In this can't-miss episode, expert Jimmy Waldron of Dinosaurs Will Always Be Awesome and guests William Gousios and Ashley Hamer answer pressing questions like: "What did dinosaurs sound like?" "Did T-Rex have luscious lizard lips?" and "What is a dinosaur anyway?" Download the paper here: https://inplainenglishpod.org/2023/06/06/season-2-episode-9-what-did-dinosaurs-sound-like/ If you liked this episode, you can follow Jimmy Waldron on Twitter @JimmyWaldron. You can also find Ashley Hamer on Twitter @SmashleyHamer, and listen to her podcast Taboo Science! In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Intro/Outtro music credit: Sam Brunwasser (https://soundcloud.com/visualsnowbeats)

Interest in psychedelic therapy as a treatment for depression has been growing exponentially. But how do psychedelics leave a lasting impact on the brain, and why might this be useful for treating depression, anxiety, and similar conditions? Join expert Alex Kwan and guests Raven and Asmodeus to learn about the fascinating, long-lasting effects that psychedelic drugs have on the brain. If you liked this episode, you can follow Alex Kwan on Twitter @kwanalexc. Also, be sure to check out Rayven and Asmodeus's podcast Smoking Out the Closet! In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Intro/Outtro music credit: Sam Brunwasser (https://soundcloud.com/visualsnowbeats) Image Credit: AlmudenaFM, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Can a virus increase your risk for developing multiple sclerosis? Join expert Dr. Neuro and guests The Pop Historian and Andrew Jensen to learn about the surprising link between multiple sclerosis and Epstein-Barr Virus, one of the viruses that cause mono. If you liked this episode, you can follow Dr. Neuro on Twitter @neurofourier or on Twitch at twitch.tv/dr_neuro. Also, be sure to check out The Pop Historian on YouTube. I will be doing a follow-up live stream with Dr. Neuro on Saturday April 8th at 7 pm Central/8 pm Eastern on the In Plain English YouTube channel! Dr. Neuro will be answering your questions about this episode live, so be sure to tune in and ask your questions in the chat! In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Intro/Outtro music credit: Sam Brunwasser (https://soundcloud.com/visualsnowbeats) Image Credit: Ilena George and Daniel Reich, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health

In this bonus episode on Open Science, I sit down with Dr. Bryan Copits, an early career researcher at Washington University in St. Louis. We talk about the barriers to publishing open access papers as early career scientists, the research-stifling effect exerted by the most "prestigious" journals, and what efforts are currently underway to promote Open Science. This episode is a follow-up to last week's episode, An Open Science Round Table. If you haven't listened to that discussion yet, go check it out! You can also find the unabridged version of that conversation on YouTube. In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Open Science Logo Credit: D. Schindler, G.emmerich. Modified using Canva.

Currently, scientists need to pay to publish research and readers need to pay to access most research articles. This outdated approach to sharing science slows advancement by locking research behind paywalls, and prevents the public from being able to read the research that their tax dollars funded.  In this round table, Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan, eLife Editor-in-Chief Michael Eisen, and WashU neuroscientist Bryan Copits discuss the current state of open access science, efforts to make science more accessible, and what the future of scientific publishing could look like. This conversation is an abridged version of the YouTube live stream that took place on Monday, February 27th. You can find the full live stream here. Additionally, I recorded a one-on-one follow-up conversation on this subject with Bryan Copits; I will upload that conversation next week. In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Image credit: NASA

What do the blood in your blood vessels, the waves on a beach, and bubbles from a bubble bath have in common? They're all fluids, interacting with other fluids in complex ways that can be modeled by computers! Join expert Alex Barrett and guests Cole Barker and Christina Niavi to learn more about the important role surface tension plays in interactions between fluids, and the many important applications of modeling these complicated processes. In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Photo Credit: Bavand Keshavarz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In this bonus episode of In Plain English, I talk with defense lawyer Alec Karakatsanis about the paper "The Injustice of Underpolicing in America," by Christopher Lewis and Adaner Usmani. We cover the undisclosed assumptions, missing statistics, and cynical worldview behind this piece of propaganda masked as a scientific paper. You can find the paper, Alec's response, and the authors' rebuttal on our website here. If you liked this episode, you can reach out to Alec on Twitter @EqualityAlec, or submit questions or comments via the Continue the Conversation tab on our website! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! In Plain English also has a Discord server! Join here to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Photo Credit: Grayscale photo of police riot team on pedestrian lane. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

On this special episode of In Plain English, Brendan Ziebarth, Nick Wolslegel, and I talk about the political side of space travel: billionaire joy rides, corporate asteroid mining, climate impact, and more. This episode was inspired by our conversation on Season 1, Episode 4: Where did Earth's Water Come From? You can listen to that episode here. You can find the sources we referenced in our conversation and view the episode transcript on our website here. If you liked this episode, you can submit questions or comments via the Continue the Conversation tab on our website! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Photo by Edvin Richardson from Pexels.

