BioScience Talks

Natural history collections are a crucial resource to many scientific endeavors, and their value has been bolstered by recently undertaken digitization efforts. However, many opportunities remain to improve collections' usability, ensure that their contributions are properly credited, and protect them from a perilous budget environment that, in many cases, threatens their long-term survival. Writi...

Shade from urban trees has long been understood to offer respite from the urban heat island effect, a phenomenon that can result in city centers that are 1–3 degrees Centigrade warmer than surrounding areas. Less frequently discussed, however, are the effects of tree transpiration in combination with the heterogeneous landscapes that constitute the built environment. Writing in BioScience , Joy Wi...

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations.  Today, we are joined by Dr. Douglas Futuyma, professor emeritus of e...

The pandemic resulting from SARS-CoV-2 has had profound impacts on the conduct of scientific research and education: A large proportion of field research has ground to a halt, and research and science education were forced to move online. In light of these developments, the nation's biodiversity infrastructure—natural history collections housed in museums, herbaria, universities, and colleges, amo...

Evaluating shifts in the health of dynamic ecosystems is often difficult—for instance, rivers with intermittent flows and populations with varied dispersal characteristics might look very different from one month to the next. In this episode of  BioScience  Talks, we're joined by Núria Cid and Thibault Datry of INRAE, in Lyon, France, who discuss their new framework for a metacommunity approach th...

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations.  Today, we are joined by Dr. Judith Weis of Rutgers University. She p...

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. Today we are joined by Dr. Gregory Anderson, who is with the Departme...

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, efforts to provide adequate testing and healthcare have at times been stymied by shortages of medical supplies. To help address one such shortage, a team at the University of Louisville designed a novel 3D-printed swab made of a pliable resin material.  In this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by Dr. Gerald Grant, who describes the process by which such too...

Despite ongoing efforts to increase DEI among STEM faculty, participation rates of faculty members of color remain lower in STEM fields than in other academic disciplines. In this episode of BioScience Talks, we are joined by Dr. Maria Miriti, whose recent article in BioScience, The Elephant in the Room: Race and STEM Diversity, discusses these shortcomings, their causes, and some of the ways in w...

Public health officials have argued that thorough and accurate testing for SARS-CoV-2 is essential for gaining a foothold in the fight against the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. To date, however, a lack of reliable testing in the United States has hampered efforts to achieve a thorough understanding of the disease's abundance and spread. In this episode of BioScience Talks, we are joined by Dr. Crystal...

This episode is the fourth in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. Today we are joined by Dr. Joel Cracraft, curator in the Department...

In November 2019, through the collaboration of the American Institute of Biological Sciences and the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR), BioScience Talks was lucky enough to attend and report on ASGSR's Annual Meeting, in Denver, Colorado. We spoke with numerous presenters, students, and other participants in the meeting, who discussed research topics ranging from growin...

In this episode of BioScience Talks, we welcome previous guest Dan Salkeld of Colorado State University back to the show. He is joined by CSU colleague and 2016 coauthor Mike Antolin to discuss the disease ecology of animal-borne illnesses in general, as well as the present coronavirus pandemic, the outbreak's origins, and the prospects for disease surveillance to improve society's preparedness fo...

This episode is the third in our new oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. Today we are joined by Dr. Susan Stafford, professor and dean em...

Worldwide declines in insect populations have sparked considerable concern. To date, however, significant research gaps exist, and many insect threats remain under-investigated and poorly understood. For instance, despite their charismatic bioluminescent displays and cultural and economic importance, the 2000-plus species of firefly beetles have yet to be the subject of a comprehensive threat anal...

This episode is the third in our new oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. Today, we are joined by Dr. Diana Wall, university distinguished...

Each year, tens of thousands of patients undergo invasive surgery to repair perforated eardrums. The surgery, called tympanoplasty, is time consuming, costly, and difficult for patients—many of whom are children. Seeing an opportunity to fill an important unmet medical need, the founders behind Virginia startup Tympanogen have developed a technology aimed at reducing the need for these challenging...

Agricultural areas are often considered distinct from local ecosystems, and in many cases, such an assessment rings true. Single-crop farmlands, reliant on the liberal use of pest- and herbicides, often limit local biodiversity and species interactions. However, in other agricultural settings, robust ecosystems thrive, intermingled with crops and supporting a diversity of species. One such acroeco...

Peer review lies at the heart of the grant selection process and, by extension, the scientific enterprise itself. To inform their decisions, funders rely on grant reviewers—most of whom volunteer their time—to evaluate numerous proposals. However, despite its massive importance to science and society, peer review itself remains inadequately studied and often poorly understood. To shed light on thi...

This episode is the second in our new oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. Today, we are joined by Dr. Kent Holsinger, board of trustees d...

This episode marks the first in a new oral history series from BioScience, entitled In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. This first oral history is with Dr. Ri...

The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), an American Institute of Biological Sciences member society, fosters research, education, public awareness, and understanding of living organisms from molecules and cells to ecology and evolution. For this episode of BioScience Talks, we chatted with presenters and personnel from SICB's 2019 annual meeting, which was held earlier this yea...

The BioScience Talks Impact Series focuses on the path from newly gained scientific knowledge to real-world effects, addressing questions such as  How does a new vaccine find its way to physicians' offices? How do ecological discoveries result in new natural resource management paradigms? How do gene-editing techniques move from discovery to therapy? By following novel research discoveries from th...

By altering the heritability of certain traits, gene drive technologies have the potential to spread desired genes through wild populations. In practice, this could lead to mosquito populations that, for example, bear traits making them resistant to the spread of malaria. Despite the huge potential for improving human well-being, concern exists that gene drives could fail in the wild or spread bey...