15. Melanie D.G. Kaplan on lab animals, non-human friends, & penpals

Melanie Kaplan’s work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and National Parks magazine. She’s a former Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT. Her new book, Lab Dog, tells the story of Hammy — a beagle rescued from a research lab — and follows Melanie’s journey to uncover what really happens to the thousands of dogs used in biomedical and consumer testing in the United States.Subscribe nowWe discuss… The first non-humans we fell in love with. What have we gotten from testing lab animals?Charles Herbert Best (left) und Frederick Grant Banting (right) with one of their experimental dogs (probably summer 1921). Trump admin. moving us away from animal research? What products are still being used on lab dogs? (Bug spray) How to write a book about hard things (animal torture) and make it readable. What’s so special about beagles? I share my own non-human love stories. How my parents didn’t curate my boyhood media consumption, leading to scenes like this one being forever burned into my memory:Melanie recommends Should there be a memorial for all the lab animals? Ken wonders if Melanie has a long roster of correspondents, thereby possibly rendering their penpalship insignificant. Who would Melanie be penpals with, living or dead, if she had the choice? Who is the grand-mommy of book blurbers? What is the real America (grocery stores vs. newsfeeds)? Marc Maron’s final podcast with Barack Obama. What’s in a “Canadiano?”