The surprising connections in science and technology that give you the Big Picture. Astronomer Seth Shostak and science journalist Molly Bentley are joined each week by leading researchers, techies, and journalists to provide a smart and humorous take on science. Our regular ”Skeptic Check” episodes cast a critical eye on pseudoscience.
The podcast Big Picture Science is created by Big Picture Science. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
Bigfoot could get official status if proposed legislation passes making it the state cryptid of California. If nothing else, the effort shows that fascination with cryptids has an outsized footprint on our culture. We look at why mythical creatures continue to capture imaginations - as well as passions - of die-hard believers, despite no evidence for their existence. An author uncovers the origin of a beloved hoax in the American West and its unexpected ties to a real animal and historical medical breakthrough. But are we looking for creature delights in all the wrong places? A tally of Earth’s species reveals that far more remain unidentified than are currently known. Newly discovered critters such as the Yeti crab and an organism dubbed the
Flying Spaghetti Monster are so strange, it challenges us to separate fauna fact from folktale.
Guests:
Chris Rogers – Assemblymember, California’s 2nd Assembly District
Benjamin Radford – Deputy Editor of Skeptical Inquirer Science Magazine, author, and co-host
of Squaring the Strange podcast
Michael Branch – Writer, humorist, and author of On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World’s Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer
Boris Worm – Marine ecologist, Professor of Biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Self-driving cars, once a thing of science fiction, have become a reality in a handful of cities across the country. As our vehicles gain autonomy, they may provoke a profound shift not unlike the introduction of the first car in the late1800s and raise the question of whether the human driver will soon be obsolete. For a glimpse into the future of self-driving cars, we take a spin through the history of the automobile, from the Model T to the driverless taxi-cab. Along the way, we explore the rise of American manufacturing and the unmistakable but unexpected way in which we have bonded to our four-wheeled companions.
Guests
:
Witold Rybczynski – Professor emeritus of architecture and design at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book, The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car
Timothy B Lee – Technology journalist and writer of the newsletter, Understanding AI
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Asteroids are rich in precious metals and other valuable resources. But mining them presents considerable challenges. We discuss these, and consider how these spinning, rocky resources might be the key to a space-faring future. But an economist points out the consequences of bringing material back to Earth, and a scientist raises an ethical question; do we have an obligation to keep the asteroids intact for science?
Guests:
Jim Bell - Planetary scientist in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.
Martin Elvis - Astronomer and author of “Asteroids: How Love, Fear, and Greed Will Determine Our Future in Space.”
Ian Lange - Economist and associate professor at the Colorado School of Mines and author of a paper on the feasibility of asteroid mining.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired March 18, 2024
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks
for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Firing federal workers and freezing grants has upended research institutions, prompting uncertainty about their futures. We look at the real-world impacts these policy changes may have for our mechanisms for collecting and sharing important data. An NIH grant recipient considers the future of her lab’s ability to do basic research, including studying complex diseases such as Alzheimer’s and heart disease. An interruption in reliable access to CDC data comes as highly contagious avian influenza continues to evolve and spread in the U.S. And what does the gutting of NOAA imply for collecting essential weather data, including those used to forecast hurricanes?
Guests:
Kimberly Cooper – Developmental biologist at the University of California, San Diego
Amy Maxmen – Public health reporter at KFF Health News
Alan Sealls – Retired broadcast meteorologist, adjust professor at the University of South Alabama and president-elect of the American Meteorological Society
Bernadette Woods Placky – Chief meteorologist and Climate Matters director at the nonprofit organization, Climate Central Featuring
music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s it like to live on a block of ice, especially when it thaws? An environment writer shares his forty-year experience in the Arctic, including the time a paddling polar bear tracked him on a river. He describes the stunning beauty of America’s last truly wild place and the dramatic changes to the landscape he recently witnessed. Recent research has backed up his eyewitness accounts, as an arctic scientist presents the latest data collected from a part of world warming four times faster than the rest of the planet.
Guests:
Jon Waterman – Author of Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder Amid the Arctic Climate Crisis
Twila Moon – Deputy Lead Scientist and Science Communication Liaison at the National Snow and Ice Data Center
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Two infectious diseases that we’ve been able to prevent for a half-century are re-emerging. One of the most contagious viruses in the world, measles, is spreading in the United States. Anti-vax sentiment has driven vaccination rates down leading to outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico. The U.S. has also seen an uptick in cases of tuberculosis which has reclaimed its position as the deadliest infection globally. The author John Green shares how his travels to Sierra Leone inspired his new book about TB. Through the story of a young patient, Henry, he highlights the health inequities that contribute to over a million and a half tuberculosis deaths annually despite the existence of a cure.
Guests:
Adam Ratner – Pediatric infectious disease doctor in New York City, and author of Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health
John Green – Author of The Fault in Our Stars, The Anthropocene Reviewed, and Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of our Deadliest Infection
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By one estimate we spend a fifth of our lives watching movies or TV. In fact, we consume entertainment almost as habitually as we eat or sleep, activities that receive scientific scrutiny and study. So why not consider the effects that watching movies and TV have on our minds and bodies too? When we do, we find that they are not mere escapism. A data scientist reveals why we are what we watch, and how scientists and filmmakers work, often with competing agendas, to create sci-fi entertainment.
Guest:
Walt Hickey - journalist, data scientist, and author of “You Are What You Watch: How
Movies and TV Affect Everything”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired January 8, 2024
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is your windshield accumulating less bug splatter? Insects, the most numerous animals on Earth, are becoming scarcer, and that’s not good news. They’re essential, and not just for their service as pollinators. We ask what’s causing the decrease in insect populations, and how
can it be reversed
.
