The next time you go for a job interview, you might want to ditch the Che Guevara shirt or the MAGA hat — because what you reveal about your political leanings could determine if you land the gig.

Teri Finneman, associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas, recounts the problematic history of media covering women in U.S. politics, from Victoria Woodhull, a.k.a "Mrs. Satan," in 1872 to recent coverage of Kamala Harris' shoes.

Molecular biologist and coronavirus researcher Anthony Fehr discuss the rollout of the new vaccines and what's understood about COVID transmission at this point. He also says the coronavirus variant that's prevalent in the U.S. might be more easily spread, accounting for at least some of our higher rates of infection and death than has been seen in other countries.

We might think of it today as a wasteland of ice and penguins, but Antarctica once was covered in greenery. Paleobotanist Brian Atkinson explains how to look for ancient plant fossils in Antarctica — and how those fossils could forecast the fate of plants on our rapidly warming planet.

Could the social and economic pressures faced by essential workers during the current pandemic be similar to those faced by women in the porn industry? Akiko Takeyama, author and associate professor of women, gender and sexuality studies, says in both the pandemic and porn, economic and structural issues make it hard for workers to say no.

The pandemic has changed how we use libraries. So has the internet. So what? Libraries have been evolving for 4,000 years in how they store and create knowledge. And libraries aren't just the place where you find information — they lead the drive for creating and sharing knowledge with people all over the world.

Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter with Kansas" and more recently "The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism," explains that populism — a term invented in Kansas — has been commandeered by political opportunists in the U.S. and Europe.

For Jane Barnette, Halloween is a thrilling time of year. In this episode, the associate professor of theatre talks about her research into the portrayal of witches on stage and screen, and she challenges widespread notions that gave rise to fictional witches such as the Wicked Witch of the West. In part, Barnette's perspective is based on her own practice of witchcraft.

It's not just the fear of violence or a belief in constitutional rights that provides Americans with reasons to own guns. Concerns about Armageddon and "supernatural evil" also enter into people's decision-making. Margaret Kelley's research is part of a larger book project about "normal people using normal guns," specifically focusing on the average woman gun owner in Middle America.

When you're racing to a hospital emergency room, you're not thinking about all of the steps it took to make that ER available in a moment of need. But for the past two decades, Frank Zilm has been doing just that. He chats with "When Experts Attack!" correspondent Rick Hellman and dispels the notion that our health systems are prepared for surge events like the current pandemic. To the contrary, Zilm claims hospitals should be rebuilt from scratch to avoid disaster upon disaster.