Matthew LaPlante

The focus of this best of Access Utah is science.  Tom William's guest for the day is Matthew LaPlante, associate professor of journalism at USU and host of Undisciplined, which airs Friday's at 2pm on UPR.  We hear excerpts from Access Utah interviews with Timothy Winegard, author of "The Mosquito," and Wayne Wurtsbaugh, Professor emeritus of watershed science, where we discuss the Great Salt Lake.

What if aging wasn't inevtiable? What if being 90 felt pretty much the same as being 40, just with a few extra decades of life experience? And what if the science that gets us to that point in human history wasn't the subject of speculative fiction — what if it was real? 

A half century after Lloyd Eaton coached the Wyoming Cowboys football team, he isn’t remembered for his gridiron prowess or ability to win. 

The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms.

For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.

On this special pledge drive edition of Access Utah. My co-host is Access Utah founding host and former UPR Program Director Lee Austin. We’ll feature new conversations with USU Associate Professor of Journalism Matthew LaPlante and BBC host Dan Damon. We’ll be talking about the media landscape in the U.S. and the U.K. We’ll also talk about all the latest twists and turns in the Brexit saga.

In UnDisciplined's first ever monthly science news roundup, we're joined by three researchers, plus a fellow science enthusiast, to take a look at recent science news through a bunch of different perspectives. 

This week on UnDisciplined, we're talking about why we don't do the things we know we should do. Why, for instance, don't we get as much sleep as we're supposed to? And why do we often withhold information from our doctors? 

We're talking about the ways warfare can build bonds in tribal societies, and how air pollution can have devastating effects in our modern world. 

This week on UnDisciplined, we talked to a researcher whose discoveries have changed the way we understand the history of tobacco in North America. Then we chatted with a scientist who is trying to change the way we think about cryptocurrencies. 

This week on UnDisciplined, we're talking about really small things, like cell cultures and their effect on research, and really big things, like our planet's climate and its effect on human movement. 

What do Judi Dench and Samuel L. Jackson have to do with ending crime waves and curing blindness? We'll find out this week when we're joined by guests Elizabeth Vargis and Sherry Towers. 

This week on UnDiscipined, we're talking about extending life — how nature does it and how humans might do it. Grace DiRenzo investigates the way animals evolve to beat deadly natural chemicals. Laura Niedernhofer studies natural chemicals that might help us prevent aging and put off death. Together, we'll talk about Fisetin, frogs, fungus, zombies and immortality. 

Anna Cohen uses pulsed lasers to map ancient cities. David Geller works to identify space junk to prevent catastrophic orbital collisions. Together, we talk about how to best encourage young people to become scientific explorers. 

Yesola Kweon's recent work evaluates the ways in which government salary raises impact corruption. Bruce Bugbee has been researching ways to grow plants in space for more than 30 years. Together, we discuss the importance of "rethinking" in research. 

Matthew LaPlante, host of Undisciplined, the new science show produced at Utah Public Radio, says “the scientific world is supposed to be a place where ideas come together. Instead, it’s often a place full of really brilliant people who don’t talk to each other.” 

Undisciplined is designed to break down those barriers.

Major cuts in news room jobs at both the Ogden Standard-Examiner last week and Salt Lake Tribune on Monday have prompted many conversations about the future of Utah journalism.