Also, the story of how California’s early citrus crops came under attack – a problem that was solved by turning Nature on itself. And how chimpanzee “doctors” use insects to treat wounds.
We investigate the small and the many on “The Latest Buzz.”
Guests:
Martin Kernan – Historian and journalist. His article, “The Bug That Saved California,” appeared in the January-February 2022 issue of the Smithsonian
Alessandra Mascaro – Evolutionary Biologist, currently working at the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project, co-author of the Current Biology paper, “Application of insects to wounds of self and
others by chimpanzees in the wild”
Lara Southern – Doctoral student at the University of Osnabruck, co-author of the Current Biology paper, “Application of insects to wounds of self and others by chimpanzees in the wild”
Oliver Milman – Environment correspondent for The Guardian in the U.S. and author of “The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired March 28, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks
for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When the Chinese developer of DeepSeek released its model R1, a rift opened up in Silicon Valley. The company, a relatively unknown player, appeared to have created a better and cheaper model than its American competitors. Some big voices in the tech world called it a “Sputnik moment.” Others worried that the open-source model would allow malicious actors to harness the power of this AI technology. But did the arrival of DeepSeek significantly change how artificial intelligence will unfold? We explore that question and ask whether one particular sci-fi franchise got it right when portraying our anxiety about runaway AI.
Guests:
Alex Kantrowitz – Tech journalist and founder of the podcast and newsletter Big Technology
Kristian Hammond – Professor of computer science at Northwestern University and Director of the Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence
Dorian Lynskey – podcaster and author of “Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Everyone knows that a big rock wiped out the dinosaurs. But the danger from an asteroid hitting Earth is not limited to ancient history. To deal with this threat, scientists recently ran an experiment to deflect a potential “city killer.” We’ll hear the results of that experiment, and about a visit to another asteroid. In the dusty material NASA brought back from the asteroid Bennu, scientists found the chemical building blocks of life, including many of the amino acids that are found in our cells. Could an asteroid have brought the ingredients for life to ancient Earth? In this episode, we look at our paradoxical relationship with the space rocks that taketh way – and may help giveth - life.
Guests:
Scott Sandford - Astrophysicist and Research Scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center
Robin George Andrews - Science journalist, volcanologist, and author of "How to Kill an Asteroid: The Real Science of Planetary Defense"
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are not restricted to vision: Elephants can hear subsonic sounds, birds navigate by magnetism, and your dog lives in a world marked by odors. In this episode, we speak to science journalist Ed Yong about how other creatures sense the world. Could we ever understand what it’s like to have the hearing of a bat or the sight of a hawk?
Guest:
Ed Yong – Science writer for The Atlantic whose coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned him a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism. He is the author of, “An Immense World: How
Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired September 5, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon.
Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We have an update to our recent episode, Skeptic Check: Drone Panic. If you remember, our guest astronomer Andrew Franknoi recalled the story of Jimmy Carter having seen something mysterious in the sky when he was governor of Georgia in 1969. Astronomers at the time suggested it was likely Venus, as has been the case with other sightings, and for decades that was a widely accepted understanding of what he saw. But there is more to the story, as was brought to our attention by multiple BPS listeners. So, we invited Andrew back to discuss the revised account, and its more satisfying scientific resolution.
Guest:
Andrew Fraknoi - Professor of Astronomy at the Fromm Institute of the University of San
Francisco
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When several mysterious objects were spotted flying over New Jersey, their unknown identity led to frightening rumors, and triggered frustration and alarm among some residents of the Garden State. What were these objects, and if they were drones, as some appeared to be, were they friendly or foe? Many of the objects have now been identified. We talk about what happened when calmer heads prevailed and consider what the Great Drone Panic might have
in common with other episodes involving objects cruising the skies. Also, why one expert thinks the event gave birth to a new UFO subculture.
Guests:
Andrew Fraknoi - Professor of Astronomy at the Fromm Institute of the University of San Francisco
Mick West - Investigator of conspiracy theories and UFO sightings
Greg Eghigian - Professor of history and bioethics at Penn State and author of “After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
While humans were leaving the Stone Age and entering the Bronze, some Bristlecone pine trees grew from seeds to sprouts. They’ve been growing ever since. These 5,000-year-old pines are among the oldest organisms on Earth. Superlatives are also appropriate for the towering redwoods. Trees are amazing in many ways. They provide us with timber and cool us with shade, they sequester carbon and release oxygen, and are home to countless species. But they are also marvels of evolutionary adaptation. We consider the beauty and diversity of trees, and learn why their future is intertwined with ours.
Guests:
Kevin Dixon - Naturalist at The East Bay Regional Park District, Oakland, California
Daniel Lewis - Environmental historian and senior curator for the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library, art museum and botanical gardens in Pasadena, California, professor of the natural sciences and the environment at Caltech, and author of “Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of our Future”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn’t retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin’s voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems.
Guests:
Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean’s Microbiome.”
Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired December 18, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network.
Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks
for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Owls are both the most
accessible and elusive of birds. Every child can recognize one, but you’ll be
lucky to spot an owl in a tree, even if you’re looking straight at
it. Besides their camouflage and silent flight, these mostly nocturnal
birds, with their amazing vision and hearing, are most at home in the dead of
night, a time humans find alien and scary. Ecologist Carl Safina got to
know an injured baby screech owl well. Their relationship saved the owl’s life
and gave Safina insider’s wisdom about these aerial hunters of the night.
