In March, Bart visited the bi-annual meeting of the German Neuroscience Society (NWG) in Göttingen. And he took his brand new digital audio recorder with him! So this is the first time we can present impressions from the field!Bart intervie

25 SciComm: Pint of Science – with Elodie Chabrol

Apr 28th, 2019 33m 56s

In May will be the next Pint of Science event! Pint of Science is an annual festival that was founded by Michael Motskin and Praveen Paul. Every May scientists present their research to a public audience in a pub or a bar. It started in the

24 Brexit: Its Impacts on Science and Scientists – B&D with guests

Apr 15th, 2019 51m 6s

Bart and I invited three scientists from both sides of the canal to talk about Brexit and how it impacts scientists and the scientific endeavor. Our guests are Andrew Phillipides (British citizen, and professor at Sussex University, UK), Thomas

23 Don’t ‘Sleep Faster’ – with Lars Dittrich

Mar 31st, 2019 39m 37s

Arnold Schwarzenegger famously (and half-jokingly) proclaimed that if you need more than 6 hours of sleep, you should sleep faster. Many successful people claim to sleep very little and use the extra time to be productive. But is this sound

22 B&D: Peer Review & #ScienceTwitter

Mar 17th, 2019 45m 37s

In this episode we talk about our experience with peer review and the importance of kindness and the advantages and disadvantages of the authors knowing the identity of peer reviewers. And in the second part we talk about how twitter can be a g

19 Insecurity and Uncertainties for Early Career Academics – with Maria Pinto

Feb 3rd, 2019 27m 23s

Academics are Spoiled. Right?The stereotype of academics is that they live a well protected life in the ivory tower. But this is not the case for most of them. Maria Pinto from Portugal is a PhD student in marine microbiology in Austria. Wi

18 B&D Animal Use and Statistics of Equivalence

Jan 20th, 2019 32m 50s

In the light of the latest animal use numbers in Germany (2017), Bart and I are having a conversation about animal use in fundamental research. We then move on to talk about a new statistical method that might help researchers get some of their

17 From PhD to SciComm via BookTube – with Deboki Chakravarti

Jan 6th, 2019 31m 17s

Science Communication is one way academics can apply themselves outside of academia. But how does one transition between careers? I talked with Dr. Deboki Chakravarti, a biomedical engineer who worked on cancer treatments. She graduated in 2018

16 B&D: CRISPR Babies

Dec 23rd, 2018 37m 6s

At the end of November 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced that he had genetically modified human embryos which were then brought to term. The resulting twin sisters appear to be healthy. But this experiment was not greeted with enthus

15 Animal Welfare in Scientific Research – with Nuno Franco

Dec 9th, 2018 32m 39s

I talked with Dr. Nuno Henrique Franco about animal welfare in scientific research. The questions we address areWhy do we do animal experiments?What can be done to reduce the amount of animal experiments?What are the regulations for animal

57 Ready for a Change? – with Jennifer Polk

Dec 31st, 2020 30m 10s

Jennifer Polk coaches PhDs ready to make a career change.It's the time of the year when many of us slow down and think about our career decisions. Are you happy with yours? Are you considering a change? I am, in fact, going to make a change

56 Food System Transformation – with Gesa Maschkowski

Oct 27th, 2020 32m 11s

Food production, transportation, and consumption habits have an immense impact on health, biodiversity, and the climate. Which food we eat influences our risks for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases; but also the use of land, water, fertiliz

55 Are you FIT 4 RRI?

Oct 14th, 2020 29m 26s

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is the idea of bringing stakeholders to the table when we plan our research strategies. The EU-funded project "FIT4RRI" was tasked with finding out why aspects of RRI - such as citizen science projects

54 Flatten the Global Temperature Curve – with Maria-Elena Vorrath

Sep 14th, 2020 38m 55s

My guest in this episode is Dr. Maria-Elena Vorrath, a geologist who studies the history of climate change, who just finished her PhD. Besides her work as a researcher she is a science communicator with Scientists for Future. Her message is

53 A Neuroscientist’s View on Artificial Intelligence

Aug 20th, 2020 39m 36s

One of my favorite topics is artificial intelligence, or - more specifically - what we can learn from neuroscience about artificial intelligence. So, when I was gifted the book "Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" by Ma

52 B&D Online Teaching, SciComm, and the Populist Fringes

Aug 3rd, 2020 38m 8s

My co-host Bart Geurten and I had a rather spontaneous conversation, again. We talk about remote teaching, how science communication and science journalism could be supported by the public, and speculate about how the political fringe might be

51 Extended Throwback: Precarious Postdocs – with Gary McDowell

Jun 29th, 2020 1h 27m

Postdocs are, besides graduate students, the main workforce in academic research. Following the PhD, the postdoc position is the only way to follow a research career within academia. Many PhDs around the world are advised to go to the USA for

50 Sustainable Mobility – with Jonathan Koehler of Scientists for Future

Jun 20th, 2020 44m 53s

For this episode, I spoke with Dr. Jonathan Köhler who studies the transformation of the transportation and mobility sectors using computational models at Competence Centre Sustainability and Infrastructure Systems of Fraunhofer Institute.

49 Times of Crisis – Conspiracy Myths and SciComm – with B&D

Jun 1st, 2020 41m 50s

For this episode, Bart and I had a rather spontaneous chat about conspiracy beliefs and science communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Worldwide conspiracy myths about SARS-CoV-2 appear to be on the rise, and conspiracy narrators team

48 SciComm as Career Development Tool – Dmitry Kopelyanskiy

May 22nd, 2020 31m 19s

For this episode, Dennis talked to Dmitry Kopelyanskiy, a contest-winning science communicator who gives entertaining science talks on stage – mostly about his own research on tropical diseases. But here, Dmitry also talks about his academic ca

47 Extended Throwback: Insecurity and Uncertainties for Early Career Academics – with Maria Pinto

May 15th, 2020 1h 5m

During this season, once every 4 weeks, I pick one of the 13 most popular episodes from the first two years and post the original interview. These extended editions contain a couple of parts that didn’t make it into the final cut and give an in

46 Scientists for Future – with Thomas Loew

May 9th, 2020 40m 37s

The initial statement of Scientists for Future in support of Fridays for Future came out just at the right time. In the public debate, it was a swift response to politicians who were trying to mute the student strikes by telling them to "leave

45 Animal Research During the COVID-19 Lockdown – with B&D and Daniela Buchwald

Mar 24th, 2020 29m 23s

In this episode, Bart and I invited PhD candidate Daniela Buchwald from the German Primate Center – a private research institute. We compare how the University of Göttingen and the German Primate Center (GPC) responded to the impending shutdown

44 Green Biotechnology – with David Spencer

Mar 16th, 2020 36m 40s

Dennis’s guest for this episode is David Spencer, a researcherin plant physiology and phytopathology in Germany. In his Ph.D., David usesgenetic engineering to fortify soybeans against fungal infection. They explain whywe need more resilient