Whoever said science has to be somber?
Physiology graduate student Kirsten Sanford and two other science enthusiasts find plenty to joke about on KDVS radio show “This Week in Science.” Young, hip, informative and irreverent, the weekly hourlong talk show is sort of a cross between New Scientist magazine and cult television program “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
The science is factual, culled from the latest reports from the Internet, scientific journals and magazines such as New Scientist. The commentary by Sanford and co-hosts Ted Dunning and Greg Yen sounds a bit like “The Daily Show” — “without the same mock seriousness,” said Yen, who graduated from UC Davis last year with a self-designed major in science and technology studies.
“Humor is a good way of reaching people,” said Sanford. “I hope so,” added Yen. “If not, I’ve got to get myself a new gig.”
Sanford and Dunning, a Davis native who studied geology and oceanography at UC Berkeley, created the show about three years ago. Sanford said she and Dunning, then neighbors in the same apartment complex, were doing what they usually do when they get together — “hang out, drink pints of beer and talk about science” — when inspiration struck. “We should do a radio show,” she told him.
They approached KDVS’ program manager, who initially gave them a half-hour time slot every other week. Within a couple months, the show went to an hour every week.
Yen joined the show about a year later, when Sanford left to work in a lab in San Francisco. After she returned, they found the show worked better when all three of them were on the air.
Topics on one recent show included astronauts’ spacewalks outside the international space station; pheromones; rhodo-psin, a light-sensing molecule in the retina of the eye; and a caller’s itchy skin.
“If anyone out there has malaria, they’re working on a cure,” Sanford said, segueing into a discussion about the sequencing of the genome of plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria.
Sanford told listeners that scientists discovered that one-tenth of the parasite’s genes are plant genes, suggesting possible treatments may lie in herbicides. “So if you get malaria, you’d get a shot of Roundup?” piped in Yen.
Even off the air, the three tend to talk in quick repartee. Asked what they hope to accomplish through the show, Yen says: “Total world domination.” “I’m down with that,” said Dunning. “That and we thought talking about science would be a really good idea, to make science accessible to people. It’s what we do in our free time anyway.”
The program airs 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Tuesdays on KDVS 90.3 FM, which broadcasts to the greater Sacramento metropolitan area, reaching as far west as Vallejo and east to Truckee.
KDVS will hold its ninth annual on-air fund-raiser April 21-27. Money raised helps support the operation of the radio station for most of the year. Last year the event raised $47,000, and this year the goal is $55,000, said general manger Paul Schramski.
Dunning, Yen and Sanford hope to syndicate their show someday, but thanks to streaming on the Internet, the show can already be heard around the world. “My sister once actually heard us in Thailand,” Dunning said.
To tune in via the Internet, visit the show’s Web site at www.twis.org.
For more details about the fundraiser, contact Schramski at (530)752-9902 or at pschramski@ucdavis.edu.
Kathleen Holder is coomunications manager for the Divsion of Biological Sciences. Her articles periodically appear in Dateline.