Wild Connection

This week’s episode is all about sweat, smelling it, hiding it, and people whose job it is to decide what the nature of yours is like. Never let them see you sweat right? Not this week. And before I forget, this is the second in our special WIS series sponsored by the American Geophysical Union’s Sharing Science grant.  

Sarah Everts is the author of The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration and she is also a science journalism professor and chair of digital science journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa.

To keep up with Sarah you can follow her @saraheverts on Twitter and check out her website http://saraheverts.com

To follow us on social media visit @wildconnectpod  and @realDrJen for Twitter & @RealDrJen for Instagram and www.jenniferverdolin.com for more. Love the show or simply enjoyed this episode? Give us a like and share so others can find us too. 

 It is post holiday and before New Years and this episode starts the launch of a special Women in Science Series. I want to acknowledge the sponsor of this series, the American Geophysical Union. Wild Connection was the recipient of their Sharing Science grant and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

The James Webb  infrared  telescope successfully launched this week. You might be wondering why this is a big deal. It’s a big deal because this powerful, well the most powerful, telescope ever built will let astronomers and astrophysicists like my guest, Dr. Katie Mack looks deep into the history of galaxies far far away.because of light years and all that, what we see is the past when we look in the present. This telescope will give scientists and us the chance to see far far back into time and cosmic history. It is expected to peer so far back that it will catch a glimpse of galaxies that were formed over 13 billion years ago. It’s going to take a while to start receiving images but when I recorded this podcast Dr. Katie Mack was simply hoping the launch would be a success. 

Dr. Katie Mack is an astrophysicist at North Carolina State University and she is also the Author of The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking).

To keep up with Katie you can follow her @AstroKatie on Twitter and check out her website https://www.astrokatie.com

To follow us on social media visit @wildconnectpod  and @realDrJen for Twitter & @RealDrJen for Instagram and www.jenniferverdolin.com for more. Love the show or simply enjoyed this episode? Give us a like and share so others can find us too. 

 

This episode is a fun one for me because, well, I have ummm navigational difficulties. I should be more precise. I can navigate perfectly well in exactly the opposite direction I should be going. That means if I was a snow goose that was supposed to end up on Pea Island from Alaska I would end up somewhere near the Philippines instead. I have what I call directional dyslexia and I found out that I am not the only one. Dr. Andres Vidal-Gadea is an Associate Professor of Molecular Neuroethology at Illinois State University studying the molecular and cellular basis of behavior. His research is making waves, electromagnetic waves that is.

To keep up with Dr. Andres Vidal-Gadea you can visit his lab and follow his lab on Facebook

To follow us on social media visit @wildconnectpod  and @realDrJen for Twitter & @RealDrJen for Instagram and www.jenniferverdolin.com for more. Love the show or simply enjoyed this episode? Give us a like and share so others can find us too. 

 

My guest this week is composer, instrumentalist, producer, arranger, editor, and author Ruth Mendelson. She has written award-winning scores for film and television. She teaches at the Berklee College of music and she has written a fantastical, multi-dimensional, treasure hunt fairy tale for children of all ages called The Water Tree Way that will positively alter your trajectory through the world, pointing you towards joy, success and love.

We talk about her book, relationships, and how to find joy. To follow Ruth and get your copy of The Water Tree Way you can visit her website. 

You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram

To follow us on social media visit @wildconnectpod  and @realDrJen for Twitter & @RealDrJen for Instagram and www.jenniferverdolin.com for more. Love the show or simply enjoyed this episode? Give us a like and share so others can find us too. 

Wild Connection is devoted to helping you live a better life by reconnecting with nature through conversations with scientists, filmmakers, authors, and conservationists around the world. We talk about all things wildlife, nature, science, and conservation. 

This week we are continuing the conversation around some of the issues that came up and din't come up at COP26. My guest is Dr. Katherine Kennet, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and is who is also the social prescribing lead at the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Her and I talk about the psychological traumas associated with climate disasters and what we can expect in the future. We also chatted about what the UK is doing to pay attention to mental well-being, including social prescribing. To learn more about the position the Royal College of Psychiatrists is taking with respect to responding to climate change you can read more about that here. 

If you'd like to learn more about social prescribing, you can read more about it here. 

