CUCafe // Math, Science, Intuition and CFS

pictureToday we had a terrific show with two local guests.  First, Sarah McQuate, Post-Doc at the University of Colorado joins us to talk about CUCafe, a student run group committed to creating dialogues and safe spaces for underrepresented student on campus.  We talk about their role in the most recent Inclusion and Diversity Summit on campus along with their on-going efforts and events.

cucafeseminar.wordpress.com

 

pic-julieNext, Julie Rehmeyer, a award-winning science tells us about her experience as a math graduate student at MIT and her investigative research into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  These two stories form interesting connections as we discuss the meaning of intuition; a skill that is acknowledge as powerful in the mathematics community but not necessarily cultivated or nourished.  Additionally, Julie finds resilient solutions using her analytical and intuitive skills when enduring a incapacitating experience with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, treatment for which is scarce and poorly understood in the scientific community.

HERE is here latest article on the research of CFS

Hosts: Susan Moran, Kendra Krueger
Producer: Kendra KRueger
Engineer: Kendra Krueger
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Additional Contributions: Joel Parker

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Incentives for Renewable Energy//Climate Change and Biodiversity

In last month’s election, Boulder voters gave the go-ahead for the city to move forward on municipalizing the electrical utility.  The chief motivation for that decision was to put more renewable energy on the grid.  There are a large number of policy options to incentivize renewable energy – so many that it’s hard to keep them all straight.  John Farrell, a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, joined us by phone to explain the situation.  (interview begins at 6:25)

Mountainous areas like the Rockies are hotspots for plant and animal biodiversity but as the climate warms many of these species – including Colorado’s iconic pica — are under threat.  Much research has focused on the effects of temperature change, but less has focused on the interactions of temperature and precipitation in a changing climate.  University of Colorado biologist Christy McCain is closely examining those inter-relationships.  She’s been studying patterns of diversity for plants and critters on mountains around the world. She co-authored a paper that was recently published in the journal Ecology Letters about how precipitation changes appear to be far more risky than temperature change. And it doesn’t bode well for many species. (interview begins at 14:58).

Producer: Tom McKinnon
Co-Hosts: Susan Moran and Tom McKinnon
Engineer: Jim Pullen
Executive Producer: Tom McKinnon

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