Manitoba Snakes, Porcupine Staples, Surgical Glue, Bamberger Ranch, Hadrian's Wall

Writhing dens of mating garter snakes are drawing crowds to Narcisse, Manitoba Guest: Robert T. Mason, Professor of Integrative Biology, Oregon State University  For a few days every spring, tens of thousands of snakes emerge from limestone caves in Narcisse, Manitoba to mate. They congregate in writhing dens completely covering the marshy ground. Robert T. Mason, professor of Integrative Biology, weighs in on this slithery phenomenon. The Porcupine Inspires Medicine Guest:  Jeff Karp; Associate Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Medical staples are an incredibly useful way to quickly close wounds, but current methods leave room for infection and further tissue damage. Jeff Karp, a biomedical engineer from Harvard Medical School, weighs in on how porcupine quills could be the answer to innovation in surgical sutures. Worm-inspired glue is being used to mend broken hearts Guest: Jeff Karp; Associate Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.  Fixing heart defects is a notoriously difficult feat, and existing suturing technology can be dangerous. Jeff Karp, a biomedical engineer, has worked with a team of researchers to develop a new surgical glue. The best part? It’s inspired by worms! Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve Guest: J. David Bamberger, founder, Bamberger Ranch Preserve Meet the man that once sold vacuums and now lives on a 5,500-acre nature preserve that he created out of Texas’s most desolate wilderness. Hadrian’s Wall Guest: David Potter, Francis W. Kelsey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Roman History and Arthur F. Thurnau professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. Hadrian’s wall, over 70 miles long and stretching throughout Britain, marked the edge of the Roman empire. It also marked an ideological shift, abandoning the idea of “anyone can be a Roman” to a much more exclusionary view of Romans v. outsiders. The wall itself was an impressive feat of engineering and prowess, but did this physical and societal barrier lead to to the downfall of empire?