Join expert SB Pye and guests Tania Lintz and Hannah Trettenero for a deep dive on virus outbreaks, and why some new viruses spread like wildfire while others peter out. You can download this paper on our website here. If you liked this episode and want to learn more about viruses, you can send questions to SB at e.pye@wustl.edu, or submit them via the Continue the Conversation tab on our website! You can also check out virologists Dr. Angela Rasmussen, Dr. Benhur Lee, and Trevor Bedford on Twitter. For more virology podcasts, check out This Week in Virology and This Podcast Will Kill You. Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Photo Credit: Corona Virus Spreading Across City Concept. 3D Rendering Aerial View Miniature City Buildings" by maggie_talal is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Join expert Christina Niavi and guests Alex Barrett and David Latchman to learn what happens to our immune cells during chronic infections and cancer, and how we can harness our understanding of the immune system to develop better treatments for these diseases.  You can download this paper on our website here. If you liked this episode, be sure to follow Christina Niavi on Twitter @ChristinaNiavi and David Latchman @SciWriterDave. In Plain English will be hosting a Twitter Space with Christina Niavi on November 5th to continue discussing this paper and answer any questions you have about the episode! Tweet your questions @PlainEnglishSci and tune in to listen to the answers! You can also ask questions on our website under the Continue the Conversation tab. Additionally, Christina, Alex, David, and I recorded a bonus conversation on COVID, science communication, and combating misinformation! That conversation will be available to Patreon subscribers--go check it out! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Photo Credit: "HIV-infected H9 T cell" by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Join expert Alex Albury and guests SB Pye and Sasha Dmytrenko to find out what kinds of music make us want to tap our feet, and why! You can download this paper for free on our website. If you liked this episode, be sure to follow Alex Albury on Twitter @albury_alex and check out his recent article in the conversation on why you know more about music than you think: https://theconversation.com/youre-not-tone-deaf-and-you-know-more-about-music-than-you-think-174453?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Photo by Vishnu R Nair

Join expert Vera Thornton and guests Doris Meinerding and Hannah Waterhouse for Part 2 of a thought-provoking look "behind the scenes" of scientific research, to answer the question "Why are research findings sometimes wrong?" Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Disclaimers: Though this episode talks about medical tests, none of the guests are doctors, nor are they your doctor. If you have a question about your own health or medical care, please ask your doctor. This article and the ensuing discussion should not be misconstrued to support any form of science denialism. As we discuss in the episode, science is a process, not a set of definite facts. Sometimes in this process, new evidence emerges that casts doubt on previous findings. We believe that it is important for scientists to be transparent about this part of the process. The author of this article, Dr. John Ioannadis, has recently become (in)famous for using his platform as a prominent researcher to downplay the COVID-19 pandemic (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-john-ioannidis/). His actions are unfortunately a perfect example of one possible pitfall of studies like this that call out issues with research rigor and reproducibility: misconstruing them to mean that no science should be trusted. My goal in making this podcast is to make science better and more accessible to the public, and to give you all the tools to be more educated consumers of scientific news and literature. The big takeaway is this: apply rigorous skepticism to both science that fits your world view and science that challenges it, and be open to changing your mind if the evidence leads you in a different direction from what you originally thought. Photo Credit: Chokniti Khongchum

Join expert Vera Thornton and guests Doris Meinerding and Hannah Waterhouse for Part 1 of a thought-provoking look "behind the scenes" of scientific research, to answer the question "Why are research findings sometimes wrong?" Part 2 will air on the first Tuesday of September. Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Disclaimers: Though this episode talks about medical tests, none of the guests are doctors, nor are they your doctor. If you have a question about your own health or medical care, please ask your doctor. This article and the ensuing discussion should not be misconstrued to support any form of science denialism. As we discuss in the episode, science is a process, not a set of definite facts. Sometimes in this process, new evidence emerges that casts doubt on previous findings. We believe that it is important for scientists to be transparent about this part of the process.. The author of this article, Dr. John Ioannadis, has recently become (in)famous for using his platform as a prominent researcher to downplay the COVID-19 pandemic (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-john-ioannidis/). His actions are unfortunately a perfect example of one possible pitfall of studies like this that call out issues with research rigor and reproducibility: misconstruing them to mean that no science should be trusted. My goal in making this podcast is to make science better and more accessible to the public, and to give you all the tools to be more educated consumers of scientific news and literature. The big takeaway is this: apply rigorous skepticism to both science that fits your world view and science that challenges it, and be open to changing your mind if the evidence leads you in a different direction from what you originally thought. Photo Credit: Chokniti Khongchum

