Regret Labs Podcast: Science | Comedy | Humility

“We all, to some extent, are scientists. I just do it for a living.”

Dr. Michelle LaRue’s work has been covered internationally by hundreds of media outlets including BBC, NBC Nightly News, Wall Street Journal and National Geographic. As a research ecologist at the University of Minnesota, Dr. LaRue focuses on interdisciplinary tools to study spatial and population dynamics of penguins, seals, cougars and polar bears. She is also a science communicator who loves to work with young people and regularly engages on social media.

In this episode of Regret Labs, Dr. LaRue talks about being a science communicator and what kind of expectations people have when they think about a “scientist.” She talks about ecology, climate, ecosystems, penguins and the relationship between intelligence and play. She also explains why Antarctica is gaining ice while the Arctic loses ice. And encourages listeners to tweet at her , @DrMichelleLaRue, with their questions on scientific accuracy in television commercials with the hashtag #ThisAdDumb.

Aric and Levi are super excited to welcome in the new co-host of Regret Labs, Maggie Ryan Sandford. Maggie writes about science and researches how humans learn about science. Also, she has produced work for TV and radio and writes fiction. She was also the first guest of this here podcast!

In this mini ep, the gang get’s to know a bit about Maggie’s science background and then quickly pivots into talking about science movies. Maggie explains the plot to a bizarre dolphin film, Aric reveals his love for science fiction romance and Levi wont shut up about Val Kilmer. Also, Maggie learns something new and the gang inevitably gets into a chat about gender.

More on John C. Lilly

More on Isolation Tanks

Kenny Blumenfeld is a Senior Climatologist at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He also works for Hennepin County Emergency Management, gives public scientific storytelling performances and helped make the documentary “The Story of Winter.”

With Kenny’s help, Aric and Levi get at the complex scientific question, what is weather? Kenny explains why severe weather is so difficult to measure and categorize. He also talks about his most commonly asked weather questions, explains how hail really works and gets into the challenges of relying on anecdotal evidence when studying weather.

Levi breaks out his Patch Adams impersonation, Aric tries to articulate the difference between cyclones and hurricanes and Kenny is incredibly patient through it all.

Musician Adam Svec of the band Camp Dark joins Aric and Levi to teach them about pitch perception and hearing. They also get to the bottom of some deep truths about Ghostbusters 2 and learn what some medical cadavers are used for.

Show Notes:

Camp Dark‘s debut album is available now. Get it.

TigerCIS, for examples of how cochclear implants sound.

What Does It Mean to Sound Gay?, a podcast from Slate.

Book Recommendations:

An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing by Brian Moore

The Sense of Hearing by Christopher Plack

Fundamentals of Hearing: An Introduction by William Yost

Levi and Aric return after seven some months of absense! They take and discuss a short science quiz from the Mirror UK and share details of the upcoming live Regret Lab show, which is part of the quickly approching NoisePicnic Podcast Festival held at the Phoenix Theater in Minneapolis! Get your tickets now! And list to the podcast, of course.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Undercooked Turkey Day, Regret Labs and food scientist Lainey Black take you through the wonderful world of foodborne illness and food poisoning. Learn all about why you shouldn’t eat sprouts, what kind of diarrhea E. coli 157 will give you, why everyone in on a cruise ship is getting the norovirus, how to summon the elder god of shiga toxin, and why none of the antics in Dumb and Dumber are considered food poisoning.

Really, thought. Don’t eat sprouts. Listen to this Regret Labs podcast episode if you like. But even if you don’t, quit eating sprouts. And raw hamburgers.

If you do listen, you get to hear the five different kinds of diarrhea foodborne illness can give you. If nothing else, this episode of Regret Labs will give you a severe case of the giggles.

With a few episodes under their belt, Levi and Aric take a look back at their podcast experiment and see how things are working so far. Fact retention, failure, success, confidence, and non sequiturs are your rewards for listening to this episode with your ears.

Brad Hauser teaches us all about chemistry, metal-organic frameworks, and windowless white vans on this Regret Labs podcast episode. In fact, have you ever spent time wondering how black light posters work? Or glow in the dark stickers? Or why gold is such a good conductor of electricity? You can stop wondering! That, and how Grey Poupon is like electrons, are all discussed!

Brad Hauser is on Twitter DrBradHauser. If you’d like to learn more about the roots of forensic chemistry, Brad suggests watching The Poisoner’s Handbook.

As always, co-hosts Aric and Levi would love to hear what they got wrong. Twitter at us. Facebook around us. Email through us. Let them know where they went astray, because you know it happened. Or, you know, just them an “attaboy.”

Scientific terms have very specific meanings, but are misused in everyday life. io9 put out a wonderful article titled 10 Scientific Ideas That Scientists Wish You Would Stop Misusing last month. Aric and Levi though they should try their hand at defining the terms in the article before reading it. If you’ve listened to Regret Labs podcast before, you already know how this will go.

In the podcast, Aric and Levi love the snarky answers from Professor Dave Goldberg, dig up the atheist’s nightmare video, and try to find the scientific definition for “balloon party.” Listen, enjoy, share, and hopefully learn.

Greg Laden stops by the Regret Labs podcast to teach Aric and Levi about climate change. The information is equal parts terrifying and enlightening, because (spoiler alert) things don’t look good. But also, we are not helpless in making changes to improve our situation.

Denialism, controversy, skepticism, and handling Twitter fights are also covered in this episode. Should this podcast episode be controversial? No. The science of climate change is grounded in well researched and peer reviewed studies. There can be a knee jerk reaction when listening to or reading anything about climate change. Hopefully the well stated information that Greg Laden provides will open some eyes and get our listeners thinking about the issue differently.

Greg Laden can be found on Twitter at @gregladen, on his Science Blogs blog, his The X Blog information clearinghouse, or on Facebook.

And finally, action items for Regret Labs listeners! Tweet, Facebook, comment, or email your responses. What errors did Aric and Levi make between the information they got in the interview and the information they reiterated in their wrap-up? And also, when is the last time you felt dumb?

And as always, keep asking question.