You can also keep up with Dr Kennet on Twitter @katherinekennet

To follow us on social media visit @wildconnectpod  and @realDrJen for Twitter & @RealDrJen for Instagram and www.jenniferverdolin.com for more. Love the show or simply enjoyed this episode? Give us a like and share so others can find us too. 

Wild Connection is devoted to helping you live a better life by reconnecting with nature through conversations with scientists, filmmakers, authors, and conservationists around the world. We talk about all things wildlife, nature, science, and conservation. 

 

Back from Glasgow after attending COP26. It was intense which is why I am devoting 2 weeks to talk about some of the things that came out of it. I also made a few key observations while there and one of them was that Glasgow needs to clean up it's act. Literally. Pick up your trash. 

My guest, filmmaker, community organizer and author John de Graaf and I talk about a few more things people can and should do. He’s been a passionate advocate for the environment, written books and made films like Affluenza that highlight how its our insatiable consumption that is destroying the planet and ourselves. 

We also talk about his latest film, a biopic on the late Stewart Udall. If you haven’t heard of Udall, he was many things, including a politician with guts who stood up for Indigenous communities, racial and social justice, and the environment. He paid for that commitment by never getting elected to office in his home state of Arizona ever again. The truth is we need more politicians with the guts to stand up for the issues he stood for and we need people smart enough to vote them into office. 

If you'd like to keep up to date with John you can follow him @JohndeGraaf on Twitter and check out his website for more on his books, films, and organizations:

https://www.johndegraaf.com

To support the film visit http://stewartudallfilm.org

To follow us on social media visit @wildconnectpod  and @realDrJen for Twitter & @RealDrJen for Instagram and www.jenniferverdolin.com for more. Love the show or simply enjoyed this episode? Give us a like and share so others can find us too. 

Wild Connection is devoted to helping you live a better life by reconnecting with nature through conversations with scientists, filmmakers, authors, and conservationists around the world. We talk about all things wildlife, nature, science, and conservation. 

This week’s episode is all about horses. If we had to give a relationship status on horses, it might likely be “It’s complicated”.

Using advanced genetic techniques and analyses, Scientists found a signature genetic event 4000 years ago that revealed  that the ancestors of all modern horses were domesticated in what is now southern Russia. Scientists had been on this trail for a while and in 2016 a project known as Pegasus was launched to get to the bottom of it. What they have now pieced together is that humans started artificially breeding this horse and it was genetically unique from all other horses 4000 years ago. It only took 3000 years for this horse, our modern horses, to replace all other lineages across Europe and Asia. Generations later they were reintroduced to the Americas by the Spaniards, bringing horses back to their ancestral homelands. These descendants are what we today call mustangs.

Although bestselling author Claire Eckard wasn’t writing about mustangs in her new book Gallant: The Call of the Trail: Two horses, two people, one journey, it is the first a trilogy so you never know. This first one already went to #1 on the Amazon bestsellers list and that’s not too surprising because it’s a wonderful story. I caught up with Claire to talk about this beautiful book that explores the sometimes special relationship we humans have with our horses.  

You can get a copy here

 

And if you want to support an organization doing something to help wild mustangs check out the Mustangs of America Foundation

http://www.mustangsofamericafoundation.org

 

If you are digging the show subscribe and share it so others can enjoy it too. You can follow the show on Itunes, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Also follow the show on Twitter: @WildConnectPod

You can also follow me on 

Twitter: @realdrjen

Instagram: @readrjen

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RealDrJen

There is also a YouTube Channel where you can find a range of videos, some of them tied to podcast episodes. More are on the way so subscribe to Wild Connection TV

 

Happy Halloween. After speaking with cultural and conservation ornithologist, J Drew Lanham about the how certain birds are abused and targeted because of the way they look, in our conversation starlings and cormorants specifically, it occurred to me that halloween was the perfect opportunity to talk about this more and give some animals a re-brand. And since Friday the 29th was World Lemur Day, I have two, yes two special guest this week to help us better appreciate one special lemur. The lemur that needs a makeover is the aye-aye.

nomis-simon, CC BY 2.0

My first guest is Dr. Tim Sefczek and he is a conservation geneticist currently a postdoc at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. He got us started in learning about lemurs and what makes the aye-aye so darn special. The I catch up wit Dr. Ed Louis to find out more about lemurs, aye-ayes and the conservation work he is spearheading. He is the Director of Conservation Genetics at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium (OHDZA) and the general director and founder of the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership (MBP). 

