RadioBio

We may not think about it this way, but there is a whole world of colors that we can not perceive or understand that other organisms use on a daily basis, like butterflies. Did you know that even males and females from the same species see the world differently? Today on RadioBio, Dr. Adriana Briscoe discusses the evolution of color vision in Heliconius butterflies using genes, physiology, and beh...

Have you or someone you know been affected by sleep disorders, depression, or even drug or alcohol addiction. Believe it or not this may be linked to how and when you sleep...which is actually controlled by when you eat. Dr. Joanna Chiu, Professor of Entomology at UC Davis, studies the animal circadian clock and its control on organismal physiology. Besides being indispensable for the control of d...

If you've ever had a pet or known someone with a pet, you probably know what a round worm is, but did you know these are nematodes? 180 years of visualizing these fascinating worms gives us insight into biodiversity, evolution, and marine ecosystems. This week Dr. Holly Bik from the University of California, Riverside guides us through an exploration of these mysterious deep sea creatures using bo...

N at work. What is N? N, or nitrogen, is one of the most abundant gases in the atmosphere and is an elemental building block of life. But we can't use N from the atmosphere, we need help nitrogen fixing bacteria and plants to acquire N in a form we can use. Dr. John Stark from Utah State explains N, how it flows through natural ecosystems, and the organisms that make it work!

How do cells interact with their physical environment? Dr. Otger Campas from the University of California, Santa Barbara joins RadioBio to discuss the physical properties of cells and how the interactions between cells and their environment shape cell and organism development.

You may have heard about the human microbiome or even the pro-biotic fad, but how much do you really know about the micro-organisms that live on and in you? Dr. Embriette Hyde from UC San Diego discusses her work with the American Gut Project on understanding the world of human microbiome. This work could lead to advances in our understanding of both the human health and human disease.

Have you ever wondered why males and females of a species are different sizes, shapes, and colors? Dr. Marie-Claire Chelini, University of California Presidential Post-doctoral Fellow, discusses her research on the evolution of sexual size dimorphism in crab spiders.

Everyone knows what hunger feels like and understands the drive to seek food when hungry, but how does it work? Dr. Zachary Knight from UCSF joins RadioBio to discuss his work on understanding the pathways in the brain that sense hunger to drive behavior. Knight's work is revealing new insights into how the brain makes decisions about food, whether it looks tasty, and how hunger dictates behavior....

How do misfolded proteins cause human neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's, ALS, and Parkinson's? The Gitler lab at Stanford University studies the cellular biology underlying protein-misfolding diseases using the model organism yeast. Since dealing with misfolded proteins is an evolutionary problem, they hypothesize that the mechanisms employed to cope with misfoldings is likely conserved...

Evolution; no small topic. Biologists can use a diverse array of systems to try to test evolutionary concepts. Some systems, like bacteria, are useful for looking at how evolution happens in real time, because they have such short generation times. Others, like animals, are much more difficult, but can allow us to ask really interesting questions like how behavior influences evolutionary processes...

How does antibiotic resistance evolve? In this week's episode, Dr. Dan Weinreich joins RadioBio to discuss gene evolution and how it can lead to antibiotic resistance!

Ever wonder where species come from? Do species even exist? Why do they matter? RadioBio discusses the speciation process through space and time with Dr. Jack Sites Jr.

Climate change can cause organisms to experience conditions they are not adapted to. How do these organisms respond and keep up with a changing world? Our guest this week studies how a small, ubiquitous plant responds to both natural and experimental climate change to learn about the potential pathways to adaptation plants may follow. Dr. Johanna Schmitt introduces us to Arabadopsis thaliana, a ti...

In many cells, RNA plays an essential role in regulation. Technological innovations are needed to further understand the role of RNA molecules in regulating basic biological function. Further, there is a need to expand the biochemistry toolkit to understand how large groups of RNAs are working in parallel inside living cells. The Spitale lab develops novel biochemical approaches toward understandi...

What are coelacanths? Why would a marine fish contain chitin, a sugar that makes up the exoskeleton of insects? How do sharks sense fish? Why do we care about lamprey immune systems? Dr. Chris Amemiya from the Benaroya Research Institute studies these questions using comparative genomics. This research will improve our understanding of marine ecology as well as immunology, and holds implications f...

The famous geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." But how do we study evolution? How do we reconstruct evolutionary relationships amongst hundreds, even thousands of taxa across the tree of life? Can we really predict how fast species evolve? Dr. Emily Jane McTavish, Assistant Professor in the Quantitative & Systems Biology gr...

QSB RadioBio interviews Dr. Nathan Lanning of CSU-LA.