In this episode, Yackety Sciences takes up even more of the essential questions of our time. How much of RFK, Jr.’s brain have the worms actually consumed? Is magnesium male or female? Can SIT save us from an invasion of man-eaters? When will fusion power bake our potatoes? And is Belle selling a lie as old as time? Join us for the answers (?) to all of these questions and more.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Episode Art: Modified from screwworm photo by John Kucharski (PD).

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links:

RFK, Jr. and the COVID Vaccines

• Global Estimates of Lives and Life-Years Saved by COVID-19 Vaccination During 2020-2024 by Ioannidis et al. JAMA Health Forum ( 2025)

• Estimated number of lives directly saved by COVID-19 vaccination programmes in the WHO European Region from December, 2020, to March, 2023: a retrospective surveillance study. by Mesle et al. The Lancet (2024)

• Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modelling study by Watson, Oliver J et al. The Lancet Infectious Diseases (2022)

• COVID 19 Vaccine Effectiveness. Our World in Data
  

Screwworms

• The U.S. confirms its first human case of New World screwworm. What is it? By Rachel Treisman. NPR.org (August 25, 2025)

• New World Screwworm: Rise, Fall, and Resurgence by Alicia Hibbard. ASM.org (Sept. 5, 2025).

Fusion Advances

• Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore achieve fusion ignition with groundbreaking approach: Achievement expands what’s possible in stockpile stewardship experiments. LANL.gov (July 31, 2025)

In this episode, the yackers are afflicted by chemical chaos, dirty dragonflies, and bloody- beaked birds. Lithium makes a move on fluorine, and sodium explodes all over Matt’s chemical minute, leaving behind the tastiest of residues. And Prof. Doug Mock reveals the secrets of family strife and why you should never turn your back on brother dearest. Join us as we step into the Avian Thunderdome!

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Episode Art: Image modified from great egret (Ardea alba) photo by Mike Baird. CC BY 2.O

Written and edited by Brian Cross and Matt Smith. Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Guest: Douglas Mock, Ph.D.

• 
  

  Profile: Douglas W. Mock, George Lynn Cross Research Professor of Biology

• More than Kin and Less the Kind

Links:

Lithium and Alzheimer’s Disease

• Aron, L., Ngian, Z.K., Qiu, C. et al. Lithium deficiency and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Nature (2025).

New Moon

• New Moon Discovered Orbiting Uranus Using NASA’s Webb Telescope

Dirty Dragonflies

• 
  

  The blueprint for survival: the blue dasher dragonfly as a model for urban adaptation (BMC Ecol Evo 25, 67 (2025))

In this episode of Yackety Science, co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross answer all of the important questions. Why do froggies play possum? Why do monkeys scrump? Why are the Avengers prospecting in South Carolina? Why is NASA turning to the occult? And most important of all, does Princess Ariel sit on a throne of lies?

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Image Credit: Common toad Bufo bufo mating ball (multiple amplexus) by Dariusz Kowalczyk. (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links:

Drunken Monkeys

• Our ape ancestors’ taste for fermenting fruit may have paved a boozy evolutionary path (Science; July 31, 2025)

• Hominids adapted to metabolize ethanol long before human-directed fermentation (PNAS; December 1, 2014)

Radioactive Wasps

• Radioactive wasp nest found at SC site where US once made nuclear bombs (South Carolina Public Radio; July 20, 2025)

Thanatosis and Explosive Mating

• Thanatosis in the Gold-striped Frog Lithodytes lineatus (Anura: Leptodactylidae) in the tropical dry forest of northeastern Colombia. (Giovany Díaz; Cuad. herpetol. 39 (1): 37-40; 2025)

• Droop dead! Female mate avoidance in an explosively breeding frog by Carolin Dittrich and Mark-Oliver Rodel (Royal Society Open Science; October 11, 2023)

Occultation of Uranus

• Planteray Alignment Provides NASA Rare Opportunity to Study Uranus by Charles Hatfield (NASA; April 22, 2025)

Disappearing Science (mRNA vaccines)

• Press Release from the Department of Health and Human Services

• Public health experts dismayed by RFK Jr.'s defunding of mRNA vaccine research (NPR; Aug. 6, 2025)

In this episode, the Yackers mete out harsh justice for the “savage beast” fluorine, while floating a partial pardon for marriage enthusiast Henry VIII. In Western Australia, they wander the Pilbara Craton looking for signs of a deep impact. And closer to home, they wade into the dubious waters of Spunky Creek with Candice Miller of Blue Thumb.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Guest Host: Candice Miller

Candice Miller has been a Blue Thumb Educator for the state of Oklahoma since 2013. Miller coordinates water monitoring with volunteers, conducts biological collections in streams, and educates students and the general public around the state. In addition, Miller was Project Wet Coordinator from 2016-2024. A national program, Miller was Oklahoma state representative where she held formal and informal water education in addition to coordinating the annual H2Oklahoma Water Festival. She has a BS in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology from University of North Dakota, an MS in Biological Sciences from Eastern Illinois University, and additional graduate work from Oklahoma State University.

