Timeout Radio

Yolo Causeway east of Davis takes you over the wetlands of the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, where a quarter-million migrating Mexican free-tailed bats roost each summer. At sunset, you can see this large bat colony flying miles up into the air to catch insects for food on the bypass. Meet Yolo Basin Foundation's bat expert, Corky Quirk, who helps injured and orphaned bats return to the wild and leads nature walks through the Yolo Bypass. Hear why these amazing mammals are incredibly important to the ecosystem and agriculture, as we dispel myths and fears surrounding bats around COVID-19. Visit San Antonio, Texas, home to the Alamo, the birthplace of chili, and the world's largest bat colony in Bracken Cave.

Picking through garbage doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but there are lots of cool things we can learn about our society by studying trash. Garbology means the science of trash. Studying patterns of what people throw away tells us a lot about human society, and what environmental and social issues communities face. Find out how a plastic bottle from a California beach can end up floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for years, adding to microplastic pollution. We talk to Emily Castles, a student at Davis High about Davis Cans for Change, an organization aimed at educating the public and encouraging reducing, reusing and recycling. Our place of the week, Copenhagen, is the most efficient city in the world with garbage and recycling. Only 4% percent of Copenhagen's waste ends up in landfills. In comparison, 70% of waste in the U.S. ends up in landfills!

Local newspapers are the pulse of a community. They help people understand important issues in their area, put national issues such as racial injustice or pandemics into local context, connect small businesses with customers through advertising, record the history of a community, and help start grassroots efforts to bring about change. Hear about how local newspapers flourished in the early 1900’s and why they have struggled to survive over the past 20 years. Bob Dunning from the Davis Enterprise talks to us about his 50-year career as a sports editor and columnist, his advice to aspiring journalists, changes in journalism and newspaper publishing with the widespread use of online media, and the challenges of sports reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our place of the week is Oregon, which is home to not only Bob Dunning's birthplace, but also to the deepest lake in the U.S., and strangely — one humongous fungus.

Thinking about a career in sports broadcasting? Meet the G-Man Gary Gerould, radio play-by-play voice of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings for 36 years, who at the age of 80 is one of the NBA's longest tenured announcers. The G-Man got his start in broadcasting at the age of 14 at a local radio station in a small town in Michigan. Learn about his long broadcasting career and how the sports broadcasting world adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then visit Michigan to learn a few surprising facts about wolverines. When people think of Michigan, they think of automobiles. But did you know that Michigan has 11,000 lakes, 3000 miles of freshwater shoreline, and the first city in the U.S. to have phone numbers?