Guests:
Carl Safina – ecologist at
Stony Brook University, head of the non-profit Safina Center, and author of “Alfie
& Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe”
Tom Damiami – natural resources
interpreter, singer on Long Island, NY and leader of the Shelter Island Owl Prowl
Gordy Slack – science writer, former senior editor
of California Wild, the science and natural history magazine published by the
California Academy of Sciences
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired November
6, 2023
Big Picture Science is
part of the Airwave Media podcast
network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about
advertising on Big Picture Science.
You
can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us
on Patreon. Thanks for your
support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our information age is increasingly the disinformation age. The spread of lies and conspiracy theories has created competing experiences of reality. Facts are often useless for changing minds or even making compelling arguments. In this episode, author Naomi Klein and science philosopher Lee McIntyre discuss why the goal – not simply the byproduct - of spreading disinformation is to polarize society. They also offer ideas about how we might find our way back to a shared objective truth.
Guests:
Naomi Klein - Associate professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia and a co-director at the Center for Climate Justice. Author of Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
Lee McIntyre - Philosopher of science and a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and the History of Science at Boston University, and author of Post-Truth and On Disinformation.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired December 11, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“To live is to count and to count is to calculate.” But before we plugged in the computer to express this ethos, we pulled out the pocket calculator. It became a monarch of mathematics that sparked a computing revolution. But it’s not the only deceptively modest innovation that changed how we work and live. Find out how sewing a scrap of fabric into clothing helped define private life and how adding lines to paper helped build an Empire. Plus, does every invention entail irrevocable cultural loss?
Guests:
Keith Houston – author of “Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator.”
Hannah Carlson – teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, author of “Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.”
Dominic Riley – bookbinder in the U.K.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired October 30, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The SETI Institute’s search for alien biosignatures and technosignatures depends on radio telescopes. You may have seen the stunning photos of massive telescope arrays in the desert, but what types of alien signals might help researchers actually detect with those giant dishes?
In this fourth episode, Brian Edwards talks with physicist Chenoa Tremblay, a COSMIC Project Scientist who is based at the Very Large Array in New Mexico. They dig into the important role radio telescopes play in SETI, how powerful computers have supercharged the search for life off Earth, and imagine what kinds of biosignatures and technosignatures of alien life we are most likely to find.
Music by Jun Miyake
You can support the work of Big Picture Science by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This year has been a spectacular one for celestial phenomena. The northern lights delighted in unexpected ways while a total solar eclipse cast a shadow across North America. Those events were enough to make it a memorable year, but 2024 also shook up our understanding of the universe. A new reading of Voyager 2 data may explain Uranus’s weird magnetic field. And the impressive James Webb Space Telescope has detected an early and incredibly distant galaxy. Join us in our look back at some of the top space news from 2024.
Guests:
Andrew Fraknoi – Professor of Astronomy at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and SETI board member
Jamie Jasinski - space plasma physicist for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and author of a recent paper re-examining data from the Voyager 2 mission, published in Nature.
Phil Plait - astronomer, author, science communicator and frequent contributor at Scientific American.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Just because something is invisible doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We can’t see gases in our atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen, but we benefit from their presence with every breath we take. From the bubbles that effervesce in soda to the vapors that turn engines, gases are part of our lives. They fill our lungs, give birth to stars, and… well, how would we spot a good diner without glowing neon? In this episode, a materials scientist shares the history of some gaseous substances that we don’t usually see, but that make up our world.
Guest:
Mark Miodownik – Professor of materials and society at the University College London and the author of “It’s a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine life without animals, trees, and fungi. The world would look very different. But while the first life was surely single-celled, we don’t know just how it evolved to multicellular organisms. Two long-term experiments hope to find out, and one has been running for more than 35 years. Hear about the moment scientists watched evolution take off in the lab, and how directed evolution was used to create a multicellular organism. Also, how single embryonic cells become humans, and what all of this says about the possibility of life on other worlds.
Guests:
Jeff Barrick – molecular scientist at the University of Texas at Austin where his lab oversees the Long-Term Evolution Experiment that’s been running since 1988.
Will Ratcliff – an evolutionary biologist at Georgia Institute of Technology
Ben Stanger – cancer researcher, professor of medicine and developmental biology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “From One Cell: A Journey into Life’s Origins and the Future of Medicine.”
Joseph L. Graves – evolutionary biologist and geneticist at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and author of “A Voice in the Wilderness: A Pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Our Biggest Problems.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired October 9, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Near death experiences can be profound and even life changing. People describe seeing bright lights, staring into the abyss, or meeting dead relatives. Many believe these experiences to be proof of an afterlife.
But now, scientists are studying these strange events and gaining insights into the brain and consciousness itself. Will we uncover the scientific underpinning of these near-death events?
Guests:
Steve Paulson - executive producer of To the Best of Our Knowledge for Wisconsin Public Radio
Sebastian Junger - journalist, filmmaker and author of “The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea”
Christoph Koch - neuroscientist at the Allen Institute in Seattle and chief scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation in Santa Monica California
Daniel Kondziella - neuroscientist in the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Copenhagen
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired September 25, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How do we know where to look for life on other planets? SETI scientists use analog sites on Earth, not only to study how life has evolved here, but the geological conditions that made it possible. Devon Island in Canada is one such analog. It's been called Mars on Earth.
