Minds Over Matters

Minds Over Matters
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Biweekly

The podcast that could save humanity. Minds Over Matters focuses on discoveries, research, and insights that enhance our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Join us for real conversations with experts in every field, from climate change to economics, and AI to neuroscience. No noise. Just real research broken down.

  1. 6d ago

    The Cosmos

    The universe is big. And old. And complicated. And even though we’re only able to observe a shockingly small part of it, that small part constantly reveals new insights that challenge everything we thought we knew. In this episode of Minds Over Matters, we are joined by Cosmologist and Physicist Lloyd Knox, whose research tries to make sense of the ridiculously large, impossibly complex puzzle that is the cosmos.  Bio: The nature of dark energy, the origins of the universe, and the afterglow of the Big Bang. These are just a few of the mind-bending phenomena studied by Lloyd Knox, the Michael and Ester Vaida Endowed Chair in Cosmology and Astrophysics at the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis. Knox's current research interests include the Hubble tension, the cosmological neutrino background, testing the standard framework of modern cosmology, developing and testing alternative models, and searching for primordial gravitational waves. His more than 200 publications have been cited over 100,000 times. Publications

  2. Jul 7

    Rocking the Climate

    The numbers surrounding climate change are very real and frightening, leaving us with very few options. We can either warm (no pun intended) to the idea of extreme weather events that increase in both frequency and intensity, rising sea levels, severe droughts and wildfires, ocean acidification, and general disruption of the ecosystems that supported our evolution. Or we can take action to slow, and hopefully even reverse, the impact of carbon and methane in our atmosphere. Today we’re joined by Isabel Montañez, a sedimentary geochemist and paleoclimatologist who says that the lessons we are learning from the earth itself, when accelerated, may help us to radically and rapidly sidestep our own extinction. Stay tuned for what may be one of the most important and inspiring messages you’ve heard in a long, long time. Bio: Isabel Montañez is a sedimentary geochemist and paleoclimatologist whose research focuses on reconstructing past global and regional climates, in particular those during warming and major climate transitions. Her approach is interdisciplinary, integrating physical, biological, and chemical proxies of environmental and ecosystem parameters with multiple scales of numerical modeling to study Earth system processes and their interactions during climate and ecosystem perturbation.Awards:• Arthur L. Day Medal, The Geological Society of America• Endowed Biogeochemistry Lecture, Geochemical Society• The UC Davis Prize for Teaching and Scholarly Achievement• Union Fellow of the AGU• Francis J. Pettijohn Medal, Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM)• Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences• Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal, European Geosciences Union• Lawrence L. Sloss Award for Sedimentary Geology, Geological Society of America• Fellow of the Geochemical Society• Fellow of the European Association of Geochemistry• Chancellor's Leadership Professor• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science• Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation• F. Earl Ingerson Lecture, Geochemical Society• Herbert A. Young Society Dean's Fellow, College of Letters and Sciences• Fellow of the Geological Society of America• James Lee Wilson Award for Excellence in Sedimentary Geology SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology's Young Scientist Award)• American Association of Petroleum Geologists J. “Cam” Sproule Memorial Award

  3. Jun 23

    Emotions

    Our emotional state at any given moment is how we assess the quality of our lives. Whether we’re happy, sad, angry, depressed … that’s who we are. But where do emotions come from? Do we own them or do they own us? Today’s guest, Eliza Bliss-Moreau, is one of the country’s leading experts on the biological underpinnings of the human experience and joins us today to help us understand some of the complexities of human emotion.  Bio: Eliza Bliss-Moreau is a Core Scientist at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis. Her lab, the Bliss-Moreau Laboratory, conducts translational and comparative affective science using multi-method, multi-species approaches to understand the biological underpinnings of the social and affective lives of humans and nonhuman animals. The lab is interested in how the neural systems that generate and regulate affect develop and change from womb to tomb.  We deploy tools to study these lifespan developmental changes from the level of synapses to social systems, with an emphasis on understanding how robust social environments shape psychological and biological outcomes. The lab also has a strong commitment to animal welfare and improving scientific outcomes via the ethical care of animals. Publications:  Charbonneau J.A., Santistevan A.C., Raven E.P., Bennett J.L., Russ B.E., & Bliss-Moreau E. (2024). Evolutionarily conserved neural responses to affective touch in monkeys transcend consciousness and change with age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119 (16) e2119868119 . Santistevan, A.C., Fiske, O., Moadab, G., Charbonneau, J.A., Isaacowitz, D.M., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2024). See no evil: Attentional bias towards threat is diminished in aged monkeys. Emotion, 24, 2, 303-325.  Rothwell, E., Carp, S.B., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2023). The importance of social behavior in nonhuman primate studies of aging: A mini-review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 154, 105422. Moadab, G., Pittet, F., Bennett, J.L., Taylor, C.L., Fiske, O., Singapuri, A., Coffey, L.L., Van Rompay, K.K.A., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2023). Zika virus-infected pregnant macaques had smaller infants that spent more time in physical contact with them than non-infected mother-infant pairs. Science Translational Medicine, 15, eadhoo43.  Pittet, F., Heng, V., Atufa, J., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2023). Monkeys do not show sex differences in toy preferences through their individual choices. Biology of Sex Differences, 14:3. Charbonneau, J.A., Maister, L., Tsakiris, M. & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2022). Rhesus monkeys have an interoceptive sense of their beating hearts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119 (16) e211986811.  Please see Dr. Bliss-Moreau's Google Scholar Profile for more publications.

