Delving Into Science-related Topics To Bridge The Divide Between Scientist & Science-enthusiast Here

I'm Calvin Yeager, the host of Curioscity. It's a science show! Primarily, I'm a Ph. D. candidate at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies the biochemistry of viruses. Curioscity was a way to give back to the global community of science-enthusiasts. Within the United States, taxes are collected and can end up funding science but the results of such studies are incomprehensible. Firstly, there is not a strong effort from the scientists to explain what the results mean, nor secondly is there a strong effort from the common taxpayer to seek out the results of those studies. Curioscity aims to delve into topics including viruses, chemistry, biology, technology, and methodology (but ironically, not Scientology) in order to assist bridging the divide between scientist and science-enthusiast.

I'm fortunate to have a job where I do many small liquid manipulations (pipetting!) and am capable of listening to audio. That audio tends to be podcasts. It was an easy decision to make. As a scientist, I listen to many podcasts that say things that are pseudo-scientific in nature. They won't have me on their show, so I decided to make a show to address some of those things I heard. For example, check out the pilot of the show (episode 3, the Flu Vaccine). I prepared for a couple months, banking episodes before a January 2019 release.

We release an episode once a week, fifty weeks a year! The episodes are roughly 47+-12 minutes long, and require 6-10 hours of research, editing, recording, and producing. I do all of it! My day job precludes me from doing too much work during the day, but I try to stay productive by getting up very early and getting right to work. I'd say I personally spend 500 dollars a year on a website, hosting, and other miscellaneous costs for Curioscity. I'm a musician, so I fortunately already had a variety of recording equipment!

I do not make any money from podcasting, but it has been helpful for my career! Scientists love when science is highlighted to the taxpayer. The show has not been wildly successful, but averaging 1,200 downloads a year is pretty great because we had no promotion or solicitation for listeners outside of Twitter!

I use a Focusrite ClarettePre into my laptop, using Reaper as my DAW. My personal mic is a Blue Mouse, while the guest uses a Shure SM7B. I clean up the audio with iZotope products (RX7). I find my guests locally and online. I write an outline of the discussion topic for each week and discuss it with my guest, usually in-person but occasionally via Skype. I never use the Skype audio, however, and prefer to have my guest download Audacity to record locally before sending me the audio track.

Mostly from Twitter! Scientists are a pretty accepting group and will support the show if they like it. I put out our episodes on all the different podcasting platforms I can, but roughly 60% of our downloads come from Apple Podcasts / iTunes, with the rest being browser listeners, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, etc. My website, ascienceshow.com, provides a nice location for listeners to find the show and the citations, as well.

It's going to be a lot of work! Having a plan is harder but results in a better product. Google the issue you're having, because you're not the first one! Try to collaborate with other podcasters.

You can always hear my references at ascienceshow.com, tweet at me (especially if I got something wrong!) at CalYeager, or email us at ascienceshow@gmail.com.