In this third episode, Gary Niederhoff talks with planetary scientist Pascal Lee, co-founder of The Mars Institute, and principal investigator of the Haughton-Mars Project at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. They discuss how a remote arctic island offers clues about how liquid water once flowed on Mars, why the moons of the Red Planet are so mysterious, and Pascal’s discovery of a heretofore unrecognized Martian volcano in 2024.
Music by Jun Miyake
You can support the work of Big Picture Science by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You interact with about two-thirds of the elements of the periodic table every day. Some, like carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, make up our bodies and the air we breathe. Yet there is also a class of elements so unstable they can only be made in a lab. These superheavy elements are the purview of a small group stretching the boundaries of chemistry. Can they extend the periodic table beyond the 118 in it now? Find out scientists are using particle accelerators to create element 120 and why they’ve skipped over element 119. Plus, if an element exists for only a fraction of a second in the lab, can we still say that counts as existing?
Guests:
Mark Miodownik – professor of materials and society at the University of College London and the author of “It’s a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World.”
Kit Chapman – Science historian at Falmouth University, author of “Superheavy; Making and Breaking the Periodic Table.”
Jennifer Pore – Research Scientist of Heavy Elements at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Amazon is often described as an ecosystem under dire threat due to climate change and deliberate deforestation. Yet there is still considerable hope that these threats can be mitigated. In the face of these threats, indigenous conservationists are attempting to strike a balance between tradition and preserving Amazonia. Meanwhile, two river journeys more than 100 years apart – one by a contemporary National Geographic reporter and another by “The Lewis and Clark of Brazil”— draw attention to the beauty and diversity of one of the world’s most important ecosystems.
Guests:
Cynthia Gorney – Contributing writer at the National Geographic Society, former bureau chief for South America at The Washington Post
Larry Rohter – Reporter and correspondent in Rio de Janeiro for fourteen years for Newsweek and as The New York Times bureau chief. Author of Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist
João Campos-Silva – Brazilian researcher and conservationist, and cofounder of Instituto Jura, a conservation organization. His work, along with that of other conservationists, is featured in the National Geographic issue devoted to the Amazon.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A thousand years ago, most people didn’t own a single book. The only way to access knowledge was to consult their memory.
But technology – from paper to hard drives – has permitted us to free our brains from remembering countless facts. Alphabetization and the simple filing cabinet have helped to systematize and save information we might need someday.
But now that we can Google just about any subject, have we lost the ability to memorize information? Does this make our brains better or worse?
Guests:
Judith Flanders – Historian and author, most recently of A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order
Craig Robertson – Professor of Media Studies, Northeastern University and author of The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information
David Eagleman – Neuroscientist and author, Stanford University
Originally aired October 11, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Extreme heat is taking its toll on the natural world. We use words like “heat domes” and “freakish” to describe our everyday existence. These high temperatures aren’t only uncomfortable - they are lethal to humans, animals, and crops. In search of an answer to our episode’s question, we discuss the dilemma of an ever-hotter world with an author who has covered climate change for more than twenty years.
Guest:
Jeff Goodell – author of “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired October 2, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They look like a cross between a beaver and a duck, and they all live Down Under. The platypus may lay eggs, but is actually a distant mammalian cousin, one that we last saw, in an evolutionary sense, about 166 million years ago.
Genetic sequencing is being used to trace that history, while scientists intensify their investigation of the habits and habitats of these appealing Frankencreatures; beginning by taking a census to see just how many are out there, and if their survival is under threat.
Guests:
Josh Griffiths – Senior Wildlife Ecologist at Cesaar Australia.
Jane Fenelon – Research fellow, University of Melbourne
Paula Anich – Professor of Natural Resources, Northland College
Wes Warren – Professor of Genomics, University of Missouri
Phoebe Meagher – Conservation Officer, Taronga Conservation Society, Australia
Originally aired August 2, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What is life? Even as the search for life in the universe evolves, surprisingly, there is no consensus on what life is. We must consider hunting for life not as we know it.
The existence of extremophiles on Earth has broadened the types of environments in which we might look for life elsewhere in our solar system. And recent missions to dwarf planets has shown that our solar system is replete with the geology that might harbor biology.
In this second episode, Shannon Geary talks with astrobiologist Nathalie Cabrol, the director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute about her early interest in astrobiology, meeting Carl Sagan, and the evolving definition of life.
Music by Jun Miyake
You can support the work of Big Picture Science by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The idea that the universe is made of tiny vibrating strings was once the science theory du jour. String theory promised to unite the disparate theories describing particles and gravity, and many people, not just scientists, were optimistic that a theory of everything might be within our grasp. But here we are, many years later, and string theory doesn’t seem to have delivered on its initial promise. What happened? We consider the science around string theory in this episode of Skeptic Check.
Guest:
Brian Greene – Physicist and mathematician at Columbia University, and author of The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine tapeworms longer than the height of an adult human. Or microbes that turn their hosts into zombies. If the revulsion they induce doesn’t do it, the sheer number of parasites force us to pay attention. They are the most abundant form of animal life on Earth. Parasites can cause untold human suffering, like those that cause African River Blindness or Lyme disease, but their presence is also a sign of a health ecosystem. A parasitologist whose lab contains the largest parasite collection in the world gives us the ultimate inside story about these organisms.
Guest:
Scott Gardner - curator of parasites in the H.W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology at the University of Nebraska State Museum, one of the largest collections of parasites in the world, and professor of biological sciences at University of Nebraska. Co-author of Parasites: The Inside Story.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired July 31, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Whether in miles or pounds, meters or kilograms, we take daily measure out our lives. But how did these units ever come to be, and why do we want to change them? From light-years to leap seconds, we look at the history of efforts to quantify our lives and why there’s always room for greater precision. Plus, we debate the virtues of staying imperial measurements vs. going metric.
