Matthew LaPlante
UnDisciplined HostMatthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something occurred to him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be so brutally depressing all the time. These days, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects with his work on UnDisciplined — Utah Public Radio's weekly program on science and discovery.
He is the author of "Superlative: The Biology of Extremes," the co-author of multiple other books on the intersection of science and society, and has led or contributed to more than 20 studies on climate variability and climate change. He earned a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Oregon State University, a master's in education from California State University East Bay, and a doctorate in climate science from Utah State University.
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Scott Simon has spent a lifetime telling other people’s stories on national public radio. But every now and then, along the way, he’s found reasons to tell the stories of the animals with whom we share this world, and he’s collected those stories, and more, in his latest book. -
In workplaces everywhere, the most engaged employees often become the go-to for extra work. It feels logical, but management scholar Sangah Bae believes that instinct might be backfiring — a lot. Her recent work shows that intrinsically motivated workers are disproportionately assigned additional tasks, often at a cost to their performance, satisfaction, and long-term retention. The reason isn’t just that they’re capable—it’s that managers assume they’ll actually enjoy the extra work. -
A geologist, a planetary scientist, a NASA mission leader, and an expert on team-building walk into a bar. The bartender says, “hey, Lindy, are you drinking alone today?” In this episode, we talk about what it takes to be a polymath, and why it can be such a joy.
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For decades, the case against industrial animal farming has been framed as a moral one—and it hasn’t slowed consumption. As countries grow wealthier, meat consumption rises right along with them. But according to Bruce Friedrich, a different kind of change is now underway. From plant-based meat to cultivated proteins, a technological shift may be emerging—one that could make animal farming obsolete, not because people changed their minds, but because the system changed around them.
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Jani Radebaugh, a planetary scientist at Brigham Young University, has spent her career studying the landscapes of other worlds — and for decades, that work has depended on images and data sent back by robotic missions. Now, as humans re-enter deep space, she’s asking a different question: What changes when we see these worlds with our own eyes? -
This winter’s snow drought may leave a mark that lasts for centuries. Justin DeRose, a dendrochronologist and assistant professor of silviculture and applied forest ecology at Utah State University, says trees across the West are already recording the story of climate in their rings — wet years, dry years, fire years, and sometimes years so harsh they leave almost no growth at all. And as drought years begin stacking up closer and closer together, those forests may be telling us something important about how fast the West is changing.
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For years, many people have assumed that climate change will send massive waves of “climate refugees” across borders around the world. But Jan Freihardt, a political scientist at ETH Zurich, says the reality is far more complicated. Studying communities along the Jamuna River in Bangladesh—where floods and erosion regularly destroy homes and farmland—Freihardt has followed families trying to decide whether to stay, move a little, or start over somewhere else. Distant migration is the option of last resort — and often not an option at all. -
In 2011, an EF-5 tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, claiming 161 lives. Almost immediately researchers like Marc Levitan, from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, began working to understand why it was so devastating. The results of that investigation are now being implemented into building codes around the world. And the result is that we’re more ready for the next huge twister. -
Is the greatest existential threat our species has ever faced really something to joke about? Aaron Sachs thinks so. And, in fact, he thinks that, in many cases, we’re not joking about it enough.
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We’ve long found different ways to explain that the world is made up of haves and have-nots. We live in the developed world or the developing world. There are those who are advantaged and those who are disadvantaged. And then, of course, there’s the one percent and everyone else. But under global warming, the climate journalist Jeff Goodell thinks, there may be a new way of describing this dichotomy: The cooled and the cooked.
