In a fast-changing environment, evolution can be slow—sometimes so slow that an organism dies out before the right mutation comes along. Host Sarah Crespi speaks with Staff Writer Elizabeth Pennisi about how plastic traits—traits that can alter in response to environmental conditions—could help life catch up. Also on this week’s show, host Meagan Cantwell talks with Marco Ajello a professor of physics and astronomy at Clemson University in South Carolina about his team’s method to determine the universe’s star formation history. By looking at 739 blazars, supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, Ajello and his team were able to model the history of stars since the big bang. Finally, in this month’s book segment, Jen Golbeck interviews Christine Du Bois about her book Story of Soy. You can listen to more book segments and read more reviews on our books blog, Books et al. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Read a transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

This week we have two interviews from the annual meeting of AAAS in Washington D.C.: one on the history of food and one about our own perceptions of food and food waste.  First up, host Sarah Crespi talks with Christina Warinner from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, about the history of dairying. When did people first start to milk animals and where? It turns out, the spread of human genetic adaptations for drinking milk do not closely correspond to the history of consuming milk from animals. Instead, evidence from ancient dental plaque suggests people from all over the world developed different ways of chugging milk—not all of them genetic. Next, Host Meagan Cantwell speaks with Sheril Kirshenbaum, co-director of the Michigan State University Food Literacy and Engagement Poll, about the public’s perception of food waste. Do most people try to conserve food and produce less waste? Better insight into the point of view of consumers may help keep billions of kilograms of food from being discarded every year in the United States. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Download the transcript (PDF) Ads on the show: Columbia University and Magellan TV Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image:  Carefull in Wyoming/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Find a new and historic recipe for a dish to put on your Thanksgiving table in What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking. This cookbook, published in 1881, is highlighted in a recent post on the Library of Congress Blog. Abby Fisher perfected her culinary skills as an enslaved cook on a South Carolina plantation but went on to establish a successful catering business in San Francisco and publish a compilation of her recipes—one of the first by an African-American. Learn more about this remarkable woman and, this Thanksgiving, sample a taste of history!

Click here to go to the Library of Congress Blog post, "Sample a Taste of History This Thanksgiving!"

Atlanta : SBL Press, [2020]

Evans, Claire Lisa, author

Barker Library - TE7.N275 no.894

Online Resource

Dewey Library - HE4487.P84 K47 2019

Hayden Library - RG220.V67 2018

Hayden Library - RG761.W65 2018

London ; New York : Routledge, 2008

Virno, Paolo, 1952-

Huffman, James L., 1941-

Metcalf, Barbara Daly, 1941-

Harari, Yuval N., author

Snyder, Timothy, author

Hansen, Valerie, 1958-

Cleveland, William L., author

Reynolds, David, 1952-

Mills, Alex, author

Frankopan, Peter, author

Rogan, Eugene L., author

Beard, Mary, 1955- author

Gildea, Robert, author

Mason, Steve, 1957- author

Mackintosh-Smith, Tim, 1961- author

King-Hall Naval History Conference (2013 : Canberra, A.C.T.)

Euchner, Charles C., author

Anderson, Greg, 1962- author

Webb, Martyn J. (Martyn Jack), 1925-2016

Hayden Library - SH377.A8 M85 2019

Dewey Library - GC461.M33 2019

Dewey Library - SH351.P24 M33 2019

Online Resource

Dewey Library - SB608.C6 M33 2019

Hayden Library - QH44.L556 2018

Dewey Library - SB349.H96 2019

Hayden Library - QH106.2.B7 R87 2018

Hayden Library - QH45.2.W67 2018

Hayden Library - QH31.S593 C65 2018

Dewey Library - SB370.O7 T48 2019

Online Resource