UnDisciplined

The events of the past several months, and even years suggest that anger is a driving force in American politics. Are politicians stoking the flames and making their supporters angry? A new study looks at just that. We'll be talking to a politcal scientist whose research focuses on the role of emtion in politics.

This week we are talking about urban bees and how converting vacant lots into green spaces doesn't only benefit humans. With a few adjustments, green spaces can help support local bee populations. We're talking to Ohio State University reserachers about how to help urban bees thrive. Mary Gardiner is a professor of entomology at the Ohio State University. Katie Turo is a post doctoral fellow in th...

This week we're talking about fatigue. And no, it's not the same as being tired. Despite it being the top complaint among people with chronic conditions and those recovering from cancer, fatigue was largely ignored by the medical establishment until recently. We'll be talking to medical historian Emily K. Abel about her new book tracing the history of fatigue in the United States.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first emerged, tests were hard to come by, and you often had to wait days or even weeks for the results. We’ll be talking with an interdisciplinary group of researchers who developed a way to make testing more efficient.

University of Utah researchers set out to measure changes in Park City’s air quality during the ski season and Sundance Film Festival. Then COVID-19 hit. And the city went into lockdown. And the data became even more fascinating.

Since 2016, more women have run for political office than ever before, from the governor’s race to local school board elections. With this came an influx of first-time female candidates. But what about the women who didn’t get elected? We’ll be talking to a political science researcher who dug into 70 years of state and local election data to see whether or not women are more likely to quit after...

Researchers recently uncovered the biggest mass extinction event since the dinosaurs. About 19 million years ago, the shark population was decimated by roughly 90 percent. Up until that point, sharks ruled the ocean. Researchers figured this out by analyzing over a thousand fossilized shark skins.

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, is one of the first sources Google provides for many different searches. From notable figures to new technology, historical events to horror films, Wikipedia is the initial place countless people look to get quick information. Despite the extensive numbers of articles Wikipedia provides, there is a large gap in gender when it comes to notable figures. Articles abo...

How much do your personal choices affect climate change? Does promoting the use of energy efficient light bulbs take away from pushing for bigger policy changes like a carbon tax? A new study suggests that reflecting on our individual sustainability efforts might actually make us more likely to support ambitious policy proposals.

There are few things sweeter than a puppy staring back at you. But how does the puppy understand what you're saying, and when exactly do they start picking up on our cues? A new study by University of Arizona researchers shows that puppies as young as two months old can recognize when people are talking to them and look where they're pointing.

The frustration over police use of force has been simmering for years in the United States. A new study, published in the February 2021 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, focused on how police-involved killings affect the inner-city high school students in Los Angeles. The study found that a range of issues, including students' academic performance and psychological wellbeing can be impa...

Despite calls for increasing diversity, scientific researchers are still predominantly white. One of the main reasons: a substantial disparity in research funding between black and white researchers. This can affect scientists' careers in important ways. We'll dig into a new report by the National Institutes of Health, which promises to address structural racism within the scientific community, an...

Could watching your favorite movie be a successful form of therapy? Researchers are looking into the ways that movies influence their viewers, and they're finding a positive influence on the audience's behaviors and their overall well-being.

We all know about cyber bullying. We know how pervasive it is. We know how damaging it can be. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about this relatively new phenomenon. For instance: how often are children engaged in cyberbullying of themselves? Well, according to one new study, the answer is a lot.

It’s no longer revolutionary to point out that bacteria can be beneficial in many ways. But until recently, we haven’t had a good handle on the role microorganisms play in plant growth. Now, researchers at Utah State University are starting to ask that question — and the answers may change the way we think about farming.

Political scientists Erika Allen Wolters and Brent Steel have written that the United States is experiencing a political era in which facts are fluid and the truth is subjective, and that the consequences of ideology trumping science can be devastating. And they wrote that back in 2017. This week we’ll talk to them about how their fears have shifted in the past four years.

When Athena Castro thinks about the makeup of research spaces, she sees a paradox. Asian women are simultaneously overrepresented in one way and under represented in another. This week, we’re talking to Castro about the intersectional challenges faced by Asian women in science.

A recently published study has confirmed what a lot of people have long suspected: increasing social media use is correlated to suicidal thoughts among some adolescents. But before you go pull the plug, the nuances here are important. Researchers have identified specific patterns of use that may be dangerous. This week we’ll talk about who is at risk, and what can be done.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic there was a lot of misinformation about vaccines floating around on social media. Public health agencies have been trying to figure out what to do. It turns out that one of the most powerful remedies is also one of the simplest.

There is nothing more damaging to a nation’s economy than a war on its own soil. But the way we think about the long-term economic consequences of war is often tied up in political instability and reconstruction and the cost of care for veterans. That’s all correct, but my guest this week says we’ve overlooked something: The long-term damage to agriculture.

As a counselor and a researcher, Stacey Litam had focused her career on helping victims of sex trafficking to work through their trauma. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and while Litam’s previous work didn’t become less important, she began seeing a growing need for trauma counseling — just about everywhere.

Even if you’re a judge, a prosecutor or a police officer, you might not have given a lot of thought to the question of why we punish people. You might simply conclude that we punish people when they need to be punished. Developmental psychologist Julia Marshall isn’t satisfied with that sort of simplicity. We’ll talk to her about when and why we punish.

What is your responsibility when you see injustice being done? For Amos Guiora, this is a deeply personal question stemming from his family’s experiences in one of the greatest atrocities in human history. And now he’s sharing that story.

The last time the United States Capitol was breached was in 1814, when British troops burned the building using furniture and books from the Library of Congress as fuel. Last week, the capitol was breached again – and that’s raising a lot of questions about the state of our nation. We’re going to work through some of those questions with former CIA analyst Jeannie Johnson.

There are a lot of ways 2020 is going to be remembered and, to be honest, a lot of us will probably remember it as a pretty terrible year, for very obvious reasons. But here at Utah Public Radio, we’re also going to remember 2020 as a year in which we learned some amazing things about our world.