In Plain English: Science Made Simple

Tune in TOMORROW, February 27th at 10 am ET/9 am CT for the first ever In Plain English Live Stream! We will be hosting a round table discussion on Open Science and scientific publishing with the Editor-in-Chief of eLife, Michael Eisen; the founder of Sci-Hub, Alexandra Elbakyan; and WashU neuroscientist Bryan Copits.

You can find the live stream at this link: https://youtube.com/live/4oiTDnGmWXs

An edited version of the round table will be released on Tuesday, March 7th.

What do the blood in your blood vessels, the waves on a beach, and bubbles from a bubble bath have in common? They're all fluids, interacting with other fluids in complex ways that can be modeled by computers! Join expert Alex Barrett and guests Cole Barker and Christina Niavi to learn more about the important role surface tension plays in interactions between fluids, and the many important applications of modeling these complicated processes.

In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more!

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Photo Credit: Bavand Keshavarz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In this bonus episode of In Plain English, I talk with defense lawyer Alec Karakatsanis about the paper "The Injustice of Underpolicing in America," by Christopher Lewis and Adaner Usmani. We cover the undisclosed assumptions, missing statistics, and cynical worldview behind this piece of propaganda masked as a scientific paper.

You can find the paper, Alec's response, and the authors' rebuttal on our website here.

If you liked this episode, you can reach out to Alec on Twitter @EqualityAlec, or submit questions or comments via the Continue the Conversation tab on our website!

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

In Plain English also has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Photo Credit: Grayscale photo of police riot team on pedestrian lane. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

On this special episode of In Plain English, Brendan Ziebarth, Nick Wolslegel, and I talk about the political side of space travel: billionaire joy rides, corporate asteroid mining, climate impact, and more.

This episode was inspired by our conversation on Season 1, Episode 4: Where did Earth's Water Come From? You can listen to that episode here.

You can find the sources we referenced in our conversation and view the episode transcript on our website here.

If you liked this episode, you can submit questions or comments via the Continue the Conversation tab on our website!

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Photo by Edvin Richardson from Pexels.

Join expert SB Pye and guests Tania Lintz and Hannah Trettenero for a deep dive on virus outbreaks, and why some new viruses spread like wildfire while others peter out.

You can download this paper on our website here.

If you liked this episode and want to learn more about viruses, you can send questions to SB at [email protected], or submit them via the Continue the Conversation tab on our website! You can also check out virologists Dr. Angela Rasmussen, Dr. Benhur Lee, and Trevor Bedford on Twitter. For more virology podcasts, check out This Week in Virology and This Podcast Will Kill You.

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Photo Credit: Corona Virus Spreading Across City Concept. 3D Rendering Aerial View Miniature City Buildings" by maggie_talal is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Join expert Christina Niavi and guests Alex Barrett and David Latchman to learn what happens to our immune cells during chronic infections and cancer, and how we can harness our understanding of the immune system to develop better treatments for these diseases. 

You can download this paper on our website here.

If you liked this episode, be sure to follow Christina Niavi on Twitter @ChristinaNiavi and David Latchman @SciWriterDave.

In Plain English will be hosting a Twitter Space with Christina Niavi on November 5th to continue discussing this paper and answer any questions you have about the episode! Tweet your questions @PlainEnglishSci and tune in to listen to the answers! You can also ask questions on our website under the Continue the Conversation tab.

Additionally, Christina, Alex, David, and I recorded a bonus conversation on COVID, science communication, and combating misinformation! That conversation will be available to Patreon subscribers--go check it out!

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Photo Credit: "HIV-infected H9 T cell" by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Join expert Alex Albury and guests SB Pye and Sasha Dmytrenko to find out what kinds of music make us want to tap our feet, and why!

You can download this paper for free on our website.

If you liked this episode, be sure to follow Alex Albury on Twitter @albury_alex and check out his recent article in the conversation on why you know more about music than you think: https://theconversation.com/youre-not-tone-deaf-and-you-know-more-about-music-than-you-think-174453?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Photo by Vishnu R Nair

Join expert Vera Thornton and guests Doris Meinerding and Hannah Waterhouse for Part 2 of a thought-provoking look "behind the scenes" of scientific research, to answer the question "Why are research findings sometimes wrong?"

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Disclaimers: Though this episode talks about medical tests, none of the guests are doctors, nor are they your doctor. If you have a question about your own health or medical care, please ask your doctor.

This article and the ensuing discussion should not be misconstrued to support any form of science denialism. As we discuss in the episode, science is a process, not a set of definite facts. Sometimes in this process, new evidence emerges that casts doubt on previous findings. We believe that it is important for scientists to be transparent about this part of the process.

The author of this article, Dr. John Ioannadis, has recently become (in)famous for using his platform as a prominent researcher to downplay the COVID-19 pandemic (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-john-ioannidis/). His actions are unfortunately a perfect example of one possible pitfall of studies like this that call out issues with research rigor and reproducibility: misconstruing them to mean that no science should be trusted. My goal in making this podcast is to make science better and more accessible to the public, and to give you all the tools to be more educated consumers of scientific news and literature. The big takeaway is this: apply rigorous skepticism to both science that fits your world view and science that challenges it, and be open to changing your mind if the evidence leads you in a different direction from what you originally thought.

Photo Credit: Chokniti Khongchum

Join expert Vera Thornton and guests Doris Meinerding and Hannah Waterhouse for Part 1 of a thought-provoking look "behind the scenes" of scientific research, to answer the question "Why are research findings sometimes wrong?" Part 2 will air on the first Tuesday of September.

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Disclaimers: Though this episode talks about medical tests, none of the guests are doctors, nor are they your doctor. If you have a question about your own health or medical care, please ask your doctor.

This article and the ensuing discussion should not be misconstrued to support any form of science denialism. As we discuss in the episode, science is a process, not a set of definite facts. Sometimes in this process, new evidence emerges that casts doubt on previous findings. We believe that it is important for scientists to be transparent about this part of the process..

The author of this article, Dr. John Ioannadis, has recently become (in)famous for using his platform as a prominent researcher to downplay the COVID-19 pandemic (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-john-ioannidis/). His actions are unfortunately a perfect example of one possible pitfall of studies like this that call out issues with research rigor and reproducibility: misconstruing them to mean that no science should be trusted. My goal in making this podcast is to make science better and more accessible to the public, and to give you all the tools to be more educated consumers of scientific news and literature. The big takeaway is this: apply rigorous skepticism to both science that fits your world view and science that challenges it, and be open to changing your mind if the evidence leads you in a different direction from what you originally thought.

Photo Credit: Chokniti Khongchum

Join expert Hilary Agro and guests Vera Thornton and Brigid Lydon as they discuss the far-reaching impacts of the drug war and the importance of harm reduction.

You can download the paper on our website.

Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English!

And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

National Harm Reduction Coalition: https://harmreduction.org/resource-center/

https://www.narcan.com

MO HOPE Project (for Missouri residents): https://mohopeproject.org/resources/get-naloxone/

Prevent + ED (for Missouri residents): https://prevented.org

The T (for St. Louis area residents): https://www.thetstl.com

Image Credit: "Drugs Say Stop The Drug War" by The Drug Users Bible is licensed under CC BY 2.0.