Animal Science

Former U.S. Senator and Ambassador Jeff Flake on party politics and restoring balance in Washington — plus how nature is shaping the future of vehicle safety.

Puppy Parker Posey, a beagle mix living in Des Moines, uses augmentative interspecies communication to express herself.

Some pet-owners are talking with their pets using augmentative interspecies communication devices — learning more about what animals want, feel and understand.

For many of the domesticated animals we live with, it’s pretty easy to see how they might be related to their wild ancestors — but where did cattle come from? Later, farmer and author Beth Hoffman joins the program to talk about her podcast, At the Iowa Farm Table.

Federal funding cuts are hitting several areas here in Iowa. This hour, we learn about two of them.

In her travels around the world, Goodall implores humans to care for their evolutionary relatives.

Kanzi, a bonobo with a famously incredible understanding of language, passed away at age 44. Then, ways Iowans can contribute to scientific research.

Kanzi taught scientists and visitors about bonobos, language and being human.

Jane Goodall is the foremost expert on chimpanzees and has spent the last 40 years advocating for the protection of their habitat and the natural world as a whole.

The USDA National Centers for Animal Health in Ames is at the forefront of livestock research, foreign disease diagnostics and vaccine regulation in the U.S. It’s also feeling the impact of dozens of layoffs associated with the Trump administration’s purge of federal workers.