Mammalogist Tyrone Lavery had heard rumors of a giant coconut-eating rat living somewhere, elusively, in the Solomon Islands. But after five years of searching, all he had to show for it was a mysterious poop. 

That is, until the giant rat fell from the sky. 

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This story was covered extensively by the press; read the article on FieldMuseum.org or check out additional coverage here: http://bit.ly/2LOJoHQ

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This episode concludes Season 1 of ExploreAStory! I hope you've enjoyed listening so far. We're taking a break, but in the meantime I'd love to hear from you so feel free to send any feedback or suggestions to ExploreAStory at Fieldmuseum dot Org. 

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Kevin Feldheim is interested in shark sex. Okay, shark reproduction. Like most vertebrates, sharks and their relatives reproduce sexually-- but while studying critically endangered sawfish (a very cool, very threatened cartilaginous fish), Kevin and his colleagues discovered something shocking: the female fish had given birth to clones, without having mated. It was the first time this phenomena had been studied in the wild for this species. Listen to hear the rest of the story. 

Read the paper here: Facultative parthenogenesis in a critically endangered wild vertebrate, from Current Biology.

Learn more about the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center at the Field Museum!

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Where are you in the world? Give us a listen! Record 30-45 seconds of your environment and email it to us at exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum(dot)org, with the subject line: "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Humor and storytelling are my two favorite devices for communicating science. My colleague Aimee Davis agrees: in a past life she was a classroom teacher, but after taking a series of classes at Chicago's hub of comedy, Second City, she decided on a new career. Today, here at the Field Museum, Aimee is tasked with bringing our science stories to thousands of visitors every year. 

Learn more about the Grainger Science Hub, including current exhibits and upcoming events!

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Where are you in the world? Give us a listen! Record 30-45 seconds of your environment and email it to us at exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum(dot)org, with the subject line: "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Would you ever think that calling up a natural history museum and asking for their 'crusties' would be a legitimate scientific request? Well, it is, and that's what Dr. Molly McDonough does. She studies mammals and their DNA, sometimes pulling out the genetic code from animals that have been dead for more than a hundred years.

For those of you (like me) who have ever scratched your head thinking 'what the heck is DNA anyway?,' Molly gives a GREAT explanation in this episode!

Molly stands in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History gerbil collection, surrounded by specimens in drawers. photo c/o Molly McDonough ---

Where are you in the world? Give us a listen! Record 30-45 seconds of your environment and email it to us at exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum(dot)org, with the subject line: "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Back in January we held a meetup at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, and invited ExploreAStory listeners and Brain Scoop fans to share a story about a memorable experience they had in a museum, in nature, or while exploring the world around them. We split the recording from that day into two parts; here's 2/2! 

Listen to Live Stories from Berlin Part 1!

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Where are you in the world? Give us a listen! Record 30-45 seconds of your environment and email it to us at exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum(dot)org, with the subject line: "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Back in January we hosted a meetup for Brain Scoop fans and ExploreAStory listeners at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. We invited you to come and share a story of a time you had a memorable experience in a museum, in nature, or while exploring the world around you. Here's part 1 of 2 from that afternoon. 

Do you have a museum or nature story? I'd love to know! Share it in the comments. :) 

The Nightingale City Berlin citizen science project: http://nightingale.berlin/ 

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Where are you in the world? Give us a listen! Record 30-45 seconds of your environment and email it to us at exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum(dot)org, with the subject line: "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Today's story is from someone who gets to live out basically every kid's dream of being a marine biologist on a beautiful tropical reef. Meg Malone studies fish behavior on a reef that's located off the shore of Moku o Lo'e, Coconut Island, which is famous in part for being the backdrop for the 1960's show 'Gilligans Island,' but today is better known as the site of the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology. In this episode she shares her day in the life of a marine biologist, recording and studying how fishes* interact with with their environment and one another. Fish do a lot of stuff in a day! Meg's helping us learn what all they're up to.

For great photos and more information about Meg's research: research.html">http://marinebiomeg.weebly.com/fishes-research.html 

*Fun fact, if you've got two fish of the same species, they're referred to as fish (e.g. 'there are two clownfish in our fish tank), but if you've got multiple different species of fish, you refer to them as 'fishes' (e.g. 'there are two clownfish and three other fishes in our fish tank).   

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Where are you in the world? Give us a listen! Record 30-45 seconds of your environment and email it to us at exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum(dot)org, with the subject line: "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Sarah Ebel has one of the most interesting jobs at the Field Museum, but it's likely not one that would jump to mind if I asked you about exciting museum positions. She's an attorney, and in addition to helping us sort out copyright and licensing issues it's also her responsibility to do things like keep us up to date on federal wildlife trafficking laws, and, you know, figure out how to install a temporary sink for a tattoo parlor we built in an exhibition. 

Today she's on the show to share a few stories. The first has to do with the time she was asked by the Fan Association of North America (fans of fans) to talk about how Obama's ban on the interstate trade of ivory was going to impact their hobby. It, uh. Didn't go so great. 

