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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD

@mdlaplante.bsky.social
147 followers 98 following 155 posts

Climate Scientist. Professor of Journalism. Author of Superlative. Host of UnDisciplined on Utah Public Radio. Bar owner at 1833 Craft. Recipient of the National Academies' Schmidt Award for science communication.

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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Journalist Kate Yoder did a great job describing our study on snow-eater heatwaves. I'm grateful to have been able to contribute to this work and am always so pleased to work with reporters who care deeply about sharing science stories.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Proposing a new kind of weather event is admittedly audacious. But our team believes it can help us better prepare for floods and drought. "Snow eater heat waves," which double the rate of melt, may be growing bigger, becoming more common, and arriving earlier. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Snow-eater heat waves of the western United States
Snow-eater heat waves are defined, identified, and shown to nearly double usual western United States spring snowmelt rates.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
One of my favorite scientific roles is part of an applied agricultural research project focused on exploring whether the most widely distributed tree in North America might have a sweet side benefit in addition to its importance for fire mitigation and biodiversity. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iClI...
youtube.com
Aspen Syrup Experimentation Network: Making the Syrup
YouTube video by Matthew LaPlante
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
My prayers have been answered.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Aw. You read and commented on multiple posts from me today. How nice.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
In a world where skeletons never stay in closets, only two kinds of people would ever run for office: those with nothing to be ashamed of, and those ashamed of nothing. The first group is a myth, so the second is what we get on our ballots.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Tremendous turn-around.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Detest A.I.? OK. But you really should read this before you start calling it names. open.substack.com/pub/witherwa...
open.substack.com
The Tempest, and Why We Don’t Need New Slurs for AI
Really, people! It's not! That! Hard! Have some respect for yourselves.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
This.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
2025: New book under contract w/MIT Nat'l Academies research award 2nd TEDxTalk Aspen syrup project funded Helped birth 2nd NYT best-seller Bar featured on ABC/FOX/SLTrib/SLUG Ep.300 of UnDisciplined SFClimateWeek org. team Wrote for LA Rev. of Books Launched solutions reporting class Back to boxing
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Well played, @theathletic.com.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
I became a climate scientist because I'm deeply attracted to tragedy. But I've come to believe that prediction-enabled adaptation is a force multiplier in a rapidly changing world. And I'm buoyant about what this science allow us to do—even in an inexorably warmer future. youtu.be/ijBY4YrAvLU?...
youtu.be
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Bro, your book is Arizona in a really spectacular Four Corners region of that bookstore table.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Never underestimate the possibility that a single act of kindness might make someone's day.
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Reposted by Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD
The Salt Lake Tribune @sltrib.com · 01/11/2025
Where can you get a nonalcoholic cocktail in Salt Lake City? Look to this Sugar House speakeasy.
sltrib.com
This century-old Sugar House home is SLC’s newest nonalcoholic speakeasy. Here’s where to find it.
Where can you get a nonalcoholic cocktail in Salt Lake City? Look to this Sugar House speakeasy.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Truly proud to be among this group of journalists, researchers, and science communicators. Thank you, @nationalacademies.org and @schmidtsciences.bsky.social.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
The other 23 people on this list are absolutely amazing researchers, journalists, and science communicators from whom I am already learning so much. And then there's me. In the immortal words of Thom Yorke: "What the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here."
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
I am driving my parents’ white Subaru Outback in Utah today. This means that I have spent at least 47% of my day looking for this godforsaken car in parking lots filled with other white Subaru Outbacks.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
A beautiful adage, but there is no record of Orwell saying or writing this.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
I’m completely enchanted with David Maitland and the way he sees beauty and purpose in this world. You’ll be enchanted, too. Here’s Part 1 of my interview with the zoologist and Nature Photographer of the Year award-winner. www.upr.org/show/undisci...
upr.org
UnDisciplined: The Patterns of Life, Part 1
Again and again, similar patterns show up in nature in different creatures at different times in their evolutionary histories. And when they show up, we often perceive them as beautiful. Why?
