The Beaker Report

Steve and Caleb are back from Summer Break! The guys catch up on how they have been spending their summer. Steve has been busy working on his Jeep all summer. Steve talks about how much he loves working on cars as a hobby. The guys talk about how fun it would be to have an old project car to work on. They also fill us in on how they have been spending their time in the lab. Caleb has been working on figuring out third gen sequencing, which neither Steve nor anyone else has heard of. Caleb warns about the troubles of being on the cutting edge of science. Steve talks about how he has been working on doing qPCR for his project. The guys give a quick lesson on RNA and cDNA and why you would want to perform qPCR and they talk about some of the troubles of working with RNA. They also explain why funding random science is so important and how you never know what a project will lead to. Caleb explains the story of how Taq polymerase was discovered. Finally, it is unfortunate that the guys have to end on talking about the problem of gun violence. There was recently a shooting in the Oregon District in Dayton, Ohio, both Steve and Caleb's home town. The guys discuss how they feel about it and what a complicated problem it is. They also give a couple of suggestions of what small things you could do to possibly indirectly help with this issue.

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Steve and Caleb are back with another episode of The Beaker Report. Steve and Caleb spend some time catching up on what has been going on in their labs. Steve has been 3D printing some parts for his projects in the lab and he talks about some new technologies in the world of 3D printing. The guys also talk about how great summer is when you work at a university. One of the benefits of being a scientist is how flexible your schedule can be in the summer. Steve talks about how he has been riding his bike to the lab this summer and Caleb talks about his skateboard goals. This gets the guys on a discussion of why it is so captivating to watch people doing extreme stunts. Check out this and much more on this weeks episode of The Beaker Report!

This week on The Beaker Report, Steve is joined by Dr. Sandy Specht. Dr. Specht is a Professor of Biology at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. Steve and Caleb both took Dr. Specht's Biology I course in their undergrad. Steve and Dr. Specht catch up and she explains how she got into biology in the first place. They share stories of how each other first became interested in medicine. Steve also questions Dr. Specht about some of the difficulties of teaching. They cover how important it is to get good scientific information out to the public and how there is a general misunderstanding of the scientific process amongst the public. Check out this a more on this weeks episode of The Beaker Report.

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Steve and Caleb are back with another episode of The Beaker Report podcast. It's been a couple of weeks since the guys caught up with each other. Caleb is now officially a PhD candidate. He passed his candidacy exam last week. So he outlines the process and timeline of preparing for a candidacy exam and what is involved. The guys also get caught up on what has been going on in the lab. Steve has gotten back into doing electrophysiology and covers the struggles involved with getting the experiment up and running. Then the guys get super nerdy and start talking about data analysis and some of there favorite plots. Check out this and much more in this science packed episode!

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Tune in this week for another fun episode of The Beaker Report podcast with Steve Burke and Caleb Schuler. After Caleb recapped his recent trip to Madison, Wisconsin the guys get into a discussion on the Drake equation. The Drake equation attempts to estimate the number of civilizations capable of communication that exist in the Milkyway Galaxy. They had a funny realization about the equation. Also, Steve gives a status update about his research.

This week on The Beaker Report Caleb is in Ohio! Steve and Caleb got together to do a podcast Caleb brought an old buddy of his from the Navy along. Jordan Falardeau is this weeks guest and it was a blast. After having met up for lunch and some beers the guys, being slightly tipsy, recorded this epic podcast where they discussed the future of automation and how humans will adapt to a future where robots do every. This led them down many paths such as, what is the mean of life? What is your purpose in life if there is no struggle? Can humans compete with robots if we could download information to our brains? For the answers to these questions be sure to take a listen.

Show Music - Change is Gonna Come by Greta Van Fleet

This week on The Beaker Report, Caleb is out of town so Steve brought back beloved guest Ryan Rakoczy! Ryan and Steve discussed many topics on this episode including research and laboratory techniques. The guys got into some deep discussion about time and the possibilities and ramifications of curing death and disease. They also discussed what happens after death and what is the purpose of life. Mostly, Steve kept coming back to the idea that we can not be sure of anything absolutely.

This is a fun episode and a great discussion. Check it out. Thanks again to Ryan for being a guest on the podcast he will definitely be back again.

Episode Music - Mister Magic by Grover Washington Jr.

Steve and Caleb are backthis week with another episode of The Beaker Report. This show starts out silly with some reminiscing about Saturday morning cartoons and which X-Men were the guys favorites. The guys then get into some automobile history and talk about electric cars. Steve talks about how he would like to convert a car to electric. Steve talks about how conversions could be an affordable way to get off of the need to use fuel.

Next, the guys get into the concerns of job automation and the argument mentioned for the idea of a universal basic income. The guys discuss some of the ideas of Andrew Yang who is running for president in 2020 on this idea.

Finally, the guys end with the weekly dose of science. The discuss some ecology and Steve gives some updates on his recent work.

Episode #34 with Steve Burke and Caleb Schuler

The science show for the average Joe!