Description:

In this final episode of the season, Dr. Valerie O’Brien joins the Yackers to take on conniving cuckoos, fake blood, and electrolysis in space. (So many bald astronauts!) Matt devotes his Chemical Minute to phosphorus and explains why “phossy jaw” may not be as much fun as it sounds. Finally, the team snorts some spice and stops by Arrakis to explore the confusing biology of hungry, hungry sandworms.

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

Episode Art: Image modified from “Cuculus canorus chick1” byvladlen666 (C0 1.0 Universal).

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) byLobo 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: Valerie O’Brien, Ph.D., is a former Associate Professor and Faculty Department Chair of Life Sciences at TulsaCommunity College. Valerie’s research interests lie in Behavioral Ecology, Entomology and Virology. Her most recentpublication is 'Nonrandom Weather-Related Mortality in a Purple Martin (Progne subis) Roost'.

Links:

Cuckoo Birds:

●Genomic data reveal the complexity of egg mimicry evolution in cuckoos by Michael D. Sorenson and Claire N. Spottiswoode (Science 30 Oct 2025).

Fake Blood:

● First-in-human phase 1 trial of hemoglobin vesicles as artificial red blood cells developed for use as a transfusion alternative by Azuma H et al. Blood Adv. 2022 Nov 8;6(21):5711-5715.

Electrolysis in Space:

●Magnets could improve oxygen production in space: Forces that go unnoticed on Earth could help move bubbles in orbiting spacecraft by Carolyn Wilke, special to C&EN (Chemical andEngineering News, Aug. 20, 2025)

● A magnetic push for electrolysis in space by Vensaus,P. Nat. Chem. 17, 1632–1633 (2025).

In this most Nobel episode of Yackety Science, the Yackers visit Stockholm to explore quantum tunneling, gas storage, and the plight of scurfy mice. Along the way, they are struck by micro-lightning and the sight of a most gruesome in-flight snack. The element silicon makes for a rocky edition of Matt’s Chemical Minute. And Prof. Craig Davis of OSU stops by to talk bobwhite biology, wetland decline, and the futile search for sewage plovers.

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: Dr. Craig Davis

Craig Davis holds the Bollenbach Chair in Wildlife Management at Oklahoma State University. His research focuses on several areas including the response of grassland birds to fire-grazing interactions, assessment and classification of wetlands, wetland bird ecology, aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate ecology, and upland gamebird ecology and management.

Links:

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  The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 was awarded jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”

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  The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 was awarded jointly to Mary E. Brunkow, Frederick J. Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi "for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance."

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  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 was awarded jointly to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi "for the development of metal–organic frameworks."

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  This Chilling Recording Reveals Large Bats Catching, Killing and Eating Birds Midflight by Margherita Bassi - Daily Correspondent (Smithsonian; October 15, 2025)

• Spraying of water microdroplets forms luminescence and causes chemical reactions in surrounding gas by Yifan Meng, Yu Xia, Jinheng Xu, and Richard N. Zare (Science Advances; Vol 11, Issue 11; 14 Mar 2025)

In this episode, comedian Barry Friedman joins the show to talkkinky ant queens, lasagna leakage, and the frustrating complexity of nature. As always, the Yackers boldlyconfront the most difficult questions of our time. Do Martians have tacky taste? Is SIS (sperm inferiority syndrome) runningrampant? Do hornets have a right to squat on your patio? And will Matt ever stop talking about fusion?

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.

Instagram: @yacketyscience

Facebook: Yackety Science

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: Barry Friedman

Barry is a standup comedian, political columnist, reporter, andhis work has appeared in The New Yorker; Esquire; The Progressive Populist; MediaPost; The Las Vegas Review-Journal; and AAPG Explorer, a magazine for petroleum geologists, which is noteworthy, considering how little Barry know about petroleum geology and how he usually hurts himself filling his car with gas. Barry was also in UHF with“Weird Al" Yankovic, setting a cinematic high water mark for those who have since played (or dream one day of playing) “Crony #2” in a major motion picture. The movie still provides him with $3.76 residual checks every time it plays at a Lithuanian drive-in or when some lost soul downloads it. Barry now lives in Portugal and hates referring to himself in the third person.

Links:

Leopard Print Martians

• Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars by Hurowitz et al. Nature 645, 332–340 2025).
• NASA’s Perseverance Rover

Kinky Ant Queens

• One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants by Juvé et al. Nature (Sept. 3, 2025).

Hornet Invaders

• Asian hornets have a unique sound – and that could be the key to controlling their spread. (August 11, 2025)

Desktop Fusion

• Electrochemical loading enhances deuterium fusion rates in a metal target by Chen et al. Nature 644, 640–645 (2025)

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.

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  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

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  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)