Guest:
James Vincent - Author of Beyond Measure, the Hidden History of Measurement
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired March 24, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As middle and high schools across the country implement new cell phone bans, we consider what drove this bold step and what science says about how digital devices affect our attention and focus. An assistant principal describes how his school implemented the ban, despite protest from students and parents, and what happened next.
Guests:
Alison - 14 year old high school student
Raymond Dolphin - eighth grade assistant principal at Illing Middle School in Manchester, Connecticut
Alan - 17 year old high school student
Gloria Mark - Psychologist, professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine, author of book “Attention Span.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Air conditioning and refrigeration may beat the heat, but they also present a dilemma. The more we use them, the more greenhouse gases we emit, the hotter the planet becomes, and the more we require artificial cooling. Can we escape this feedback loop? We look at the origins of these chilling technologies, tour the extensive chain of cold that keeps food from perishing, and consider how a desert city like Phoenix could not exist without AC.
Guests:
Nicola Twilley – co-host of the Gastropod podcast, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, and the author of “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves”
Erik Morrison – Chief cooling engineer at Transaera, Somerville, Massachusetts
Stan Cox – Lead scientist at the Land Institute, author of “Losing Our Cool: The Uncomfortable Truths about our Air-Conditioned World”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Are we alone? The search for life in the universe is on!
For 40 years, the SETI Institute has been a leader in the search for life and intelligence beyond Earth. Recent discoveries, such as exoplanets, have brought us closer than ever to answering the question of whether we are alone in the universe. To honor the Institute’s pioneering past as we look ahead to its future, Big Picture Science presents a new monthly podcast series highlighting the groundbreaking research of the SETI Institute.
In this first episode, Molly talks with Bill Diamond, SETI Institute President and CEO, about the founding of the SETI Institute, radio telescope arrays, and the New Copernican Revolution.
Music by Jun Miyake
You can support the work of Big Picture Science by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Shipwrecks are scenes of tragedy, but they are also bits of history frozen in time that can provide insights into events and ideas from long ago. That is, if we can find them. From an 11th century Viking sailing ship to a WW II era British cargo ship with a mailbag of letters onboard amazingly preserved, an underwater archeologist takes us on a deep dive into history.
Guest:
David Gibbins - underwater archeologist, novelist, and the author of nonfiction, including his latest book, “The History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks”.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Are we alone in the universe? Is there other intelligence out there? COSMIC, the most ambitious SETI search yet, hopes to answer that. We hear updates on this novel signal detection project being conducted on the Very Large Array in the desert of New Mexico.
Also, we chat with award-winning science fiction writer Ted Chiang about how he envisions making contact with aliens in his stories, including the one that was the basis for the movie Arrival. And find out why some scientists don’t want only to listen for signals, they want to deliberately transmit messages to aliens. Is that wise and, if we did it, what would we say?
Guests:
Chenoa Tremblay – Postdoc researcher in radio astronomy for the SETI Institute and member of COSMIC science team
Ted Chiang – Nebula and Hugo award-winning science fiction writer, best known for his collections, Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation
Douglas Vakoch – Founder and president of METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to transmitting intentional signals to extraterrestrial civilizations
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired April 3, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Spewing lava and belching noxious fumes, volcanoes seem hostile to biology. But the search for life off-Earth includes the hunt for these hotheads on other moons and planets, and we tour some of the most imposing volcanoes in the Solar System.
Plus, a look at how tectonic forces reshape bodies from the moon to Venus to Earth. And a journey to the center of our planet reveals a surprising layer of material at the core-mantle boundary. Find out where this layer was at the time of the dinosaurs and what powerful forces drove it deep below.
Guests:
Samantha Hansen – Geologist at the University of Alabama
Paul Byrne – Associate professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Robin George Andrews – Science journalist and author of “Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired May 29, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We have too much “bad fire.” Not only destructive wildfires, but the combustion that powers our automobiles and provides our electricity has generated a worrying rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. And that is driving climate change which is adding to the frequency of megafires. Now we’re seeing those effects in “fire-clouds,” pyrocumulonimbus events.
But there’s such a thing as “good fire.” Indigenous peoples managed the land with controlled fires, reaped the benefits of doing so, and they’re bringing them back.
So after millions of years of controlling fire, is it time for us to revisit our attitudes and policies, not just with regard to combustion, but how we manage our wildfires?
Guests:
David Peterson - Meteorologist, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Stephen Pyne - Emeritus professor at Arizona State University, fire historian, urban farmer, author of “The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next”
Richard Wrangham - Ruth B. Moore Research Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and author of "Catching Fire: How Coooking Made Us Human"
Margo Robbins - Co-founder and president of the Cultural Fire Management Council (CFMC), organizer of the Cultural Burn Training Exchange (TREX) that takes place on the Yurok Reservation twice a year, and an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe
Originally aired May 9, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We’re hurtling towards a post-antibiotic world, as the overuse of antibiotics has given rise to dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. Can we fight back using viruses as weapons? An obscure medical therapy uses certain viruses called bacteriophages to treat infection. For a century attempts to turn phage-therapy into a life-saving treatment have faltered, but today there’s renewed interest in this approach. Can we use phages to forestall the antibiotic crisis?