Links:

The Oldest Crater Ever Discovered

A Paleoarchaean impact crater in the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia by Kirkland et al. (Nature Communications; March 2025)

Biased Sex Ratios

Is sex at birth a biological coin toss? Insights from a longitudinal and GWAS analysis

(Science Advances; July 18, 2025)

Blue Thumb Oklahoma

Water Quality Data and Volunteer Opportunities

Disappearing Science

EPA Cuts

• About the Office of Research and Development (ORD)

• Trump administration shuts down EPA's scientific research arm by Rob Stein (NPR; July 20,2025)

• Dismantling EPA’s research office jeopardizes environmental safety, public health, and US competitiveness (PNAS; June 11, 2025)

NWS Cuts

• NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory

• Trump Administration Wants to Close Down Key Weather Labs Nationwide by Emily Kennard (Oklahoma Watch, July 8, 2025)

Chad Johnson joins Matt Smith and Brian Cross to go tripping through the doors of perception. The team takes on the therapeutic use of psychedelics and the sometimes tricky line between psychedelic scientist and spiritual guru. Matt gets in touch with his alchemical roots as he dephlogisticates the element oxygen. In the headlines, Moas rear their lofty heads, the Parker Solar Probe catches the solar wind, and scientists attempt to fix the “Matthew Effect.”

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Guest Host: Chad Johnson, Ph.D.

Dr. Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at the University of Oklahoma and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the OU College of Medicine. He earned his PhD in psychology from Penn State and completed his psychology internship at Vanderbilt University. He is a licensed psychologist with over 20 years of experience in psychotherapy, consultation, training, supervision, research, and teaching. His work centers on themes of personal and spiritual growth, psychedelics, grief, trauma, and advocacy.

Links:

Psychedelics

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

The emergence of psychedelics as medicine (APA; June 1, 2024)

Moas:

Effort to revive New Zealand’s extinct moa stirs controversy (Science; July 11, 2025)

TRNS and Boosting Math Skill

Functional connectivity and GABAergic signaling modulate the enhancement effect of neurostimulation on mathematical learning

(PLOS; July 1, 2025)

Parker Solar Probe and Solar Wind

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun (Jul 10, 2025)

In this episode, co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross take on the tiniest assassins and the wanderlust of the North Pole. They say lego my LIGO in another installment of Disappearing Science, and they use their full brains to decry the unscientific silliness of Lucy in Yackety Science Ruins the Movies. And finally, geologist Claude Bolze stops by to talk trilobites, rock hunting, and the only natural way to cross the Arkansas River.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links:

True Polar Wander:

True Polar Wander Driven by Artificial Water Impoundment: 1835–2011 by Valencic et al. (Geophysical Letters, May 23, 2025)

Bacterial Assassins:

Antagonism as a foraging strategy in microbial communities by Stubbusch et al.

(Science, June 12, 2025)

Disappearing Science–LIGO:

LIGO Information from Caltech

‘Killing a newborn baby’: Cuts to LIGO would devastate gravitational wave astronomy

Geological Opportunities:

Tulsa Rock and Mineral Show: July 12 and 13

Co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross mix up a powerful cocktail of mamba venom and xenon gas in the headlines. Matt’s Chemical Minute reaches a premature climax with the ultimate element: carbon. And Brian visits the Sutton Avian Research Center to learn more about bobwhites, prairie chickens, and the history of shotgun ornithology.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links:

Sutton Avian Research Center:

Sutton Avian Research Center

Wild Brew Fundraiser

Xenon Gas and Mountaineering:

They Inhaled a Gas and Scaled Everest in Days. Is It the Future of Mountaineering? (NYT; May 27, 2025)

Snake Venom

He injected himself with venom for decades. Can his antibodies help snakebite victims? (Science, May 2, 2025)

Disappearing Science:

NIH Grants Terminated: https://grant-watch.us/nih-data.html

NSF Grants Terminated: https://grant-watch.us/nsf-data.html

The Low Road to Cathode

In this episode, co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross dig into penguin poop, gene editing, and the insidious nature of hydrogen. Cosmic ray spallation makes its last appearance in Matt’s Chemical Minute, and in the first of two episodes featuring the Sutton Avian Research Center, Executive Director Chad Ellis stops by to talk bird conservation in the state of Oklahoma.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links:

Sutton Avian Research Center:

Sutton Avian Research Center

Wild Brew Fundraiser

Gene Therapy for Babies:

Gene-editing therapy made in just 6 months helps baby with life-threatening disease: Custom CRISPR paves the way for treating genetic disorders in tailormade ways (Science, May 15, 2025)

Patient-Specific In Vivo Gene Editing to Treat a Rare Genetic Disease by Musunure et al. NEJM, May 15, 2025)

Penguin Poop in Antarctica:

Boyer, M., Quéléver, L., Brasseur, Z. et al. Penguin guano is an important source of climate-relevant aerosol particles in Antarctica. Commun Earth Environ 6, 368 (2025).

Insidious Hydrogen and the Death of Batteries:

Scientists may have an explanation for why some batteries don’t last (Science News, Sept. 27, 2024)

Disappearing Science:

NIH Grants Terminated: https://grant-watch.us/nih-data.html

NSF Grants Terminated: https://grant-watch.us/nsf-data.html