Do scientists and radio mix well? My interview with Public Radio International's Living on Earth

Last week, I had the fun and terror of recording an interview for Public Radio International on their Living on Earth environmental news magazine segment. They got in touch about our lab's work on speciation microbiomes and the hologenome (link to io9 story). 

Nothing can really prepare lab scientists for the experience of recording an interview that will be broadcast on 100's of stations. It's not like writing where you can draft and polish over and over. Radio is one take and it is oddly like being in the spotlight without anyone being in the room. After the nerves shook out and the 30 minute recording came to a close with an interviewer who has a silky smooth, opera like voice, I was left wondering when I could do more of this. Seemed so obvious that we scientists should be broadcasting and amplifying our science communication through multi-media like this. 

For those that care, they edited the interview down to 7 minutes; here is the recording and web link to their story on Microbes and Evolution. Now this is the kind of story that even my sister can understand; Im proud of that. 

Air Date: Week of July 26, 2013 

stream/download this segment as an MP3 file

Recording the interview at Vanderbilt's VUStar multimedia hub; On the
right is Dr. Robert Brucker, postdoc and first author of the study.