  4. Jun 9

    Elections

    If you’re a sucker for politics, societal division, and the phrase “I didn’t see THAT coming!”, boy, oh boy, did you pick a good time to be alive. Nowhere is all this weirdness on display more clearly than in our country’s increasingly surreal election process. Today we’re joined by Amber Boydstun, an expert in U.S. elections, who will do her level best to help us make sense of it all.  Bio and Publications: Amber Boydstun’s research examines the interaction between media and politics, focusing on how different media portrayals of the same policy issue can prompt citizens and policymakers to respond in different ways. She uses lab experiments, large-scale media studies, and manual and computational text analysis to study how issues make the news; the dynamics of “media storms” and how media coverage can shape public opinion about policy issues such as immigration, gun control, same-sex marriage, and capital punishment. She works with scholars across the globe as a member of the Comparative Agendas Project, a collaborative enterprise by political science and policy scholars to measure international government outputs. She serves on the editorial boards for the Text as Data Association and Public Opinion Quarterly and was a founding member of the Women Also Know Stuff initiative. She holds a B.A. from St. John's College and a Ph.D. from Penn State University.  [Curriculum Vitae]

  5. May 30

    Words 2.0

    With satellites now enveloping our world, empowering a seemingly infinite suite of options for connecting, we have officially entered a new frontier of communications. In this unexplored wilderness, the rules have yet to be written. Is this new landscape helping or hurting us in the long run? Today’s guest is Carl Whithaus, noted author and one of the country’s foremost authorities on writing technologies and digital cultures. He joins us to discuss how it’s going so far, where we might go, and what we need to be mindful of as we move ahead.Bio and Publications: Carl Whithaus is the author of Swarms, Viral Writing, and the Local: Rhetorical Dynamics across Networked Publics (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025) and Teaching and Evaluating Writing in the Age of Computers and High-Stakes Testing (Erlbaum, 2005), and Writing Across Distances and Disciplines (Routledge, 2008). He is the co-editor of three essay collections: Multimodal Literacy and Emerging Genres in Student Compositions (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), Considering Students, Teachers, and Writing Assessment: Volume One, Technical and Political Contexts (University of Colorado Press, 2024), and Considering Students, Teachers, and Writing Assessment: Emerging Theoretical and Pedagogical Practices (University of Colorado Press, 2024).He has held national leadership roles in writing studies, including service on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Writing Standards Framework Planning Committee, the NCTE Best Practices for Online Writing Instruction Committee, and the editorial board of Kairos. He was the editor of the Journal of Writing Assessment from 2015 to 2025. He has been the principal investigator for Splash! milk science update since 2017, a core researcher with the Wayfinding Project, and a principal investigator for Peer and AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR), a multi-institutional initiative examining the integration of AI-supported peer review in writing instruction, funded by the California Education Learning Lab.His current research projects explore viral and “swarm” writing across networks; wayfinding as a framework for understanding early-career professional writing development; and the rhetorical relationships among claims, evidence, and platforms in scientific and social media writing.

