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UnDisciplined: The Climate Scientist And The Cancer Biologist

This week on UnDisciplined, we're talking to researchers on two sides of a huge scientific challenge. Our first guest researches climate — that means she only has one test subject to work with: the Earth. Our second guest studies cancer, which presents differently in humans and other organisms. That means she has endless test subjects. 

What's the bigger challenge? We'll discuss that — and more.

Joining us on the line from Boulder, Colo., where she is a doctoral candidate working on the diversity of El Niño events, is Danielle Lemmon

And joining us from Denver, where she studies molecular pathways that regulate the progression of cancer, is Bonnie Bullock. She is the first author on a recent study of cancer micro-environments. 

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.