In this episode, the Yackers mete out harsh justice for the “savage beast” fluorine, while floating a partial pardon for marriage enthusiast Henry VIII. In Western Australia, they wander the Pilbara Craton looking for signs of a deep impact. And closer to home, they wade into the dubious waters of Spunky Creek with Candice Miller of Blue Thumb.

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 Host: Candice Miller

Candice Miller has been a Blue Thumb Educator for the state of Oklahoma since 2013. Miller coordinates water monitoring with volunteers, conducts biological collections in streams, and educates students and the general public around the state. In addition, Miller was Project Wet Coordinator from 2016-2024. A national program, Miller was Oklahoma state representative where she held formal and informal water education in addition to coordinating the annual H2Oklahoma Water Festival. She has a BS in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology from University of North Dakota, an MS in Biological Sciences from Eastern Illinois University, and additional graduate work from Oklahoma State University.

Links:

The Oldest Crater Ever Discovered

A Paleoarchaean impact crater in the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia by Kirkland et al. (Nature Communications; March 2025)

Biased Sex Ratios

Is sex at birth a biological coin toss? Insights from a longitudinal and GWAS analysis

(Science Advances; July 18, 2025)

Blue Thumb Oklahoma

Water Quality Data and Volunteer Opportunities

Disappearing Science

EPA Cuts

• About the Office of Research and Development (ORD)

• Trump administration shuts down EPA's scientific research arm by Rob Stein (NPR; July 20,2025)

• Dismantling EPA’s research office jeopardizes environmental safety, public health, and US competitiveness (PNAS; June 11, 2025)

NWS Cuts

• NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory

• Trump Administration Wants to Close Down Key Weather Labs Nationwide by Emily Kennard (Oklahoma Watch, July 8, 2025)

Chad Johnson joins Matt Smith and Brian Cross to go tripping through the doors of perception. The team takes on the therapeutic use of psychedelics and the sometimes tricky line between psychedelic scientist and spiritual guru. Matt gets in touch with his alchemical roots as he dephlogisticates the element oxygen. In the headlines, Moas rear their lofty heads, the Parker Solar Probe catches the solar wind, and scientists attempt to fix the “Matthew Effect.”

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 Host: Chad Johnson, Ph.D.

Dr. Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at the University of Oklahoma and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the OU College of Medicine. He earned his PhD in psychology from Penn State and completed his psychology internship at Vanderbilt University. He is a licensed psychologist with over 20 years of experience in psychotherapy, consultation, training, supervision, research, and teaching. His work centers on themes of personal and spiritual growth, psychedelics, grief, trauma, and advocacy.

Links:

Psychedelics

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

The emergence of psychedelics as medicine (APA; June 1, 2024)

Moas:

Effort to revive New Zealand’s extinct moa stirs controversy (Science; July 11, 2025)

TRNS and Boosting Math Skill

Functional connectivity and GABAergic signaling modulate the enhancement effect of neurostimulation on mathematical learning

(PLOS; July 1, 2025)

Parker Solar Probe and Solar Wind

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun (Jul 10, 2025)

In this episode, co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross take on the tiniest assassins and the wanderlust of the North Pole. They say lego my LIGO in another installment of Disappearing Science, and they use their full brains to decry the unscientific silliness of Lucy in Yackety Science Ruins the Movies. And finally, geologist Claude Bolze stops by to talk trilobites, rock hunting, and the only natural way to cross the Arkansas River.

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.

Links:

True Polar Wander:

True Polar Wander Driven by Artificial Water Impoundment: 1835–2011 by Valencic et al. (Geophysical Letters, May 23, 2025)

Bacterial Assassins:

Antagonism as a foraging strategy in microbial communities by Stubbusch et al.

(Science, June 12, 2025)

Disappearing Science–LIGO:

LIGO Information from Caltech

‘Killing a newborn baby’: Cuts to LIGO would devastate gravitational wave astronomy

Geological Opportunities:

Tulsa Rock and Mineral Show: July 12 and 13

Co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross mix up a powerful cocktail of mamba venom and xenon gas in the headlines. Matt’s Chemical Minute reaches a premature climax with the ultimate element: carbon. And Brian visits the Sutton Avian Research Center to learn more about bobwhites, prairie chickens, and the history of shotgun ornithology.

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.

Links:

Sutton Avian Research Center:

Sutton Avian Research Center

Wild Brew Fundraiser

Xenon Gas and Mountaineering:

They Inhaled a Gas and Scaled Everest in Days. Is It the Future of Mountaineering? (NYT; May 27, 2025)

Snake Venom

He injected himself with venom for decades. Can his antibodies help snakebite victims? (Science, May 2, 2025)

Disappearing Science:

NIH Grants Terminated: https://grant-watch.us/nih-data.html

NSF Grants Terminated: https://grant-watch.us/nsf-data.html

The Low Road to Cathode

In this episode, co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross dig into penguin poop, gene editing, and the insidious nature of hydrogen. Cosmic ray spallation makes its last appearance in Matt’s Chemical Minute, and in the first of two episodes featuring the Sutton Avian Research Center, Executive Director Chad Ellis stops by to talk bird conservation in the state of Oklahoma.

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.

Links:

Sutton Avian Research Center:

Sutton Avian Research Center

Wild Brew Fundraiser

Gene Therapy for Babies:

Gene-editing therapy made in just 6 months helps baby with life-threatening disease: Custom CRISPR paves the way for treating genetic disorders in tailormade ways (Science, May 15, 2025)

Patient-Specific In Vivo Gene Editing to Treat a Rare Genetic Disease by Musunure et al. NEJM, May 15, 2025)

Penguin Poop in Antarctica:

Boyer, M., Quéléver, L., Brasseur, Z. et al. Penguin guano is an important source of climate-relevant aerosol particles in Antarctica. Commun Earth Environ 6, 368 (2025).

Insidious Hydrogen and the Death of Batteries:

Scientists may have an explanation for why some batteries don’t last (Science News, Sept. 27, 2024)

Disappearing Science:

NIH Grants Terminated: https://grant-watch.us/nih-data.html

NSF Grants Terminated: https://grant-watch.us/nsf-data.html

In this episode, co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross talk asteroid impacts, mantis shrimp, and the 90s sci-fi classic The Matrix. The element lithium pops up in both Matt’s Chemical Minute and in the guest interview with TU Prof. Dale Teeters, whose research focused on polymers and battery technology.

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.

Links:

Mantis Shrimp: https://www.science.org/content/article/scienceadviser-shock-absorbing-armor-protects-mantis-shrimp-its-own-bad-vibes

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mantis-shrimp-punishing-blows-physics

Modeling a Bennu-sized Asteroid Impact:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq5399

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-asteroid-impact-simulation-reveals-climate.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X10005613

Dale Teeters:

https://www.tualumni.com/s/1174/bp20/interior.aspx?pgid=961&gid=1

Welcome Back! In this second episode of Yackety Science, co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross tackle the Parker Solar Probe, avian flu, contagious urination, and helium. In the first ever installment of Yackety Science Ruins the Movies, Matt attempts to take down the movie Prometheus. And in the guest interview, Dr. Charles Brown talks about the four decades he has spent hanging out among the cliff swallows of Nebraska

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.

Links:

Contagious Urination: https://www.science.org/content/article/peeing-contagious-chimpanzees

Parker Solar Probe: https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasas-parker-solar-probe-makes-history-with-closest-pass-to-sun/

Avian Influenza:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/health/kennedy-bird-flu.html

Cliff Swallows:

https://utulsa.edu/news/building-on-his-lifes-work-professor-publishes-latest-cliff-swallow-research/