In this episode of Yackety Science, mangrove rivulus fish take a long strange trip and find their inner chill. Ribozymes lead the way back to life’s very beginning. And in the U.S., bad public policy chases away more good science. In the chemical minute, Matt mixes up a chalky mojito and talks calcium. And in Ourobookos, the team wraps up their own very strange trip through the past, present and future of TB.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com. And please follow us on Spotify, Instagram (@yacketysciene), Facebook (Yackety Science), and YouTube (@YacketyScience).

Episode Art: Modified from “Mangrove Killifish (Kryptolebias marmoratus)” by Jean-Paul Cicéron (PD)

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links:

Fish Tripping on Shrooms:

Forsyth D, Faraone N, Lamarre SG and Currie S (2026) The magic of mushrooms: psilocybin influences behavior in the mangrove rivulus fish, Kryptolebias marmoratus. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 20:1767175.

Ribozymes:

Edoardo Gianni et al. A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand. Science 391,1022-1028(2026). DOI:10.1126/science.adt2760

1. Shirley Meng and Sodium Batteries:
3. Pushed by Trump policies, top U.S. battery scientist is moving to Singapore by Jeffrey Mervis (Science; May 1, 2026)

Ourobookos, A Yackety Science Book Club

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

“Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.

In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.”

Next Book Selection:

The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack

“. . . a mind-bending tour through five of the cosmos’s possible finales: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, Vacuum Decay (the one that could happen at any moment!), and the Bounce. Guiding us through cutting-edge science and major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, and much more, The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.”

In this episode, Brian braves the icy north winds to see half amillion cranes on the Platte River. Matt gets pig semen in his eye and comes away cancer free. Simian civil war breaks out among the chimpanzees of Uganda. And in Ourobookos, the war against TB finds both a bacterial villain and a questionable cure.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com. And please follow us on Spotify, Instagram(@yacketysciene), Facebook (Yackety Science), and YouTube (@YacketyScience).

Episode Art: Modified from Crane Photo by Brian Cross.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessedthrough FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa,Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at TulsaCommunity College.

Links:

Sandhill Crane Migration and Rowe Sanctuary:

●Information about Rowe Sanctuary

●All About Birds: Sandhill Cranes

Pig Semen and Cancer:

● Jiansong Zhao et al. Harnessing semen-derived exosomesfor noninvasive fundus drug delivery: A paradigm for exosome-based ocular fundus therapeutics. Sci. Adv.12,eadw7275(2026).

● Scientists turn pig semen extract into eye drops that kill cancer in mice by Darren Incorvaia, Fierce Biostech Mar27, 2026

Chimp Wars:

●Civil war among wild chimpanzees by James Brooks. Science392,146-147(2026).

Ourobookos, A Yackety Science Book Club

Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green

“Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia.Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, aboy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year. In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.”

In this episode, Team Yack returns to the far side of the moon along with the Artemis II astronauts. (Cue the Pink Floyd! Balloons and Jubilation!) We admire the versatility of the octopus’s kinky arm-penis-nose and report on Matt’s special box of emotional support particles. Argon, the laziest of all elements, makes a half-hearted, but punny, appearance in the chemical minute. And we cough dramatically into our hankies and collapse on the settee for a discussion of John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis.

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com. And please follow us on Spotify, Instagram (@yacketysciene), and Facebook (Yackety Science).

Episode Art: Modified from Earthset photo taken by NASA’s Artemis II astronauts.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links

The Moon and Artemis II:

• Information about Artemis II from NASA
• Osiris Rex Photo of the Moon (2017)

Cephalopod Sex:

• To mate or predate? Octopuses use the same system for sensing food or a mate, which has implications for speciation. Science (April 2, 2026)
• A sensory system for mating in octopus by Pablo Villar et al. (Science 392(6793):96-101).
  

Anti-protons:

• Geneva’s CERN hails delicate test on transporting antimatter as a scientific success by Jamey Keaten (AP; March 24, 2026)
  

Ourobookos, A Yackety Science Book Club Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
“Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year. In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.”