Guests:
Claas Kirchhelle – Medical historian at the University College, Dublin
Tom Ireland – Journalist, editor of The Biologist and author of “The Good Virus: The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage”
Steffanie Strathdee – Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences at the University of California San Diego
Tom Patterson – Professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Social media use among teens has risen alongside rates of anxiety and depression. Addressing what he calls a mental health crisis, the Surgeon General has called for warning labels on social media platforms akin to those on tobacco and alcohol. But this comes before scientific consensus has been reached that social media causes harm. We consider the evidence that social media may be eroding the mental health of Gen Z and a challenge to the claim that presents an alternative explanation for why young people are struggling.
Guests:
Alison – High schooler who wrote a column describing the positive and negative effects of social media
Zach Rausch – Associate Research Scientist at NYU-Stern School of Business and lead researcher to Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt for his book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness”
Sarah Coyne – psychologist and Sarah Coyne Associate Director of the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Have scientists discovered an alphabet in whale calls? As researchers try to decipher the series of clicks made by sperm whales, we ask whether these cetaceans might have language, and if it follows that whales are thinking animals too. Could we one day get a peek into the thoughts of a humpback whale? Meanwhile, somewhere along the long path of evolution, one species emerged with an impressive gift for gab. Are speech and language unique human superpowers?
Guests:
Carl Zimmer – Columnist, The New York Times, including the article, “Scientists Find an ‘Alphabet’ in Whale Songs”. (gift article)
Ev Fedorenko – Cognitive neuroscientist, director of the EV Lab, MIT
Tecumseh Fitch – Evolutionary biologist at the University of Vienna
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Runny nose. Itchy, watery eyes. Sneezing. If you don’t have allergies, you probably know someone who does. The number of people with allergies, including food allergies and eczema, is increasing. What is going on?
A medical anthropologist describes how our hygiene habits, our diets, and our polluted environment are irritating our bodies. Also, the case for skipping your shower. Is skin healthier when we stop lathering?
Guests:
James Hamblin – Preventive medicine physician and a lecturer in public health at Yale and author of Clean: the New Science of Skin
Theresa MacPhail – medical anthropologist, professor of science and technology studies at Stevens Institute of Technology and author of Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World.
*Originally aired July 3, 2023
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The powerful gene editing tool CRISPR is already being tested on animal and plant cells. It has even been used on humans. How might this revolutionary tool change our lives? On the one hand, it could cure inherited diseases and rid the world of malaria-spreading mosquitoes. On the other hand, scientists using it are accelerating evolution and introducing novel genetic combinations that could transform our biological landscape in unforeseen ways. We explore the ramifications of this revolutionary technology.
Guests:
Nathan Rose – Molecular biologist and head of malaria programs at U.K. based biotech company, Oxitec.
Hank Greely – Law professor and director of the Center for Law in the Biosciences at Stanford University and author of “CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans.”
Antonio Regalado – Senior Editor for Biomedicine, MIT Technology Review.
*Originally aired April 17, 2023
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A canopy of stars in the night sky is more than breathtaking. Starlight is also an important tool that astronomers use to study our universe. But the growth of artificial light and light pollution are creating dramatic changes to the nighttime environment. Let your eyes adjust to the dark as we travel to a dark sky reserve to gaze upon an increasingly rare view of the Milky Way and explore what we lose when darkness disappears.
Guests:
Kim Arcand – Visualization scientist & emerging tech lead, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and author of “Light: The Visible Spectrum and Beyond".
Don Jolley – Teacher of Math and Sciences at the Bolinas School in Marin, California who has been leading dark sky tours for three decades.
Christopher Kyba – Interdisciplinary Geographic Information Sciences Research Fellow at Ruhr University Bochum.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We are closer than ever to finding aliens according to astrophysicist Adam Frank. He isn’t alone in his optimism. Over the last two decades, the tools used to search for extraterrestrials have been advancing mightily. Where we were once only monitoring with radio telescopes, we are now actively looking for bio and technosignatures on exoplanets. Find out why scientists think new technology may be a game changer in the hunt for life off Earth.
Guest:
Adam Frank – Astrophysicist and author of a new book “The Little Book of Aliens”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Electricity plays an important role in our everyday lives, including allowing our bodies to communicate internally. But some research claims electricity may be used to diagnose and treat disease? Could electric pulses one day replace medications?
We speak with experts about the growing field of bioelectric medicine and the evidence for electricity’s healing abilities. Their comments may shock you.
Guests:
Sally Adee – Science journalist, author of “We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body’s Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds"
Samantha Payne – Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences at University of Guelph
Kevin Tracey – Neurosurgeon and President of the Feinstein Institute at Northwell Health
*Originally aired June 5, 2023
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Before everything could come up roses, there had to be a primordial flower – the mother, and father, of all flowers. Now scientists are on the hunt for it. The eFlower project aims to explain the sudden appearance of flowering plants in the fossil record, what Darwin called an “abominable mystery.”
Meanwhile, ancient flowers encased in amber or preserved in tar are providing clues about how ecosystems might respond to changing climates. And, although it was honed by evolution for billions of years, can we make photosynthesis more efficient and help forestall a global food crisis?
Guests:
Eva-Maria Sadowski - Post doctoral paleobotanist at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Regan Dunn - Paleobotanist and assistant Curator at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum
Royal Krieger - Rosarian and volunteer at the Morcom Rose Garden, Oakland, California
Ruby Stephens - Plant ecology PhD candidate at Macquarie University in Australia, and member of the eFlower Project
Stephen Long - Professor of Plant Science, University of Illinois
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired March 13, 2023
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They’re cute and cuddly. But they can also be obnoxious.
