Assigned Scientist at Bachelor‘s

Feb 17 2025 65 ep. 43 mins 42
Assigned Scientist at Bachelor‘s Podcast artwork

ASAB is a podcast about science fact and science fiction, hosted by two trans scientists: Tessa (astrobiology) and Charles (entomology). Every other week we talk to each other or with another trans scientist about research, interesting facts, whether aliens can be gay, science fiction, and maybe sometimes about being trans. Transcripts available on our website: asabpodcast.com.

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Episode 63: Our Triumphant Return from Hiatus! Space Updates

Feb 17 2025 39 mins  
We’re back from hiatus and talking about several updates in space news from the time we were gone - specifically, Arizona naming Pluto its state planet, the status on phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere, and water on Mars. Sources, further reading, and a transcript are available at our website here: https://asabpodcast.com/2025/02/18/episode-63-several-space-updates/ The show i

Episode 62: The (Trans) Body in Space

Mar 14 2023 42 mins  
In this the first episode of Trans Medicine March - the one month of the year where this podcast is specifically and explicitly about being trans, and specifically aspects of medical transition - we begin with a consideration of how time in space affects the human body in general, and how being someone who has medically transitioned might interact with that. Also NASA: Send Tessa t

Episode 61: Genetic Control of Courtship Behaviors in Flies and Roaches (Happy Belated Valentine’s Day)

Feb 20 2023 39 mins  
In this episode which is definitely right on time for Valentine’s Day, Charles tells Tessa about a paper he read on the fruitless gene (originally identified in Drosophila melanogaster, the ”laboratory fruit fly”) and its possible control over the courtship behavior in Blattella germanica, the ”German cockroach,” another classic model organism. Tangents of variable length

Episode 60: Jackson Reyna on Chemistry, Fire, and the Chemistry of Fire

Feb 07 2023 39 mins  
On this episode we’re joined by PhD student Jackson Reyna to talk about his love of chemistry and specifically fire. Some topics include organometallics, practical applications of chemical research, what is fire, and whether and under what conditions we’d all be willing to participate in experimental medicine. A transcript and show notes are available on our website at: https

Episode 59: Dead Dinosaurs, Cockroach Sperm, and Monkey Testicles - A Science Sampler Platter for the New Year

Jan 06 2023 50 mins  
In this episode, the two of us share several different interesting topics we’ve read about recently, including the timing of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, the first fossil cockroach found with its sperm, the use of ultrasound as contraception for mammals, extremely dangerous theoretical rockets, and unethical animal experimentation in the American mid-twentieth-century. W

Episode 58: Where Do Insects Go When It’s Cold?

Nov 28 2022 47 mins  
In this episode, we address what happens to all the insects when it’s cold out - where do they go? how do they survive? how do you survive freezing temperatures? Including the elusive grylloblattids, freeze tolerant cockroaches, Alaskan stoneflies, and even some butterflies. A transcript and show notes for this episode are available on our website here: https://asabpodcast.com/

Episode 57: Rose Eveleth on the future, Flash Forward, whether you are your brain, and whether to put that brain in a robot

Nov 06 2022 71 mins  
In this episode - recorded almost 18 months ago but still great - we talk to our first and only cis (?) guest: Rose Eveleth, the creator, writer, producer, and host of the podcast Flash Forward (in Charles’s estimation, the greatest podcast of all time). We talk about the process behind making Flash Forward, the episodes which we feel speak particularly to The Trans Experience, R

Episode 56: Nona the Ninth (SPOILERS)

Sep 19 2022 59 mins  
It’s Nona time baby!!!!!! A transcript and show notes are available on our website here: https://asabpodcast.com/2022/09/16/episode-59/ The show is on Twitter @ASABpod, Charles @cockroacharles, and Tessa @spacermase. Our intro music is by Nicole Petkovich. Thank you for listening!

RE-RELEASE: The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir (Books 1-2)

Sep 12 2022 73 mins  
In anticipation of the release of the third entry in the Locked Tomb quartet by Tamsyn Muir (Nona the Ninth, out 13 September), we’re re-releasing our conversation with friend of the pod Erin on the first two books: Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth. Spoilers, like a lot of them. Our episode on Nona the Ninth will be released a week from now, so get reading! A transcript

Episode 55: ”The Neutral Zone” (TNG 1x26) and the Past and Future of Cryonics

Sep 07 2022 37 mins  
In this episode we use the TNG episode ”The Neutral Zone,” in which three people from the 20th century are revived from cryopreservation to find themselves on the Enterprise 300 years later, to talk about cryonics. We touch on its history, whether it actually works (no), whether it could work (probably not), whether we’d do it (no way), and, just for fun, a little on the hist