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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Erika Kohler, a Research Space Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. With a Ph.D. in Space and Planetary Science and a BS in Meteorology, Dr. Kohler's research focuses on providing laboratory data that can inform and validate scientific models and mission observations. She does this by designing innovative experiments that simulate the extreme environments found on other planets – pushing the boundaries of laboratory research as we know it.
Dr. Kohler has always been interested in weather and planets, and she built her career on studying these things in tandem. Setting her sights on our sister planet, Venus, she shares some intriguing insights on its atmosphere, surface, and more…
Dive in now to find out:
To learn more about Dr. Kohler and her work, click here now!
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Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
In this conversation, we sit down with Will Hall, a mental health professional at the forefront of innovative psychosis treatment. He hosts Madness Radio, is the co-founder of Freedom Center, and is a counselor who works with individuals, couples, families, and groups. As a schizophrenia survivor himself, Will is on a mission to uncover new visions of mind – and redefine what it means to be human.
In his book, Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness, Will presents readers with interviews and essays that reveal the human side of mental illness. By asking, "What does it mean to be called crazy in a crazy world?" he seeks to create a new conversation about empowering the human spirit by transforming society's perspective as a whole…
Dive in now to explore:
From trauma and psychosis to medication, Will's holistic approach to mental health is changing lives across the globe. What sets him apart from other mental health advocates? Click play to find out for yourself!
You can find more information about Will and his work by visiting his website.
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Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
In this episode, we sit down with Joan Cohen to discuss her latest book, The Deepfake: A Novel. Newly released in April 2024, Joan takes us on a journey into the life of Sylvie, an employee at an AI company. In this gripping story, we are confronted with the ethics of AI, corporate scandals, and a woman's self-discovery. This incredibly well-timed and thought-provoking narrative highlights the potentially harmful effects of powerful technology with wisdom – with an added bit of romance, too…
Joan is a Massachusetts-based author with a background in sales & marketing at computer hardware and software companies. Once she retired, she returned to school to pursue an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Since then, she has written two books, including The Deepfake and her 2019 release, The Land of Last Chances: A Novel.
Join us now to explore:
You can find more on Joan by visiting her website!
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
The queen bee has to get it right when she mates, because she only has one intense mating session for the duration of her life. The queen bee's anatomy and basic honey bee biology work together for success and Julian Rangel Posada tells listeners how.
Listen and learn
Juliana Rangel Posada is an associate professor of apiculture in the Department of Entomology and leads the Texas A&M University Honey Bee Research Program. She studies biotic and abiotic factors affecting bee health. The number one problem for honey bees is the varroa mite, and she starts the conversation addressing how her lab showed that the chemicals used to treat the mites actually affects both the mites and bees.
The wax that makes up the honey comb absorbs the chemicals like a sponge, and bees grow and develop within this wax home, absorbing the chemicals. The chemical buildup causes queens to develop lower reproductive capacity and also affects drone sperm and viability. She shares various ways they advise beekeepers to mitigate this affect, including clearing out the wax every few years.
She also describes for listeners a detailed and fascinating description of honey bee matting, one of several honey bee behavioral adaptations evolved to increase genetic diversity and reproductive success. She explains the harsh life of the drone, reared for mating and killed off quickly after they've done their job. She also describes the drone's endophallus and how a queen manages multiple mates and their sperm by taking in this organ.
The next mate removes the endophallus of the previous one and so on, until she has sperm from multiple mates to continue producing eggs for years. In addition to reproductive studies, her lab is researching foraging behavior and nutrition to see if honey bees are using certain pollens with various ratios of lipid-to-proteins that affect their survivability.
For more, see her lab's Facebook page, facebook.com/TAMUhoneybeelab, which includes a "stay-at-home beekeeping series."
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
From smelly footprints and dances to furry coats and long tongues, Professor Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex talks about it all. We often refer to "bees" as though there's only one kind, but in fact, over 20,000 species of bee have been identified.
