In this most Nobel episode of Yackety Science, the Yackers visit Stockholm to explore quantum tunneling, gas storage, and the plight of scurfy mice. Along the way, they are struck by micro-lightning and the sight of a most gruesome in-flight snack. The element silicon makes for a rocky edition of Matt’s Chemical Minute. And Prof. Craig Davis of OSU stops by to talk bobwhite biology, wetland decline, and the futile search for sewage plovers.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Guest: Dr. Craig Davis

Craig Davis holds the Bollenbach Chair in Wildlife Management at Oklahoma State University. His research focuses on several areas including the response of grassland birds to fire-grazing interactions, assessment and classification of wetlands, wetland bird ecology, aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate ecology, and upland gamebird ecology and management.

Links:

• The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 was awarded jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”

• The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 was awarded jointly to Mary E. Brunkow, Frederick J. Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi "for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance."

• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 was awarded jointly to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi "for the development of metal–organic frameworks."

• This Chilling Recording Reveals Large Bats Catching, Killing and Eating Birds Midflight by Margherita Bassi - Daily Correspondent (Smithsonian; October 15, 2025)

• Spraying of water microdroplets forms luminescence and causes chemical reactions in surrounding gas by Yifan Meng, Yu Xia, Jinheng Xu, and Richard N. Zare (Science Advances; Vol 11, Issue 11; 14 Mar 2025)

In this episode, comedian Barry Friedman joins the show to talkkinky ant queens, lasagna leakage, and the frustrating complexity of nature. As always, the Yackers boldlyconfront the most difficult questions of our time. Do Martians have tacky taste? Is SIS (sperm inferiority syndrome) runningrampant? Do hornets have a right to squat on your patio? And will Matt ever stop talking about fusion?

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

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Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Guest Host: Barry Friedman

Barry is a standup comedian, political columnist, reporter, andhis work has appeared in The New Yorker; Esquire; The Progressive Populist; MediaPost; The Las Vegas Review-Journal; and AAPG Explorer, a magazine for petroleum geologists, which is noteworthy, considering how little Barry know about petroleum geology and how he usually hurts himself filling his car with gas. Barry was also in UHF with“Weird Al" Yankovic, setting a cinematic high water mark for those who have since played (or dream one day of playing) “Crony #2” in a major motion picture. The movie still provides him with $3.76 residual checks every time it plays at a Lithuanian drive-in or when some lost soul downloads it. Barry now lives in Portugal and hates referring to himself in the third person.

Links:

Leopard Print Martians

• Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars by Hurowitz et al. Nature 645, 332–340 2025).
• NASA’s Perseverance Rover

Kinky Ant Queens

• One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants by Juvé et al. Nature (Sept. 3, 2025).

Hornet Invaders

• Asian hornets have a unique sound – and that could be the key to controlling their spread. (August 11, 2025)

Desktop Fusion

• Electrochemical loading enhances deuterium fusion rates in a metal target by Chen et al. Nature 644, 640–645 (2025)

In this episode, Yackety Sciences takes up even more of the essential questions of our time. How much of RFK, Jr.’s brain have the worms actually consumed? Is magnesium male or female? Can SIT save us from an invasion of man-eaters? When will fusion power bake our potatoes? And is Belle selling a lie as old as time? Join us for the answers (?) to all of these questions and more.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Episode Art: Modified from screwworm photo by John Kucharski (PD).

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links:

RFK, Jr. and the COVID Vaccines

• Global Estimates of Lives and Life-Years Saved by COVID-19 Vaccination During 2020-2024 by Ioannidis et al. JAMA Health Forum ( 2025)

• Estimated number of lives directly saved by COVID-19 vaccination programmes in the WHO European Region from December, 2020, to March, 2023: a retrospective surveillance study. by Mesle et al. The Lancet (2024)

• Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modelling study by Watson, Oliver J et al. The Lancet Infectious Diseases (2022)

• COVID 19 Vaccine Effectiveness. Our World in Data
  

Screwworms

• The U.S. confirms its first human case of New World screwworm. What is it? By Rachel Treisman. NPR.org (August 25, 2025)

• New World Screwworm: Rise, Fall, and Resurgence by Alicia Hibbard. ASM.org (Sept. 5, 2025).

Fusion Advances

• Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore achieve fusion ignition with groundbreaking approach: Achievement expands what’s possible in stockpile stewardship experiments. LANL.gov (July 31, 2025)