Science writer Mary Roach has numerous tales about how our animal friends don’t always bow to their human overlords and behave the way we’d want. The resulting encounters, such as when gulls disrupt the Vatican’s Easter mass, make for amusing stories. But others, such as wolves threatening farmers’ livestock, can be tragic.
We hear what happens at the messy crossroads of human and wildlife encounters.
Guest:
Mary Roach – Author of bestselling nonfiction books, most recently “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.”
*Originally aired September 13, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Before you check your social media feeds today. And post. And post again. And get into an argument on Twitter, lose track of time and wonder where the morning went, consider that social media was never a natural way to socialize.
A cultural anthropologist weighs in on the evolutionary reasons humans can’t thrive on social media. And we hear about the signs that social media is on its way out. If that’s the case, what’s next?
Guests:
Max Fisher – Reporter for The New York Times, author of “The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World”
Douglas Rushkoff – Professor of media theory and digital economics at City University of New York, and author of “Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires”
Ian Bogost – Professor of Media Studies and computer science at Washington University in St. Louis and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
Alex Mesoudi – Professor of Cultural Evolution at the University of Exeter, U.K.
*Originally aired February 20, 2023
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s not just facts that inform our decisions. They’re also guided by how those facts feel. From deciding whether to buckle our seat belts to addressing climate change, how we regard risk is subjective. In this extended conversation with an expert on the psychology of risk, find out about our exaggerated fears, as well as risks we don’t take seriously enough. Meanwhile, while experts warn society about the dangers of self-aware AI – are those warnings being heeded?
Guest:
David Ropeik – Professor emeritus Harvard University, and expert on the psychology of risk
*Originally aired April 10, 2023
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ever heard of a beauty quark? How about a glueball? Physics is full of weird particles that leave many of us scratching our heads. But these tiny particles make up everything in the quantum world and in us and are the basis of the fundamental scientific theory called The Standard Model. But it doesn’t explain everything. It can’t account for dark matter or dark energy, for example. We find out whether new physics experiments might force us to rewrite the Standard Model. Plus, we discuss a NASA proposal to fly spacecraft close to the sun in search of new physics.
Guests:
Phil Plait – Aka the Bad Astronomer, former astronomer on Hubble, teacher, lecturer and debunker of conspiracy theories. He is also the author of a new book “Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe.”
Harry Cliff – Particle physicist at the University of Cambridge who works on the LHCb experiment at the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, CERN. He is the author of: “Space Oddities, The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe.”
Slava Turyshev – Research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Has children’s play become too safe? Research suggests that efforts to prioritize safety harms children’s mental and physical development during play and contribute to anxiety. One solution: introduce risk into play. We visit an adventure playground where kids play unsupervised with anything from scraps of metal to hammers and nails. Plus, what are the evolutionary benefits of play? After all, we’re not the only species who like to roughhouse, sled, or chase balls. And, reclaiming play for those who have outgrown recess.
Guests:
David Toomey - Professor of English, University of Massachusetts. Amherst and author of “Kingdom of Play: What Ball-Bouncing Octopuses, Belly-Flopping Monkeys, and Mud-Sliding Elephants Reveal About Life Itself.”
Mariana Brussoni - Developmental psychologist who studies children's outdoor risky play, and professor at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Medicine
Yoni Kallai - Interim director, head playworker and co-founder of play:groundNYC
Peter Gray - Psychology researcher at Boston College and author of "Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life"
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How frequently do you think about fasteners like screws and bolts? Probably not very often. But some of them a storied history, dating back to Egypt in the 3rd century BC. They aren’t just ancient history. They help hold up our bridges and homes today. Join us as we dissect a handful of engineering inventions that keep our world spinning and intact.
Guests:
Roma Agrawal - structural engineer and author of "Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way)"
Ron Gordon - watchmaker, New York City
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It was a radical idea a century ago, when Einstein said space and time can be bent, and gravity was really geometry. We hear how his theories inspire young minds even today.
At small scales, different rules apply: quantum mechanics and the Standard Model for particles. New experiments suggest that muons – cousins of the electron – may be telling us that the Standard Model is wrong. Also, where the physics of both the large and small apply, and why black holes have no hair.
Guests:
Hakeem Oluseyi – Astrophysicist, affiliated professor at George Mason University, and author of “A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars”
Janna Levin – Professor of physics and astronomy, Barnard College at Columbia University
Mark Lancaster – Professor of particle physics, University of Manchester
*Originally aired August 16, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Above the Arctic Circle, much of the land is underlaid by permafrost. But climate change is causing it to thaw. This is not good news for the planet.
As the carbon rich ground warms, microbes start to feast… releasing greenhouse gases that will warm the Earth even more.
Another possible downside was envisioned by a science-fiction author. Could ancient pathogens–released from the permafrost’s icy grip–cause new pandemics? We investigate what happens when the far north defrosts.
Guests:
Jacquelyn Gill – Associate professor of paleoecology at the University of Maine.
Jim Shepard – Novelist and short story writer, and teacher of English at Williams College, and author of “Phase Six.”
Scott Saleska – Global change ecologist, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, and co-founder of IsoGenie.
Originally aired September 6, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Olympic athlete gasp.
We inquire about these daunting migrations and how birds can fly for days without rest. And what can we do to save disappearing species? Will digital tracking technology help? Plus, how 19th century bird-lovers, appalled by feathered hats, started the modern conservation movement.
Guests:
Scott Weidensaul – Ornithologist and naturalist and author of “A World on the Wing: the Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds.”