Goulson shares fascinating data and insights primarily on two: the bumblebee and the honeybee.
Press play to discover:
Goulson's lifelong captivation by insects led to a fascination of bees in his adult life, and for the past 25 years, he's been studying them. Initially, the focus of his research was on the foraging strategies of different species of bee, but it's since shifted to an investigation of why bee populations are declining, and what can be done about it.
As a specialist in the ecology and conservation of bumblebees, Goulson discusses what he believes to be the primary driving force behind the declining numbers: habitat loss, such as hay meadows in the UK and prairie fields in North America. But he's careful to note that other factors are likely at play too, including the heavy use of pesticides, and the fact that bumblebees suffer from a range of parasites and diseases.
What do bumblebees eat, and which nutrients are provided by pollen versus nectar? How can seemingly strange bumblebee behaviors actually make a whole lot of evolutionary sense? How can you differentiate between a male and female bee? What exactly happens when a bee pollinates a flower? What types of technology are used for tracking and gathering data on bees? You'll get a compelling and thorough answer to all of these questions and more.
Tune in and check out https://www.thebuzzclub.uk/.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
One in every three bites you take are made possible by honey bee pollination. Keeping bees healthy and productive is essential.
Honey bee reproduction depends on a queen's ability to have one mating session, store sperm for years, and lay about 1,000 eggs a day during the warmer months: an amazing honey bee characteristic among many. Brandon Hopkins shares fascinating honey bee behavioral adaptations in this discussion.
Listen and learn
Brandon Hopkins is an assistant research professor and the apiary and laboratory manager with the Washington State University Apiary Program. Studying reproductive biology across different animals led him to a honey bee obsession. "They're fascinating creatures and present lots of room for improvement in assisted reproductive techniques in honey bee breeding," he says.
He gives listeners a primer on honey bee social behavior and reproduction, describing the sperm, the queen's spermatheca organ, which stores the sperm in a quiescence state over years, and the complex ability of the queen to continue laying eggs by releasing the sperm through a tube.
He also gives us a glimpse into how this works over our geography.
While he's worked on methods of cryopreservation of honey bee semen, he's now mainly focusing on practical aspects of beekeeping management. Over two million honey bee colonies have to be moved to California in January for February almond pollination, so the storage and transport of bees is a vital topic for research.
Many beekeepers store their bees that will go to California in large warehouse-like buildings for the winter. He explains why this is an advantage, from saving their energy production to keeping mites and bee interaction at a lower state, and for a better quality of life for the keepers themselves. Listen in to understand more about the ways researchers like Brandon Hopkins are keeping bees healthy.
For more about his work, see entomology.wsu.edu/directory/faculty/brandon-hopkins.
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Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
Bee keeping is an ancient practice: even prehistoric cave paintings in Spain depict a keeper reaching for a hive to collect honey while holding a smoker to calm the bees. Cameron Jack shares some of the more interesting details of this ancient art with lucky listeners.
Tune in and hear
Cameron Jack holds the unusual position of one-hundred percent lecturer at the University of Florida. He's still involved in research and extension work, but his full lecturer designation means his beekeeping course list at the University of Florida is probably the most extensive college-level beekeeping instruction out there.
He teaches seven different beekeeping courses, covering everything from evolution, biology, the annual cycle involved in beekeeping, and more. The courses are complete enough to turn out people who can actively be beekeepers. In this interview, he describes everything from why 3/8 inches is a magic number to how bees find and maintain hives in the wild.
Honey bee behavioral adaptations of course take center stage. For hive building, beekeepers who want to maximize honey production must learn such behaviors to know why they might, for example, sequester the queen in the lower level. Bees build their combs vertically and are considered a superorganism—"the whole animal is the whole colony," he adds. They are able to determine their hive sizing in multiple ways and if it gets too big, they swarm—one colony becomes two.
