Kaitlin recently aired an episode of the Perpetual Notion Machine on WORT FM  about monarchs and climate change.  It was also about “lab lit,” or science in novels.  This was inspired by a December 2012 New York Times article by Katherine Bouton.  There’s a website with more info on the genre here.

The show and the above article focus on Barbara Kingsolver’s recent book, Flight Behavior.   But what challenges and opportunities come with a novelist talking about science? Especially insects and climate change?  Ecologist Dr. Karen Oberhauser of the University of Minnesota, joined Kaitlin on the show to fill everyone in! She is an expert in monarch butterflies, conservation biology, and insect ecology. More information about Dr. Oberhauser and her lab’s research can be found here. (And she just won a Citizen Science Champions of Change Award from The White House for her monarch conservation work!)

 Listen to the show here!

This article was posted in Lab News, Multimedia.