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Sarah’s Very Legal Response to our request to use the Hamburger Helper logo in a video for The Brain Scoop:

Subject: WATCH THE STOVE Fair Use Analysis

Hi, Emily and Sheheryar--

You asked me whether the use of a portion of one of the tracks from the Hamburger Helper Mixtape, "WATCH THE STOVE," and the Hamburger Helper glove mascot ("the Helping Hand" or "Lefty") in an upcoming episode of The Brain Scoop would constitute fair use under copyright and trademark law, respectively. In both cases, I think the answer is yes, it would be a fair use provided you are not making extensive use of either the mixtape or Lefty, but are using both as a brief gag satirizing the recent trend of suddenly dropped mixtapes and using HamburgerHelper as an example (which is the use you previously described to me). However, if you were using an extended clip from the mixtape or using it as background or credits music or using Lefty in a way that implied that Hamburger Helper sponsored or endorsed The Brain Scoop or The Field Museum,  that would not be a fair use.

(That was the tl:dr answer; the legal rationale wall-of-text follows)

The mixtape is protected by copyright, and, as creative work is afforded a high degree of protection. Additionally, the use you propose does not alter the work, but it does use it in a satirical context. More importantly, you are proposing to use only a very small portion of the work (only enough to make your point) and this will have no negative impact on the original work or the market for it. In fact, seeing as Hamburger Helper released the mixtape for free as a marketing stunt, referring to it in The Brain Scoop might have a net positive effect on the market for the original by driving new listeners to the original mixtape. While this isn't a clear cut case of fair use (since satirical use is a tricky, often subjective, analysis), the fact that you're planning to use so little of the work (a brief clip from one track) which will have no recognizable impact on the market for the original.

The Hamburger Helper mascot is likely protected under trademark as it serves as a brand identifier. Trademark fair use is different from copyright fair use, in that fair use of a trademark is allowed when the trademark is needed to accurately identify the source of a product, the use is constrained to the amount required, and there is no implication made that the use constitute endorsement or sponsorship by the trademark holder. Again, the use you described would fall under fair use, as you are using Lefty only briefly to identify the source of the mixtape and not in away that implies Hamburger Helper's endorsement. While you could just use Hamburger Helper's word mark, rather than its mascot, Lefty is immediately recognizable, which is efficient for a visual medium, and Hamburger Helper purposefully associated Lefty with the mixtape; it seems difficult to refer to the mixtape without referring to Lefty.

If you have any other questions or if your planned use has drastically changed, let me know. But, otherwise, your mixtape gag passes legal muster (thanks for the fun question).

Best,

Sarah

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Where are you in the world? Give us a listen! Record 30-45 seconds of your environment and email it to us at exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum(dot)org, with the subject line: "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

How do paleontologists know when they've found a new species of dinosaur, or any other extinct life? I have no idea but thankfully I've got a few scientists on speed-dial that comes in pretty handy for such questions.

In today's episode we caught up with Gabriella Rossetto at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science to hear her story about a particularly eventful field season, and Dr. Ken Angielczyk, Associate Curator at the Field Museum comes back to share his experience being one of only a handful of world experts uncovering and studying Dicynodonts; tusked mammal-like animals that lived around 290-251 million years ago. 

Oh, and here's the xkcd comic about spider paleontology Ken and I talk about.

These first few episodes have been planted pretty firmly in the fossil record but coming up we'll hear from a mammalogist working with ancient DNA, a museum attorney responsible for setting up a fully-functioning tattoo parlor in a public exhibition, and a marine biologist who spends her field season examining coral reef fishes around the world. Stay tuned! 

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Each episode includes a segment at the end where we want to hear from you. Actually, we want to hear from your environment. We wanna know:

1. Your name
2. Where you are in the world, and what you're doing
3. 30-45 recorded seconds of your environment, preferably outside, anywhere (and everywhere). Whether you're in an urban area on your way to work or school, conducting fieldwork near home or abroad, or just enjoying a moment outside-- we want to hear it!

You can record it using the voice memo app on your smartphone and email the file to us either by responding to this newsletter or sending it to exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum.org, with the subject line "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Ken Angielczyk is an Associate Curator at the Field Museum. While his research primarily focuses on a group of ancient mammal relatives called Dicynodonts, he's dabbled elsewhere in the fossil record, too- but no matter the subject of study, there's usually a story involved. There was that one time a broken fossil turtle shell led to a surprising discovery, or another instance in which he very nearly walked away from a site teeming with Asilisaurus- one of the oldest dinosaurs ever discovered.

Mistakes in life and inevitable and scientists certainly aren't immune to them, either. Today's episode explores what these little learning opportunities in disguise have to offer us when we decide to pay attention. 

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Each episode includes a segment at the end where we want to hear from you. Actually, we want to hear from your environment. We wanna know:

1. Your name
2. Where you are in the world, and what you're doing
3. 30-45 recorded seconds of your environment, preferably outside, anywhere (and everywhere). Whether you're in an urban area on your way to work or school, conducting fieldwork near home or abroad, or just enjoying a moment outside-- we want to hear it!

You can record it using the voice memo app on your smartphone and email the file to us either by responding to this newsletter or sending it to exploreastory(at)fieldmuseum.org, with the subject line "OK to share- EAS." Please include your name & location in the recording! By sending us the file you're giving us permission to use it at the end of a future episode or another Brain Scoop-related project, so thank you in advance.

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ExploreAStory is written and hosted by Emily Graslie, produced by Sheheryar Ahsan and Brandon Brungard, with music by Jason Weidner, and made with support from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.