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
These guys were a blast. Give a listen.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Tickets for TEDxSaltLakeCity are now available. I'll be speaking about how climate prediction can be a force multiplier in a rapidly warming world. www.tedxsaltlakecity.com/2025-events/...
tedxsaltlakecity.com
TEDxSaltLakeCity - 2025 Lineup
TEDxSaltLakeCity aims to be the heart of independent, creative, and local thought in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
I'm the guy who questions your interior decorating skills, tells you your dogs probably don't like you, and reminds you that you'll always live in Alex's shadow whenever you're in the north goal in Salt Lake City. But even I was worried about you after that collision. Glad you're back home. Rest up.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Alas, it just doesn't happen very much. If we miss the moment to resist in large-enough numbers (or resist violently, giving the state cover for assuming even greater control) then reality quickly sets in. Deep compliance follows. We've seen this is every dictatorship in the world. We're not immune.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Pleased to have been invited by @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social to review Boris Fishman's latest, The Unwanted — an allegory about complicity that feels particularly relevant right now. lareviewofbooks.org/article/comp...
lareviewofbooks.org
Complicity Becomes Us | Los Angeles Review of Books
Matthew D. LaPlante considers the perils of complicity in Boris Fishman’s novel “The Unwanted.”
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
I didn't want to pathologize, and I certainly didn't want to traumatize, but there was something deep in Dan McClellan's past that seemed so speak to his motivations to put data over dogma. In part two of my conversation with ‪@maklelan.bsky.social‬, we dive into it. www.upr.org/show/undisci...
upr.org
UnDisciplined: Did a tragedy at a fundamentalist commune drive this Biblical scholar’s desire to put data over dogma?
Dan McClellan loves the Bible. He doesn’t always love what it says. But he works hard not to try to mold it into something that he wants it to be — to meet it, he says, on its own terms. Doing anythin...
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Kilby has got Salt Lake City looking like a Riverside County thrift store fire sale rack in late April.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Ack! We spelled Dan's last name incorrectly in the show description. I'm fixing that now. (I give my students failing grades for mistakes like this. So judge me accordingly.)
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Part one of my two-episode interview with Dan McClellan (@maklelan.bsky.social) was broadcast this morning. In it we discuss a thorny question: Does the Bible ever say it's the word of God? And if it doesn't, by what authority do Christians believe it is? www.upr.org/show/undisci...
upr.org
UnDisciplined: Does the Bible really say it is the Word of God?
Just about 60% of Americans say they identify as Christian. And just about 20% of Americans say they have read the entire Bible.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Agreed.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Our little ag science project is going well.
youtube.com
Aspen Syrup Production Experimentation Network: Collecting the Sap
YouTube video by Matthew LaPlante
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
I know that you're all excited about trying a Chicago pope for the first time, but I've always preferred my pontiffs with yellow mustard, sweet pickle relish, chopped onions, tomatoes, pepperoncinis, a pickle spear and celery salt on a poppy seed bun.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
I particularly liked the appearance from Time-Traveling Conan O'Brien at 1:28.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
It was a big day for the ASPEN project: After a lot of hard work, we finally reached sap flow today, collected 10 sample vials from our experimentation grove, and did a little taste test.
youtube.com
ASPEN: ASPEN SYRUP PRODUCTION EXPERIMENTATION NETWORK: SAP FLOW
YouTube video by Matthew LaPlante
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
My autistic child played four years of varsity high school sports, wrote four plays, performed in many others, starred as Octavius Caesar in a local production of Antony & Cleopatra, and will graduate next week with a bachelor's degree—at the age of 17. Autism doesn’t destroy children. Ableism does.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
What's the one thing that would do more than anything else to change our woeful global warming trajectory? More renewables? Cap and trade? Accountability for carbon polluters? Nope, @mikebernerslee.bsky.social says it's the establishment of "a climate of truth." www.upr.org/show/undisci...
upr.org
UnDisciplined: Can holding leaders accountable to truth unlock a climate revolution?
