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UnDisciplined: Science News Roundup - May 2019

This week on UnDisciplined, we're talking about artificial intelligence, great white sharks, illegal pollution, snail genes, and new rules for leaders at the National Institutes of Health. That's right, it's the May Science News Roundup. 

This month, we're joined by Sheena McFarland, the director of marketing and communication for the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. What is a business school executive doing on a science news show? Well, Sheena is also one of the most ardent science enthusiats we know, with a degree in biology teaching and an insatiable interest in astronomy. 

With us for the second time on the roundup, and the third time as a guest on the program, is Joseph Wilson, an evolutionary ecologist from Utah State University. He's the author of "The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North American Bees." He first joined us on the show to talk about his research in December 2018

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 donned on him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be brutally depressing all the time. Today, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects by writing books about the intersection of science, human health and society, including the New York Times best-selling Lifespan with geneticist David Sinclair and the Nautilus Award-winning Longevity Plan with cardiologist John Day. His first solo book, Superlative, looks at what scientists are learning by studying organisms that have evolved in record-setting ways, and his is currently at work on another book about embracing the inevitability of human-caused climate change with an optimistic outlook on the future.