About 40 light-years (235 trillion miles) from Earth is a system of seven planets relatively close to the constellation Aquarius. Located outside of our solar system, these planets are scientifically known as exoplanets. This particular exoplanet system, called TRAPPIST-1, was recently discover by Michael Gillon and his team. Michael chats with Nate about his team’s discovery and whether or not life could exist on these planets. Our theme music was composed by Jeff and Theresa Brooks.

Will Dichtel is a chemist at Northwestern University and a 2015 MacArthur Fellow. His research is focused on the development of porous polymers known as covalent organic frameworks. On this episode of The Show About Science, Will talks to Nate about his work and gives him a tour of his organic chemistry lab. You can find out more about Will and the Dichtel Research Group on his website: http://sites.northwestern.edu/dichtel/.

On this episode of The Show About Science, Nate is reporting from the March for Science in Chicago (http://sciencemarchchicago.com). Over 60,000 Chicagoans marched on April 22, 2017 to show their love and support for the work that scientists do. Listen to this episode and then share your love of science with your friends and family! Chicago! Science!! Music on this episode was provided by FreeSFX.com. Our theme music was composed by Jeff and Theresa Brooks.

Luoth Chou studies organic geochemistry, microbiology and astrobiology. ​On this episode of The Show About Science, she joins Nate to talk about her research and The March for Science, a series of rallies and marches set to be held in Washington, D.C. and over 400 cities across the world on April 22, 2017.

Kevin Esvelt leads the Sculpting Evolution Group at MIT. Their work explores “evolutionary and ecological engineering and responsive science.” Kevin joins Nate on the program to help him with some homework and to discuss a tool for gene editing called CRISPR.

In our most ambitious episode to date, Nate visits KPCC, the home of Southern California Public Radio, for a tour of the station. Your tour guide for this episode is Sanden Totten, host of the popular kids science podcast, Brains On! Nate was rolling tape from the moment he arrived and you’re not going to want to miss what happens when these two veteran science podcasters meet for the first time. Music in this episode provided by Jeff Brooks, Theresa Brooks and Sounds Like An Earful (http://soundslikeanearful.com). Make sure to check out a video of the tesla coil on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/a-GB2h1FqRU

Coyote Peterson is the host of The Brave Wilderness Channel on Youtube. His passion for wildlife has driven him to embark upon a quest to make animal conservation and education entertaining for the next wave of explorers. On this episode, Nate and Coyote talk about tarantula hawks, snapping turtles, wolverines and the incredible habitats these animals call home.

On this episode of The Show About Science, Nate chats with Karen Bucher. Karen is the senior medical illustrator for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and a faculty member of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Biomedical Visualization graduate program. She is also the author/illustrator of Alphanatomy, a children’s book that showcases a different anatomical feature for each letter of the alphabet. Alphanatomy is perfect for your aspiring doctor or your average curious kid and is available on Amazon (http://amzn.to/2kFvQkc).

Dr. John Wiens runs the Wiens Lab at the University of Arizona. In his research, he focuses on evolution and ecology, primarily using reptiles and amphibians as model systems. He joins Nate on the show to talk about what climate change is, it’s impact on evolution and what we can do to help prevent it.

Hey Show About Science super fans! We’re having a raffle!! We’re giving away 4 prizes to 4 lucky listeners. The fourth place prize is a set of 8 butterflies drawn by Nate. The second and third place prizes are Star Wars toys. And the grand prize is a Show About Science bobblehead! Here’s how you enter. Go to iTunes and subscribe to The Show About Science. Then leave us a review. Then email my Dad at showaboutscience@gmail.com letting us know that you want to be entered into the raffle. Make sure you do this by January 30th, 2017. I’ll put all of the names into my Abe Lincoln hat and then randomly select 4 lucky listeners. We’ll have pictures on twitter of all of the prizes (follow the show @natepodcasts). Good luck and thanks for listening.