In his new book, climate analyst Mike Berners-Lee says there's one shift that would go far toward solving every climate bind we’re in: holding corporate and political leaders accountable to truth.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
I was there for the first MLS game on April 6, 1996. Like today, it was D.C. at San Jose, and there was a guy named Harkes on the field and a coach named Bruce Arena on the sidelines. Unlike today, it was unclear then if the league would make it. But soccer survived. And now it thrives in the USA.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
I've been looking forward to this chat with @agroclim.bsky.social for many months, and Weston Anderson absolutely exceeded my expectations. What a privilege it is to chat with such brilliant people. www.upr.org/show/undisci...
upr.org
UnDisciplined: Why aren't we using climate phases to predict crop yields?
For decades, we’ve known that climate cycles like El Niño affect regional crop yields. But even though our food system is increasingly global, we haven’t done a great job of thinking at a planetary sc...
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
I had such a great chat with @karenlloyd.bsky.social today. Can't wait to share our episode on her new book, Intraterrestrials: Discovering the Strangest Life on Earth.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
I love it when Raegan Edelman hosts UnDisciplined — not because it's a break for me (which I do also like) but because she comes to the microphone with such enthusiasm and awe for our world. Her chat with Bevin Cohen on herbs and seasons is a salve for the soul. www.upr.org/show/undisci...
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
There is little more frightening than the prospect of losing cognitive capacity before losing physical capacity. This book, by @drdalebredesen.bsky.social, could not be more important.
amazon.com
The Ageless Brain: How to Sharpen and Protect Your Mind for a Lifetime
The Ageless Brain: How to Sharpen and Protect Your Mind for a Lifetime [Bredesen MD, Dale E.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Ageless Brain: How to Sharpen and Protect Your Mind for a Lifetime
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Inspired by the lyricism of this floor statement, I've invited MLA Shepherd onto the program to talk about the science of speech. What would you ask him about?
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
A Navy lieutenant I worked with once misplaced a classified mission briefing folder. He looked more scared at that moment than he ever appeared before getting into the cockpit of an F/A-18 to fly sorties over Iraq.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Best review I’ve ever gotten. Thank you. ❤️
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
I’m glad you shared your time with us on UnDisciplined. Coming from both sides of the microphone on this: I think it’s about intellectual engagement. I read my guests’ work. When I’m interviewed, that’s what I hope for and expect. That’s what makes the conversations worthwhile.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
My hypothesis: A lot of people who were active on the other platform have been detoxed from it for a year or more and realized that life is just fine and dandy without it. I like it and want to engage like the good ol' Twitter days, but I understand.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Among the saddest stories I ever wrote was the one I penned after Misha’s death. It’s also the one in which the spokesperson from the AZA accused me of abetting terrorists. That didn’t go over well. archive.sltrib.com/article.php?...
archive.sltrib.com
The Salt Lake Tribune - Utah News, Sports, Religion & Entertainment
Utah's independent nonprofit news source covers news, politics, faith, arts and sports for Salt Lake City and Utah. Read Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Three hundred episodes. More than four hundred scientists. We've talked about everything from the physics of fried rice to why people love to paint dogs. www.usu.edu/today/story/...
usu.edu
UPR Show About Science, 'UnDisciplined,' Celebrates 300th Episode
This week, Utah Public Radio's UnDisciplined will broadcast its 300th episode of making science accessible without dumbing it down.
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
How dare you report on science that doesn’t affirm my worst fears about everything all the time! 😂
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Matthew D. LaPlante, PhD @mdlaplante.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
I loved this conversation with @zachmack.bsky.social, and I think you will, too. His new podcast from @npr.org's Embedded is a must-listen. www.upr.org/show/undisci...
upr.org
UnDisciplined: This guy bet his dad $10K that 10 prophecies wouldn’t come true. Who won?
Zach watched his dad become more and more susceptible to conspiracy theories. But when his dad bet him that 10 predictions would come true by the end of 2024, Zach thought he found a way to bring his ...
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