BioTA Podcast

Chocolate is one of the most popular food items in the world. How did cacao, the main ingredient in chocolate, go from small tropical tree to the foundation of a multi-billion dollar industry? How will changing climate affect cacao’s future? To answer these questions, I am joined by gourmet chocolatier Robert Bowden, President of Vivere Chocolates, to talk about the past, present, and future of chocolate.

In Part 2 of my interview with Senior Climatologist Gary McManus, he discusses how we don’t have to wait to see evidence of climate change in Oklahoma and the rest of the world, because “It’s already here!” He also explains why the patterns of changes in extreme weather events that have been observed by the Oklahoma Mesonet (mesonet.org) are a serious concern when thinking about the consequences of climate change.

The Oklahoma Mesonet (www.mesonet.org) is a state of the art weather monitoring system that provides unparalleled information about the dynamic Oklahoma atmosphere and mesoscale meteorological events . In this episode, Senior Climatologist Gary McManus describes how the mesonet operates and how it is used to monitor and forecast Oklahoma weather.

During the spring and summer of 2021, the periodical cicadas in Brood X emerged from the soil where they had been living for the past 17 years. Once they came to the surface, all they wanted was to eat and reproduce. In this Missing Links Episode, the fascinating life cycle of the periodical cicadas in Brood X of the genus Magicicada is used as an example of the cohort concept and to demonstrate demographic models.

In this one year anniversary episode we revisit the SARS-Cov-2 virus and talk with Dr. Carlos Goller, a biotechnology specialist from North Carolina State University, about where we are at in the pandemic, how the vaccines to fight this virus work, and what is going on with these variants.

Medicinal cannabis legalization has introduced a new player in the agricultural industry of many states. But how is medicinal cannabis grown on a large scale? in this episode I interview one of the owners of Smokey Okies Cannabis to learn about how this is done and career options for botanists and others in this growing industry.

This episode continues the story of Nikolai Vavilov and his efforts to protect plant diversity and the field of genetics against Josef Stalin and the pseudoscientist Trofim Lysenko. Hear how Vavilov’s bravery led to tremendous acts of heroism during the siege of Leningrad, and, ultimately, his recognition as one of the greatest biological thinkers of the 20th Century.

Nikolai Vavilov was one of the greatest botanists, geneticists, and plant hunters of the 20th Century. Despite making incredible discoveries, his story is not widely known. In this episode, we follow Vavilov as he travels the globe searching for unique local varieties of crops to add to his seed bank collections and improve agriculture for all people.