Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Activists Around the World: Dr. Charlotte M. Taylor

Transcript

Activists Around the World: Dr. Charlotte M. Taylor · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I don't come to stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never told your production. I heart radio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And Happy April. I don't know why I had to
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: begin it that way, but I guess I'll go there.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: If you are currently listening as we are releasing, it
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: is April beginning of April.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: That is Happy Easter if you celebrated.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Also April is Earth Month, where we are supposed to
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: be talking about environmental issues and all of the such.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: So we thought for this activist around the world that
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: we should celebrate a botanist who is one of the
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: most quote unquote like literally every article starts off with
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: most prolific female or woman botanists alive today. And I
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, she is based out of the US,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: out of Missouri. If you hear any of her podcasts
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: or interviews, they talk about the garden and it's talking
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: about Missouri Botanical Garden, which I'm like, Oh, they just call.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: It the garden. I like that.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are talking about doctor Charlotte M.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Taylor. So doctor Taylor is a pretty big deal in
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the botany world.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: She is a professor and researcher specializing in taxonomy, which
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: it took me a little bit of time to figure
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: that out, which is a biologist who studies the origins
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: and classifications of specific organisms in groups. So it is
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: very specified with that they study relationships of specific groups
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: of plants, and they name them, they classify them. She
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: and we've talked about it with a female first with Eves.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: I remember this episode because I really were like fascinated
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: by the fact that they would go into the woods
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: and just go and research. Essentially, this is what she does,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: and she has done it so well that she has
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: become prolific in this field. As she explains it to
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Saint Louis NPR, a small specialized part that tries to
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: make sense of the organisms around them so others can
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: understand better about them. So she gets very like poetic
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: and trying to put it in layman's terms so that
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: we understand essentially what this is. And she goes on
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: to talk about how she studies new organisms and tries
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: to help classify them to better understand their functioning.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So here's a bit from that interview.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Taylor has spent more than forty years in the field
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: of botany and taxonomy. The general question is what is
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: all this life around us? She explained, this is imposing
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: a scientific framework on stuff that scientists can use. You
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: have to understand what the plant is doing and who
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the plant is before you name it. So if you
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: go and listen to any of her interviews of the podcast,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: different interviews that there's not a lot of interviews that
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I could find online, like that's written articles, but the
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: view that you can see she does talk about how
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: she takes on the environment when she's classifying these plants.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: There's actually very strict rules on how you can name
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: them as well as she talks about the documents.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: She talks about codes like it's really specific.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, okay, okay, there's regulations upon regulations upon regulations,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: and they do it really well. She talked about an
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: experience where she went to South America and she was
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: doing a plant that was sweeter, so she named it
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: something in relations to being sweet. It was like she
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: talked about like a stevia type of plant, and I
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, very cool, very cool to listen if
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: you get a chance to hear her interviews and this
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: work of discovering and naming plant has again put her
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: at the top of the list for her work. She
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: has a record number of naming over five hundred species
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: as of December twenty twenty three, which puts her in
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the top three of the most again prolific female botanists
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: to describe new species in history of all time. The
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: other two are no longer alive, like it's been a
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: long time, so she is literally the only living one
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: to have hit that number. Huge, and like most people
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: who are passionate about the work, she didn't realize it
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: until other people told her so. This is from an
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: article from Discover and share dot org. In her forty
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: one year career, Missouri potchnical garden scientist Charlotte Taylor has
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: described five hundred new species of plants. That makes her
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: the most prolific female author of new plant species alive.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: She's the third most prolific female botanist to describe new
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: species in history. But until a team of researchers looking
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: to recognize the work of women in botany reached out
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: to her, she had no idea of her ranking. I
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: have never thought about it. You look at the nineteenth
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: century authors that they describe new species, and they get
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: twenty thirty thousand new names. She explains, it was a
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: total shock. I had to read the message twice. You
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: gotta love that you really didn't know you were making history,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: because all you're thinking is I'm doing this job, which,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: by the way, I still kind of don't think about
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: this as a job. And I think I said this
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: during Eve's episode with female First, because I was like,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: that's yeah, naming things, like creating names and like being
