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UnDisciplined
Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.

Each week, UnDisciplined takes a fun, fascinating and accessible dive into the lives of researchers and explorers working across a wide variety of scientific fields.

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  • As diurnal creatures, humans often miss out on the natural world at night. And many of us have a natural urge to see the animals that come out at night as inherently worse, scarier, more disgusting, or more dangerous than their daytime counterparts. But if we set aside our distrust of what comes out at night, we’ll find ourselves stunned by what night time nature has to offer. And in his new book, that’s exactly what Charles Hood does.
  • What is life? However you answer that question, there is a good chance that it’s limited in some way by something that recent research has shown is not actually a limit. What living things can breathe, how they derive energy, how long they can live, and even whether they must die are all being challenged by what we’re learning from microorganisms. In her new book, “Intraterrestrials,” Karen Lloyd tells the story of exploring those limits among the strangest species on our planet.
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    UnDisciplined: Can holding leaders accountable to truth unlock a climate revolution?
    In his new book, climate analyst Mike Berners-Lee says there's one shift that would go far toward solving every climate bind we’re in: holding corporate and political leaders accountable to truth.
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    UnDisciplined: Why aren't we using climate phases to predict crop yields?
    For decades, we’ve known that climate cycles like El Niño affect regional crop yields. But even though our food system is increasingly global, we haven’t done a great job of thinking at a planetary scale.
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    UnDisciplined: How can we stay connected with plant life through changing seasons?
    Herbs have a wide range of uses. A new book explores how plants connect us to the earth, to each other, and to ourselves.
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    UnDisciplined: Americans may soon see a link between climate change and health problems
    Rising global temperatures are already impacting human health. One survey suggests that most Americans haven’t yet felt this connection in their own lives or seen it in their own communities. But that might change — and soon.
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    UnDisciplined: What goes into making this show, and how has it evolved over time?
    On July 6, 2018, listeners who were tuned into UPR heard UnDisciplined for the first time. Now, nearly seven years later, we’ve shared 300 episodes.
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    UnDisciplined: This guy bet his father $10,000 that 10 prophecies wouldn’t come true. Who actually won?
    Zach Mack’s father was falling into the abyss. That’s what it felt like, at least, as Zach watched his dad become more and more susceptible to conspiracy theories and prophecies from religious zealots. But when his dad bet him $10,000 that ten different predictions would come true by the end of 2024, Zach thought he found a way to bring his dad back.
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    UnDisciplined: Can we really recycle our wastewater?
    Drought and water shortages are major concerns for many Arizona cities. And there have been many potential solutions approached to try and handle these concerns. Advanced Water Purification (AWP), also known as water reuse or water recycling, is one of them. But it can be a difficult subject to broach. Christy Spackman is using an interesting medium to open the conversation: AWT-r Popsicles.
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    UnDisciplined: Will the California fires send a shockwave through the economy?
    The wildfires in Southern California are on track to become the costliest disaster in U.S. history, and a lot of people are already recognizing that this conflagration is going to send a shockwave through the insurance market. But, as it turns out, the economic impact won’t stop there. Wesleyan University economist Gary Yohe says that the fires have the potential to be a contagion that sends a sickness through the system.