In episode two of The Conversation Weekly podcast we talk to academic experts about the tense situation in Myanmar following a coup in the country. And we meet an American researcher who is part of a team testing wild animals for COVID-19. Protests have rocked Myanmar in recent days as people take to the streets demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de factor leader who was arrested alongside the president, Win Myint, on February 1 when the military seized power. We speak to DB Subedi, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of New England in Australia, who explains that the Myanmar of 2021 is a very different place to the country which emerged from nearly 50 years of military rule in 2011. “They know the difference,” he says. “How it feels to live under under a democratically elected government with political freedom.”