BioTA Podcast

Every few years, we hear that El Niño is on the way! But what does that actually mean? And what is El Niño, anyway? In this episode, Dr. Gary McManus of the Oklahoma Mesonet takes us beyond the headlines and hype to explain what El Niño is, what it isn’t, and how this recurring climate pattern can shape the weather we experience.

In part two of our interview with neurobiologist Dr. Lemon, we learn more about taste and flavor. And to spice things up, we talk about how the fiery sensation from eating peppers isn’t triggering taste buds but instead is caused by capsaicin changing how pain receptors in your mouth work.

In this episode we interview neurobiologist Dr. Chris Lemon to learn about how receptors and neurons in your mouth work together and interact with other sensory systems to detect taste and give the sensation of flavor. 

In Part 2 of our interview with Dr. Stein, we explore some of her research on how plasticity helps organisms survive in their environments, what it reveals about the importance of biological flexibility, and where this field needs to go next to answer remaining questions about this important trait.

At its core, phenotypic plasticity is one genotype, multiple outcomes. But what does that actually look like in real biology? In this episode, Dr. Laura Stein introduces phenotypic plasticity: what it is, how it works, and why it is important that organisms aren’t fixed in form or function.

Tuberculosis can be devastating, but in the past, treatment could be too. Dr. Mehaffy walks us through tuberculosis treatments from the past and explains the challenges still faced by modern medicine in treating and controlling spread of this disease.

Tuberculosis is a devastating disease that has impacted humans for thousands of years. We spoke with Dr. Carolina Mehaffy, a microbiologist at Colorado State University, about what tuberculosis is, what it does to the body, and how scientists test for it.

In this episode, we conclude our interview with Dr. Abigail Moore and Dr. James Hung. They explain why species concepts are important and how they are applied in their conservation-focused work with the Oklahoma Biological Survey.

In this episode we interview Dr. Abigail Moore and Dr. James Hung from the Oklahoma Biological Survey to learn about species concepts. In Part 1 we get their perspective on what a species is and why it can be hard to define.

In the 1500s, a disease called Cocoliztli devastated Indigenous communities in what is now Mexico. But what caused it? In this episode, we tell the story of Cocoliztli and how modern scientists used history, teeth, ancient DNA, and tree rings to identify the pathogen behind Cocoliztli, whose modern relatives still live among us.