepy? Writing it makes me sleepy. Well here is something to try to remember: Your brain consolidates memories while you sleep, but you can assist this process and even actively help your brain form solid memories a lot easier with a “life-hack” or two. Kyle Kainec knows the life-hack and is going to tell us all about memory and the sleeping brain
Your brain is processing written language while reading this. But what about all the other things your brain is filing through at this very second. The noises in the room, colors, lights, all the memories of the awkward moments from Mrs. Mantell’s first grade class on December 11th 1997…. nonetheless, your brain does a preventative process to choose what to focus on, and Erika Correll not only studies this, but talks with us about the process and why we should care
Mold! Who needs it? Its on out bread, in our showers, and grossly neglected by our landlords (I’m talking about my rental property Melissa). But not all molds are bad molds. Where do we draw the line between good and bad molds? Kim Acevedo knows a lot about Aspergillus oryzae and its evil cousin Aspergillus flavus who come from very similar roots, but perform very different functions. But why! hint, it is not because they feel like it, but because they are programmed to either make tasty food or wreak havoc on your bread!
Motherhood isn’t always smooth sailing, and even after the pregnancy is finished, postpartum depression can affect how a mother mothers. Sarah Winkour (as the title states) helps depressed rats be great moms, she studies postpartum depression in rats to learn more about how postpartum depression comes about and how we can potentially treat it in the future.
Whats the smallest pet you have ever owned? A goldfish? A beetle? A sea monkey? Even smaller than all of those pets are microbes, that is bacteria, yeast, and molds. Just like your household pets, microbes have changed a lot in the millennia they have been around. Katherine Chacon Vargas is kinda like a bacteria breeder, she wants to know how different bacteria are different, and why they make our food so tasty. Either grab a snack or close your eyes and imagine your favorite cheese while your listen to this episode
Evolution take a long long time. like really long time. So long that any one scientist has to get creative to measure evolution. Michelle Gilbert is one such scientist, and measures evolution by looking at how the shape of fish changes through time. Through evolution species undergo a lot of changes to give them competitive advantages, how and why these changes come about will be discussed in this episode.
Why did you click on this episode? Do you even remember? Natasha De La Rosa works with memory, and she has plenty to say about how we remember, what affects our memory, and how we can “train our brains”. Luckily you can play this audio on a loop in case you can’t seem to remember what she is saying
The great women of science are great, unfortunately the most notable ones can probably be counted on one hand. As with nearly all professions women are working towards gender equality and the sciences is no exception. Still women are vastly underrepresented in science academia. Emma Dauster studies females (well female mice), she makes gender a critical part of her work because most science is done by, for, and on men. Emma isn’t going to talk about her rats today, but she is going to talk about the current state of female and nonbinary representation in science.
Do you remember your favorite science teacher? Did you even have a favorite science teacher? We begin learning science in grade school and either we chose to stop, or continue for the rest of our lives. How do we come to that decision? Jessie Bartle is a high school science teacher and is on the front lines of inspiring scientific minds to think critically. We are going to talk about what it means to think critically, and how to teach this skill.
Always eat your vitamins! I used to throw mine behind a bush on my way to school. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, because Michelle Rozycki is skeptical of vitamins too. She knows a thing or two about vitamins because she loves to take them, but there are some vitamin ABC’s (and DEK’s too) that we should know
We talk a lot about science here on We Know Some Stuff, but we don’t always talk about how we do the science. June Teichman does science, so by default that qualifies her to talk about how we do science! June is going to walk us through how someone plans, executes, and analyzes a scientific experience. From idea to publication with some nonsense about ramen noodles and more!
rom farm to table is a phrase we hear so much in today’s modern restaurant and packaged food product scene. But how do we go from farm to table? cars? planes? Or with help from people like Chris VonAchen. Chris is going to talk to us about the process of turning crops into “value-added products”, how this is a major help to local farmers, and the benefits of eating local.
He see you when you are dormant, he knows when you are metabolically awake. Michael Hickey is a spy of sorts, he wants to look at bacteria in different ways because it is always good to know how many and what kind of bacteria we are working with. Michael is going to discuss the latest espionage techniques in the business and tells us why we should keep giving him a salary.
Fish are friends, not food. Well, yeah, they are food too. But how do we treat our aquatic friends? Lian loves fish, but not so much the impact humans have on fish. In this episode Lian is going to talk to us about the effects of over-fishing, blue tourism, and climate change on our fishy friends.
We are getting down and dirty this week with Liv Dedon who knows a lot about… feces. How does your diet affect your bowel movements, stool colors of the rainbow, and an unnecessary amount of euphemisms about poo.
Olivia Haley knows some stuff about plants. In this episode Olivia and I are getting to the roots of plant parenting basics. Did you know you can grow spicier peppers, successfully make baby plants by knowing where to start new plant trimmings, and a strange way to clean your plants using milk and soap?
The robots haven’t taken over just yet (hopefully), but they are getting smarter every day. Cameron knows how to talk to robots and humans, and he is going to talk to us about how basic artificial intelligence works. How does artificial intelligence recognize a picture, layer knowledge, and help us grow plants? Answers to that and more in this episode.
Apparently vampire bats are not something we should be worried about in our daily lives. Don’t believe me? Listen to Laura Hancock who is bats for bats. She is going to talk to us about how bats are super diverse, how we can be bat allies, and of course… vampire bats