Many wildlife populations experience change over time. For some, this can be defined as “boom” and “bust” periods – cycles of change where population numbers rise and fall. Understanding these can be a major challenge for scientists and wildlife managers, particularly for species who have not historically been monitored. One such species with limited data is the gray-tailed vole, a rodent species endemic to the Willamette Valley.

Our guest this week is Austin Nash – a first-year PhD student seeking to better understand and manage the population cycles of gray-tailed voles. His research focuses on how disease and weasel predators may influence vole movement, survival, and reproduction. To do so, Austin is deploying a wide range of methods, including landscape scale genetics, field experiments, establishing a long-term monitoring program, and running population simulation models.

To hear more about Austin’s plans to better understand vole populations in Oregon, as well as his unique array of experiences leading him to OSU and making him the ideal person for the task, tune in to KBVR 88.7FM this Sunday (April 26) at 6:30pm. You can listen to the episode anywhere you listen to your podcasts, including on KBVR, Spotify, Apple, or anywhere else!

Written by Matthew Vaughan.

The central dogma of molecular biology is a theory stating that genetic information flows only in one direction, from DNA, to RNA, to protein. However, since the fundamental theory was developed by Francis Crick in 1958, scientists have discovered several exceptions to the theory. This includes prions and retroviruses. Prions are infectious proteins which replicate without going through DNA or RNA intermediates and are responsible for diseases such as mad cow disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. A retrovirus is a virus that uses RNA as its genomic material, rather than DNA. In addition to the expansion of the central dogma, molecular biology has expanded its knowledge of the functionality of RNA beyond producing protein. A non-coding RNA (ncRNA) is an RNA molecule that is not translated into a protein. It is estimated that as much as 80% of the human genome encodes ncRNAs. Many of the newly identified ncRNAs have unknown functions, making it a new and exciting frontier in molecular biology.
This week’s guest is Sanjay Ramprasad, a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of David Hendrix, and recent PhD grad from the department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Sanjay’s research focuses on using computational techniques to discover new functions and structures of ncRNAs. To hear all about the transition from PhD to post doc, the expansive frontier of RNA biology, and how one goes from the social sciences to biophysics, tune in at 7PM on April 19th to 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis, or check out the show on our podcast pages.