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: able to like really be a part of scientific history.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: And this woman who was still alive is doing so today.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's definitely iconic.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: It's pretty awesome that she was like, huh, right, Not
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: only is she doing these things which not many people
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: can do, she didn't realize how much she has done.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: And if you look at her family history, it isn't
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: too much of a shock to see her in this field.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Again from that same article, Taylor's upbringing also helped guide
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: her toward a career studying the natural world. Her mother
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: had a degree in natural history and her father was
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: a wildlife biologist. Both were avid birdwatchers, and her family
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: spent much of their time outside, and though she always
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: knew she wanted to study the environment around her and nature,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: it wasn't until a bit later she decided to pursue taxonomy.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I think, she said she got thought it was going
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: to be an ecologist, which kind of like hand in hand,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: but there's differences. But she realized that this type of
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: work was like unraveling a mystery. And she goes on
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: saying that quote, I love mysteries and I love puzzles,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: and plant taxonomy is a puzzle. So her work is
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: focused on ruby Asia, specifically plants that include those used
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: for coffee in coining uh you know, always in the
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: good Tonic. She has traveled to different countries around the
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: world to collect specimens and plants, including Chile, Colombia, and
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: also in the United States. And back to that discoverer
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: share and share dot Org article, they write Taylor's work
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: has focused on Latin America, where the highest number of
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: species can be found. She went on to talk about
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: how she loved winter, but now she says, I went
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: to the tropics and that was it.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: No more winter. Like She's just like, okay, well, this
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: is my life now.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: And when she spoke again with the Saint Louis in NPR,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: she said this about her work. In order to study something,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: you have to know what it is. We do this
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: with documentation and careful delimitation of information so that people
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: can find it.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I basically write reference books. Yeah, so she goes on to.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Talk about how she went from the field to doing
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: this work and writing and documenting and making sure that
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: it is all processed, which we talked about how important
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: of work that is. But yeah, she kind of was like,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm gonna let the young ones take those now.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: And there are several articles talking about her mentorship how
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: she really did open up pathways for a lot of
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: women to be in botany. There were so many articles
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: because I wanted specifically to look at this type of
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: field that talk about how it's.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Been slow rolling.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Even though women have always been a part of the field,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean they weren't always welcomed. Again, back to that
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Eve's Female first episode we talked about because she was
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: a pioneer and she was a woman of color doing
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: this work, and it's kind of like, oh, it took
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: these measures, and even today, even though there's a lot more,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: they definitely talk about how they had to have each
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: other's backs and push forward diversity. So we love to
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: see that, and yeah, you an't want to talk about
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: again her achievement, and they write this. She was contacted
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: by researchers from Royal Potanical Gardens Q and the University
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: of Cambridge. Their twenty twenty study Acknowledging Female role Models
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: in Botanical and Mycological Taxonomy, documented the contributions of women
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: scientists across decades and found that Taylor's five hundred use
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: plant species made her the third most prolific female botanist
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: of all time.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And again she talks about it.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: It was actually very exciting, very satisfying, and very surprising
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: because I simply never thought about it. I worked at
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: the Missouri Botanical Garden. That's what we do. This is
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: who we are. We're the big time. Of course I
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: have a lot of species. I love that because I
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: talk about how there's like sixty other taxonomists in the garden,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: as they say, but obviously she's high up there and
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: has done a lot of work. So it's definitely awesome
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: when you find and discover people like this who do
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: such incredible work that rarely understand how big of an
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: impact they have.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you got to hear it when she was alive.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I just love the passion and determination of
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: not even thinking about that. You're just right going to jab.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: That's my job, all right, if you say so. Well,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: listeners as always. If you have any thoughts about this
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: or any suggestions for future episodes, you can contact us.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: You can email us at Hello at stuff iever Told
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: You dot com. You can find us a blue skyt
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: some merchandise at coom Bureau, and we have a book
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: always to our super produced Christine, our executive produce, and a.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Contributor, Joey. Thank you. Thanks to you for listening.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Stuff Whenever Told You question by heart Radio. For more
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check out the
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: heart Radio app Apple podcast wherever you listen to your
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: favorite show