The Show About Science

Verd has been growing food for as long as he can remember, beginning in his family’s backyard garden in Oak Park, Illinois. At age sixteen, he left home to live and work on a communal farm in Austin, Texas, where he stayed for ten years and met his future wife, Jeanne. In 2005, Verd and…

Manatees are large marine mammals found in shallow coastal waters near Florida, Brazil, and the west coast of Africa. Manatees are occasionally called sea cows, because, like cows, they are slow, peaceful, and graze on plants. Sheri Barton is a Senior Biologist at the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Florida, where she studies these…

Did you know that there are tiny microbes that call our bodies home? These microorganisms live on and inside of us. You can even take a test to learn which ones make up your microbiome. Stefan Green is a microbial ecologist who runs the DNA Sequencing Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Stefan…

Jesse Schell is a video game designer and a professor of entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also the creator of “Happy Atoms,” a game that helps kids learn how atoms bond to form new molecules. Jesse joins Nate on this episode to talk about how “Happy Atoms” uses technology like augmented reality…

When organs like kidneys and livers fail, it can be scary—especially for kids. But the science of regenerative medicine, where new organs are created from a patient’s own cells and tissue, is a promising new field in medicine. Dr. Anthony Atala is the Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and he joins…

Last summer, Nate was walking to the train when he spotted a giant wasp carrying a cicada. Later he discovered that the insect he saw was a cicada killer wasp. These insects will paralyze cicadas with their venomous sting, but luckily rarely sting humans. Blake Newton is an entomologist at the University of Kentucky. He…

David Shoesmith is a professor of electrochemistry and corrosion science at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. He joins Nate on this episode of The Show About Science to explain why metal rusts and how it corrodes. They also talk about an experiment that you can conduct at home to see rust form.

Kids can do amazing things. And if you need proof of that, look no further than this episode of The Show About Science! First up is kid inventor Allie Weber, the host of the YouTube channel Tech-nic-Allie Speaking. After that is the story of Sophia Spencer, who inspired the hashtag #BugsR4Girls and co-authored a research…

What can we learning from studying teeth? As it turns out, quite a bit! Dr. Tanya Smith is working to understand how teeth grow, why they vary, and how this information can advance the field of human evolutionary biology. Dr. Smith joins Nate on this episode to talk about her work.

J Steele-Louchart is a Perceptual Navigation Instructor with World Access for the Blind. Blind from the age of 12, J began teaching himself Perceptual Navigation based on materials published online by World Access For The Blind Lead Founder and President Daniel Kish. Now J teaches others how to see the world around them using their…