A peacock’s eye-catching tail; extra notes in a frog’s love song; pheromones of a female bee - all these exploit sexual preferences hoping to give the suitor a better shot at mating and passing on his genes. In this conversation with Living on Earth’s Helen Palmer, evolutionary biologist Michael J. Ryan explains how sexual selection shapes the appearance, songs, smells and behavior of most living things. Michael Ryan explains his arguments in the new book, A Taste for the Beautiful: The Evolution of Attraction.

This week, Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb and Peter Dykstra discuss the investigation into Scott Pruitt’s travel records and the refocus of EPA money and staff. They note a lack of environmental justice efforts, and dive into past funding efforts for the not quite so great, but still pretty good, Lake Champlain.

North American oil and gas producers are rushing to build new pipelines as part of bid to gain more power in the international oil and gas markets, but they are running into fierce opposition at home. Reporter Sandy Tolan spoke with key players in the controversy, including residents of Louisiana'a Bayou country, where the hotly debated Bayou Bridge pipeline is still in the planning phase.

A Federal Judge has temporarily halted the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, which would cut across Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin on environmental grounds. Energy Transfer Partners wants the pipeline as the end of the Dakota Access pipeline, to bring North Dakota crude to Gulf coast refineries and export terminals. Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, tells Living on Earth’s Jaime Kaiser that the pipeline could devastate the nation’s largest swamp and compromise Louisiana’s iconic crawfish harvest.

Decision scientist Robyn Wilson of the Ohio State University was a member of EPA’s Chartered Science Advisory Board until late 2017, when a new conflict of interest policy from Administrator Scott Pruitt forced her to choose between her EPA grant and that board position. Wilson tells Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering why she chose to keep her grant, and why she’s concerned that the policy makes EPA’s science advisory boards more vulnerable to conflicts of interest, not less so, as Administrator Pruitt claims.

The Island of Nantucket off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts is home to a rich ocean ecosystem and hosts scientists dedicated to understanding it. Living on Earth’s Jaime Kaiser reports on UMass Boston Environmental student Matt Souza, and his foundational study of crab populations in the harbor on the north shore of the island.