Join expert Hilary Agro and guests Vera Thornton and Brigid Lydon as they discuss the far-reaching impacts of the drug war and the importance of harm reduction. You can download the paper on our website. Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Harm Reduction Resources National Harm Reduction Coalition: https://harmreduction.org/resource-center/ Find syringes and naloxone (Narcan) near you Learn about harm reduction issues Get training online https://www.narcan.com Download instructions for using Narcan Find Narcan near you Learn about your state's Narcan access laws MO HOPE Project (for Missouri residents): https://mohopeproject.org/resources/get-naloxone/ Find out how to get naloxone in Missouri Get information on how to use naloxone Learn about other harm reduction measures Prevent + ED (for Missouri residents): https://prevented.org Get naloxone training The T (for St. Louis area residents): https://www.thetstl.com Get naloxone training Get naloxone & other first aid supplies Image Credit: "Drugs Say Stop The Drug War" by The Drug Users Bible is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Join expert Jonathan Mitchell and guests Nicolas Scrutton Alvarado and Raymond Uymatiao to learn about the beneficial bacteria in your gut that can help protect against diseases like cholera. You can download the paper on our website. Check out Jonathan's podcast Microbe Moment! Check out Nicolas's podcast In the Spotlight! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider becoming a Patron to help support In Plain English! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Image Credit: "Beneficial Gut Bacteria" by National Institutes of Health (NIH) is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

In the 9th episode of In Plain English, expert Kelly-Anne Moffa and guests Leenah Abugisisa and Alexander Albury delve into the ups and downs of California's cap-and-trade policy and its impact on climate change. You can find the paper, "Leakage from Sub-national Climate Policy: The Case of California’s Cap-and-Trade Program", on our website. Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! And check out our Discord server to talk science with other listeners, experts, and guests! If you are able, consider supporting us on Patreon. Becoming a patron gets you cool perks like early access to episodes, bonus content, and monthly AMAs, and it helps In Plain English keep growing and improving. And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

In the 8th episode of In Plain English, expert Abby Kimball and guests Jakayla Folarin and Olayinka Idowu discuss the fascinating world of parasites and the surprising ways in which they connect all life, from ants to elephants. You can download the paper for this episode on our website. If you want to learn more about this topic, check out the book Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer. Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, consider supporting us on Patreon. Becoming a patron gets you cool perks like early access to episodes, bonus content, and monthly AMAs, and it helps In Plain English keep growing and improving. And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform! Featured image credit: "Larvae from the parasitic worm that causes schistosomiasis" by ZEISS Microscopy is marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

In the 7th episode of In Plain English, expert Grace Ward and guests Caitlin Murphy and Marc Blanc discuss why the history of domestication we think we know is wrong, and what that says about our world today. You can find the paper, "Reconsidering Domestication from a Process Archaeology Perspective" by Bogaard et. al., on our website. If you want to learn more about this topic, check out the book The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

In the 6th episode of In Plain English, expert Teodora Stoica and guests Emma Sward and Abby Kimball explore what we know about how the brain changes with age, how we study the aging brain, and how we can promote healthy cognitive aging. If you liked this episode, be sure to check out Teodora's blog Curious Cortex! Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements! And check out our Where to Listen page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

In the fifth episode of In Plain English, expert Ralph White III and guests Maura Lydon and Alexa Ruel explore the unexpected ways in which estrogen can affect the growth and spread of prostate cancer. If you liked this episode, check out Ralph's podcast Scientifically Sound on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1549609843 and follow Scientifically Sound on Twitter @4theSci_Sound and Instagram @scientificallysound. And check out Alexa's podcast Brainstorm: Exploring Minds and Behaviors, and follow her podcast on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook! You can catch up on our previous episodes, download the papers, and send us questions at our website: inplainenglishpod.org. Remember to follow In Plain English on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with the latest announcements! This will be the last podcast of 2021, and we won't have a full episode in January 2022, but be on the lookout for a fun compilation of clips that didn't make it into the first five episodes. We'll be back in February 2022 with a new episode!