To find out more you can visit:

https://www.omahazoo.com

https://madagascarpartnership.org

Follow MBP and OHDZA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madagascarpartnership/

Twitter: @MBPartnership

Instagram: @madagascarpartnership

The theme here is that there are things to admire in other species and just because they look different doesn’t mean they possess dark qualities. That goes for people too, my friends. And let’s face it to other species I am sure that we look awfully weird, walking up right, weak, slow runners, unable to do much except talk a lot and break things like the planet. And yet they find a way to accept us. Something we could learn a bit more about.

If you are enjoying the show subscribe and share it so others can enjoy it too. You can follow the show on Itunes, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow the show on Twitter: @WildConnectPod and you can follow me on 

Twitter and Instagram: @realdrjen

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RealDrJen

There is also a YouTube Channel where you can find a range of videos, some of them tied to podcast episodes. More are on the way so subscribe to Wild Connection TV

 

This week I’m thrilled to introduce you to a spectacular scientist, author, poet, and well...human. J Drew Lanham is a professor of cultural and conservation ornithology at Clemsen University, he’s a poet laureate of his home county Edgefield, and the author of two books The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature and Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts

Check out this link to order his books and to read some of his poetry. 
To keep up with Drew on Twitter follow him @wildandincolor

Drew grew up in rural South Carolina where his parents, biology teachers, and his grandmother brimming with ecological knowledge nurtured his passion and curiosity about wildlife and nature. Although he has an unbridled passion for birds, his love of wildlife extends beyond birds. In this episode we talk about everything from how living a mediocre life doesn't serve us (or the world) to the challenges and risk he's faced as a black man out in nature. He uses his work and writings to invite people into the thicket, to see the world and other animals from a different perspective, and in doing so, expand ones empathy for those that are seemingly different.

We wind our way through to how honoring places and landscapes should include all the people, all the history. He expresses so eloquently how without recognition there cannot be reconciliation and without reconciliation there cannot be a rebirth into a new dawn.

Our conversation turns toward how our aggression towards certain species is rooted in cultural narratives, including racism. We revile some species and revere others simply for the way they look. This reveals something about who we are, where we are, and how far from where we need to go to create meaningful change on this planet. Change in how we treat each other and change in how we treat other animals. 

Tune in next week as I pick up this thread and welcome you to revise your perception of some of the most "frightening" "freakish", "ghoulish" animals out there and unpack the history behind how they got their bad reputations. 

If you are enjoying the show subscribe and share it so others can enjoy it too. You can follow the show on Itunes, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow the show on Twitter: @WildConnectPod and you can follow me on 

Twitter and Instagram: @realdrjen

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RealDrJen

There is also a YouTube Channel where you can find a range of videos, some of them tied to podcast episodes. More are on the way so subscribe to Wild Connection TV

 

The Queen of England on a hot mic uttered the words many of us who care about this planet, the lives of others, including other species, feel: It’s really irritating when they talk and don’t do. I would suggest it is more than irritating. ThenPrince William admonished the uber billionaires selling tickets to the edge of space for throwing their money up in the air instead of putting it to use on the ground. Prince William is putting his money where his mouth is. With the Earthshot prize 5 winners announced later today Sunday Oct 17th he is focused on solutions. And he is calling on everyone to raise their ambition. 

Rono Chonginio is doing just that. As a journalist, storyteller, and founder of Youthbase  he is telling the stories of people from his community and young people working to create solutions. 

You can follow Rono and the stories he is telling on

Twitter: @ronochonginio 

Instagram: @ronochonginio

YouTube

You too have a story and you write that story every day with every action you take. There is always a narrative, the question is who is authoring yours? We interfere with the lives of other species, changing their story from one of potential to one of tragedy and we do this every single day. Many of us have experienced this ourselves. And that is why stories connect us. Be part of the story of what happens. If you are already a change-maker I would love to hear from you. If you are part of the do nothing brigade letting everyone else dictate your story and the story of our future, well maybe you can be inspired to take more positive action.

 Follow the show on Twitter: @WildConnectPod and you can follow me on 

Twitter and Instagram: @realdrjen

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RealDrJen

There is also a YouTube Channel where you can find a range of videos, some of them tied to podcast episodes. More are on the way so subscribe to Wild Connection TV