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UnDisciplined: The Ecologist And The Microbiologist

This week on UnDisciplined, we're talking about big animals like wolves, bears and lions — and really tiny life forms, like yeast. 

By happenstance, we're joined by two researchers whose recent work comes out of the same university, but who are meeting for the first time on a public radio program recorded hundreds of miles from either one of them. 

Adrian Treves is an expert on the coexistence and conflicts between humans and wildlife, and especially carnivores like wolves, bears and big cats. He is a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he founded the Carnivore Coexistence Lab. 

EmilyClare Baker is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon. Her doctoral research at the University of Wisconsin helped reveal the genes that make lager yeast love cold and sugar. 

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.