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UnDisciplined: The Microbiologist And The Human Ecologist

Each week on UnDisciplined, we bring two researchers together to talk about their recent work. 

This week, we're joined first by Karen Lloyd, whose research suggests microbial dark matter may be all around us. Then, we talked to Jacob Freeman, who uses trash to study the synchronous rise and fall of societies. 

Matthew 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.