  6. May 12

    Drugs on War

    What are the implications of an intoxicated army? Today’s guest, Adam Zientek, is a historian whose book on the French army’s use of wine during World War I begs answers to new questions about what it means for a government to chemically modify the behavior of its fighting force. Bio: Adam Zientek is a historian of modern Europe with a focus on France. He is interested in the social history of war, airpower, the history of military medicine and psychiatry, and the history of alcohol and drugs. Adam's research focuses on the experience of trench-fighting in the First World War — how soldiers mitigated the psychological pressures of fighting by analyzing soldiers’ daily practices and rituals.  Publications:  Zientek, A. (2024) A Thirst for Wine and War: The Intoxication of French Soldiers on the Western Front (Montreal: McGill Queen's University Press: 2024).Zientek, A. (2023) "Energizing munitions for the body: The French army's alcohol policy on the Western Front during the Great War," Journal of Modern History 95, 1 (March 2023).Zientek, A. (2014) “Affective neuroscience and the causes of the mutiny of the French 82nd Infantry Brigade,” Contemporary European History 23, 3, pp. 505-22.

  7. Apr 28

    The Global Economy

    The world has certainly seen its share of economic crises before. But have we ever seen anything like this? How did we get here? How long might this last? What might it look like on the other side? And what’s with all the tariffs? Today’s guest, noted economist Chris Meissner, shares his insights and expertise on these and other pressing questions. Bio: Christopher M. Meissner, professor of economics, is an authority in comparative economic history, with an emphasis on international finance and international trade. In addition to his UC Davis faculty position, he is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He has held numerous visiting positions, including at the Paris School of Economics, the International Monetary Fund, and the Bank of England. In 2026-2027, he will be the Pitt Professor of American History at Cambridge University. Publications: One from the Many: The Global Economy since 1850. (2024) Oxford University Press.Original Sin and the Great Depression (2023) Journal of International Economics. (with Michael Bordo)Persistent Pandemics (2021) Economics and Human Biology (with Peter Z. Lin)The French (Trade) Revolution of 1860: Intra-Industry Trade and Smooth Adjustment (2021) Journal of Economic History (with Stéphane Becuwe and Bertrand Blancheton)Austerity and the Rise of the Nazi Party (2021) Journal of Economic History (with Gregori Galofré-Vilà, Martin McKee, and David Stuckler)

  8. Apr 14

    Wellness

    The word “wellness” has been appropriated by a handful of for-profit industries, each with an interest in branding the concept as something achievable through their products or services. The upside of this branding is that wellness is much closer to the top of our minds. The downside is that many have become trained to believe that wellness can only be achieved through a purchase. So, what’s the truth? Does wellness really have a price tag? And what are the factors of wellness? In today’s episode, Dr. Scott Fishman reminds us of the vast scope of influences that affect our wellness and encourages us to consider the true meaning of the word. Bio: Scott M. Fishman is a professor in the UC Davis Health Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, director of the UC Davis Center for Advancing Pain Relief, and the executive director and Jacquelyn S. Anderson endowed chair for the UC Davis Office of Wellness Education. An internationally recognized expert in pain and pain management, Fishman has held numerous leadership roles with the goal of alleviating pain. Such roles include past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, past chairman of the board of directors for the American Pain Foundation, and past board member for the American Pain Society. He is the immediate past chair and a current member of the Pain Care Coalition of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, American Pain Society, and Academy of Pain Medicine. He advocates for safe use of pain medicines with consumers and lawmakers and also lectures on a wide variety of topics related to pain. Fishman has testified before several state legislatures as well as the U.S. Congress. He serves as a consultant for various federal agencies, sits on a panel for the American Academy of Medicine, and provides expert interviews for the media, including appearances on the “Today" show, “Good Morning America,” and "PBS NewsHour.”Publications: Fishman’s book publications include "The War on Pain" (Harper's Collins Publishers), "Listening to Pain" (Oxford Univ. Press), and "Responsible Opioid Prescribing" (Federation of State Medical Boards). He also co-authored "Spinal Cord Stimulation: Implantation Techniques" (Oxford Univ. Press). He co-edited "Bonica’s Management of Pain" (Lippincott), the "Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Pain Management" (Lippincott), and "Essentials of Pain Medicine and Regional Anesthesia" (Elsevier). He has authored many peer-reviewed articles in medical journals, book chapters, and other scholarly reviews. He previously served as a senior editor of the Pain Medicine journal and serves on the editorial boards of other medical journals.

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About

The podcast that could save humanity. Minds Over Matters focuses on discoveries, research, and insights that enhance our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Join us for real conversations with experts in every field, from climate change to economics, and AI to neuroscience. No noise. Just real research broken down.

Information

  • Creator
    Minds Over Matters
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Minds Over Matters
  • Show Website
    Minds Over Matters