Is This the Bug to End All Bees?

Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant

WNET

Science, Pets & Animals, Nature, Kids & Family, Natural Sciences

4.9 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Samuel Ramsey was a child, he was afraid of bugs. But a trip to the library with his mother changed everything and led him to become a bee entomologist. He grew up gay in a non-affirming religious community, he was the only Black entomologist in his Doctoral program, and today he’s both a Christian AND a scientist in a world that often asks him to choose between his faith and his practice. But Dr. Buggs (his media nickname) recently made a breakthrough discovery in the fight against one of the biggest global pandemics in history: the Varroa Destructor; a mite that is threatening bee colonies all over the world. And with them, our very future on the planet. Follow Dr. Samuel Ramsey aka Dr. Sammy Buggs on his website, Instagram, or YouTube. Thanks for listening to Going Wild. We're really excited to share the rest of this season with you! You can learn more about season three HERE and catch up on seasons one and two HERE. If you want to support us, you can follow Going Wild on your favorite podcast-listening app. And while you're there, please leave us a review. It really helps. You can also get updates and bonus content by following me, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and PBS Nature on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook. You can find more information on all of our guests this season in each episode's show notes. And you can catch new episodes of Nature, Wednesdays at 8/7 Central on PBS, pbs.org/nature, and the PBS app. Going Wild is a podcast by PBS Nature. NATURE is an award-winning series created by The WNET Group and made possible by all of you. Views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the individuals expressing them and do not necessarily reflect those of THIRTEEN Productions LLC/The WNET Group.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, hey, uh, turn my mic up.
0:08.9	It's been 17 years and I need to make sure she hear this.
0:13.7	You're listening to B researcher, an endowed professor of entomology at the University of Colorado Boulder, Dr. Samuel Ramsey,
0:23.9	a.k.a. Dr. Bugs.
0:27.7	I've been living in my own little world underground till I found you, girl.
0:34.7	You.
0:36.0	Right now he's interpreting the song of a cicada, who's been buried underground for 17 years and has finally emerged to find a mate.
0:46.3	I'm just constantly surprised by people who have seen my Dr. Bugs videos.
0:51.6	Gail King has seen my Dr. Bugs videos. She told me directly, I love Dr. Bugs videos. Gail King has seen my Dr. Bugs videos.
0:55.2	She told me directly, I love Dr. Bugs.
0:58.7	What?
0:59.5	What?
1:00.6	I just, I can't.
1:03.5	Unfortunately for us and Gail King, Sammy's no longer making these amazing DIY videos for kids from his office in grad school.
1:12.2	But don't worry. You can still find him sharing his love of science and education as the host of
1:18.2	Crash Course Biology. And as a side note, I hosted Crash Course Zoology, and I'm thrilled to be
1:25.5	in such great company. He's also a National Geographic explorer,
1:30.3	the founder and director of the Ramsey Research Foundation, and his groundbreaking research on the
1:35.8	honeybee pandemic has led to major shifts in the way the scientific community is working to save the
1:41.3	species. But getting here hasn't been easy. In fact, Dr. Ramsey
1:46.8	almost didn't make it through his doctoral program at all. And it wasn't because of the quality
1:51.8	of his work or the pressures of a grad school schedule. What stood in Sammy's way was a single
	...

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