Furthermore, the queen designation doesn't mean ruler. She's a producer, laying as many eggs as she can in a systematic spiral through her level of the comb. Cameron Jack's primary interest is the management of pests and diseases bees face like types of mites, beetles, and even wax-eating moths. While the interaction of mites and bees is the most concerning, diseases even involve microorganisms in honey bees' guts.
Listen in to hear more about this amazing superorganism.
For more see the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab page.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
It's estimated that 20% of our food is dependent on honey bee pollination. Meanwhile, recent news has highlighted concerns like viral diseases of the honey bee to mites to invading "killer" bees. It's hard to keep straight where honey bee diseases and treatments stand. This conversation does the trick, leaving listeners with a clear and fascinating vision of what's up with the honey bee.
Listen and learn
Jamie Ellis is the Gahan Endowed Professor in the Entomology and Nematology Department at the University of Florida. Fascinated with bees since childhood, he took care of his first honey bee hive at age 12 and hasn't looked back since.
He's not alone: humans have been interacting with honey bees for thousands of years.
While there are 20,000 of bee species worldwide, only 9 of those species are honey bees.
Even more daunting, 8 of those 9 are specific to Asia. That remaining species is the one we're familiar with and it inhabits Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Honey bees are actually not native to North America; rather, Europeans brought them over hundreds of years ago.
Are the populations of this one honey bee species that inhabits such disparate regions the same? Well, while it is the same species, entomologists divide it into about 30 subspecies or races, such as the African bee, which the press has misnamed the "killer bee." North American honey bees have been facing population struggles lately because of a mite, and Ellis describes various pest control and pest management plans, including nature's own adaptation through honey bee evolution.
He also helps listeners with the big picture of the many reasons to raise honey bees. While many are familiar with bee hives used for honey, pollination services are also a tremendous business. Others raise colonies to sell and some keepers specialize in raising queens.
For more information, including resources on your own bee keeping, see the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab page.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
It's hard to imagine a world without honey, much less all the fruits they pollinate. That's one reason Zachary Huang's research into honey bee stressors is so important.
Listen in as he teaches listeners about
Zachary Huang is an associate professor in the Department of Entomology at Michigan State University. He's also an avid photographer of all-things-honey bee, including the plants they pollinate. Honey bees face many stressors and are on the decline. Researchers across the country are trying to figure out why. Dr. Huang tells listeners about the Varroa destructor mite, which hitchhiked from Brazil or Asia on bees into North America. These purplish-red mites are about the size of a pinhead and feed on the fat body of the bee. They are an obligate parasite, meaning they are dependent on the bee for their life cycle. However, their bite transmits several viruses, which weaken and affect the bee anatomy and eventually lead to the death of the bee and increased hive vulnerability.
These types of mites are actually responsible for the death of 35% of honey bees a year. Honey bee social behavior increases mite transmission likelihood.
They can be transmitted from drifting, if a bee goes to the wrong nest and brings a mite back, or if a new colony takes over another colony's site.
Researchers have tried several methods to combat these mites, from chemical methods to Dr. Huang's own method of "zapping" the drones and mites, killing them with heat so that infected drones and mites die and the colony is free to recover. Other research explores utilizing honey bee behavioral adaptations like grooming behaviors and hygiene, working on breeding bees with increased habits that will decrease the mite population in their hives.
For more about his work and to see some of his photography, see bees.msu.edu.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
In this episode, we connect with Aleena Kanner, a Postural Restoration Therapist and Certified Athletic Trainer with a passion for helping others with chronic pain. With a background in athletic training, she works with the neurology and psychology of the body to help restore sensation, realign position, and repattern the nervous system.
How can better posture transform your well-being and pave the way for holistic restoration? By putting the root causes of underlying health conditions at the heart of her practice, Aleena guides her clients down an empowering path of healing – and you may be surprised at the results…
During the episode, we delve into:
Want to learn more about Aleena and her distinct approach to physical and mental health? Click here now!
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
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