This podcast is supported by the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, one of America's leading research medical schools.

Icon Mount Sinai is the academic arm of the eight hospital Mount Sinai health system in New York City.

It's consistently among the top recipients of NIH funding.

Researchers at Icon Mount Sinai have made breakthrough discoveries in many fields vital to

advancing the health of patients, including cancer, COVID and long COVID, cardiology, neuroscience, and

artificial intelligence. The Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. We find a way. Welcome to the science podcast for August 21st,

2020. I'm Sarah Crespi. First up this week, staff writer Eric Stockstead joins me to talk about

how wildlife biologists are taking advantage of humanity's sudden lull

to see how animal behavior changes when people are a little less obtrusive.

Next for our special issue on mud, yes, wet dirt, we have senior correspondent Elizabeth Panisi.

She's going to talk about her feature on electric microbes that were first found in mud.

Now, they're found pretty much everywhere.

First up this week, we have staff writer Eric Stockshead.

He wrote about what we can learn from wildlife or about wildlife when humans suddenly go quiet.

Hi, Eric.

Hi, Sarah.

This spring and summer, the world has been quieter.

Less travel, less commuting, fewer gatherings that make large crowd noises.

In fact, in the story, you use this term anthropos.

What does the change, this change in human behavior, look like from the point of view of wild

animals?

Say you're a squirrel.

...