Kassandra Ford – Doctoral candidate in evolutionary biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Michelle Nijhuis – Science journalist and author of “Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction.”
Originally aired May 10, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The zombie eco-thriller “The Last of Us” has alerted us to the threats posed by fungi. But the show is not entirely science fiction. Our vulnerability to pathogenic fungi is more real than many people imagine.
Find out what human activity drives global fungal threats, including their menace to food crops and many other species. Our high body temperature has long kept lethal fungi in check; but will climate change cause fungi to adapt to warmer temperatures and threaten our health?
Plus, a radically new way to think about these organisms, how they make all life possible, and how we might find balance again.
Guests:
Emily Monosson – Toxicologist who writes about changes in the natural world. A member of the Ronin Institute and a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she is the author of “Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic.”
Arturo Casadevall – Microbiologist, immunologist, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Michael Hathaway – Anthropologist, director of the Asian Studies Center at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and author of “What a Mushroom Lives For.”
*originally aired February 13, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Drinking a cup of coffee is how billions of people wake up every morning. But climate change is threatening this popular beverage. Over 60% of the world’s coffee species are at risk of extinction. Scientists are searching for solutions, including hunting for wild, forgotten coffee species that are more resilient to our shifting climate. Find out how the chemistry of coffee can help us brew coffee alternatives, and how coffee grounds can be part of building a sustainable future.
Guests:
Christopher Hendon - Assistant Professor of Computational Materials Chemistry, University of Oregon
Shannon Kilmartin-Lynch - Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Australia
Aaron Davis - Senior Research Leader of Crops and Global Change, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Great North American Solar Eclipse will trace a path of shadow across Mexico and 13 U.S. States on April 8th. Phil Plait, also known as The Bad Astronomer, joins the show for an extended interview covering a wide-range of topics, such as his excitement about the eclipse, the Pentagon’s most recent UFO report, and some of the most persistent moon landing conspiracy theories.
Guest:
Phil Plait – aka the Bad Astronomer, former astronomer on Hubble, teacher, lecturer, and debunker of conspiracy theories. He is also the author of a new book “Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Asteroids are rich in precious metals and other valuable resources. But mining them presents considerable challenges. We discuss these, and consider how these spinning, rocky resources might be the key to a space-faring future. But an economist points out the consequences of bringing material back to Earth, and a scientist raises an ethical question; do we have an obligation to keep the asteroids intact for science?
Guests:
Jim Bell - Planetary scientist in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.
Martin Elvis - Astronomer and author of “Asteroids: How Love, Fear, and Greed Will Determine Our Future in Space.”
Ian Lange - Economist and associate professor at the Colorado School of Mines and author of a paper on the feasibility of asteroid mining.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Standing on your own two feet isn’t easy. While many animals can momentarily balance on their hind legs, we’re the only critters, besides birds, for whom bipedalism is completely normal. Find out why, even though other animals are faster, we’re champions at getting around. Could it be that our upright stance made us human? Plus, why arches help stiffen feet, the argument for bare-footin’, and 12,000-year old footprints that tell a story about an Ice Age mother, her child, and a sloth.
Guests:
Originally aired May 24, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe has ignited fierce debate about bodily autonomy. But it’s remarkable how little we know about female physiology. Find out what studies have been overlooked by science, and what has been recently learned. Plus, why studying women’s bodies means being able to say words like “vagina” without shame ... a researcher who is recreating a uterus in her lab to study endometriosis … and an overdue recognition of medical pioneer Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler.
Guests:
Melody T. McCloud - Obstetrician Gynecologist and Founder and Medical Director of Atlanta Women's Health Care; co-author of “Black Women's Wellness: Your ‘I've Got This!’ Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living”
Victoria Gall - Volunteer with the Friends of the Hyde Park Library and the Hyde Park Historical Society
Rachel E. Gross - Science journalist and author of “Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage”
Linda Griffith - Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T., Director of the Center for Gynepathology Research, and author of the Boston Globe article, “‘FemTech’ and a moonshot for menstruation science”
Roshni Babal - Pediatric Asthma and Chronic Disease Program Coordinator at Boston Medical Center
Perri Klass - Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University and Author of “The Best Medicine: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future”
**Originally aired October 31, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A century ago, British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the only surviving intact tomb from ancient Egypt. Inside was the mummy of the boy king Tutankhamun, together with “wonderful things” including a solid gold mask.
Treasure from King Tut’s crypt has been viewed both in person and virtually by many people since. We ask what about Egyptian civilization so captivates us, thousands of years later. Also, how new technology from modern physics allows researchers to “X-Ray” the pyramids to find hidden chambers.
Guests:
Emma Bentley – Postgraduate student in Archeology and Ancient Worlds at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K.
Sarah Parcak – Archaeologist and Egyptologist, University of Alabama, and author of “Archaeology From Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past.”
Richard Kouzes – Physicist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Salima Ikram – Professor of Egyptology at The American University in Cairo and head of the Animal Mummy Project at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
*Originally aired December 12, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The discovery of a massive amount of lithium under the Salton Sea could make the U.S. lithium independent. The metal is key for batteries in electric vehicles and solar panels. But the area is also a delicate ecosystem. We go to southern California to hear what hangs in the balance of the ballooning lithium industry, and also how we extract other crucial substances – such as sand, copper and iron– and turn them into semiconductors, circuitry and other products upon which the modern world depends.
Guests:
Ed Conway – economics and data editor of Sky News and columnist for the Times in London. He’s the author of “Material World, The Six Raw Materials that Shape Modern Civilization“.
Frank Ruiz – Audubon California Salton Sea Program Director.
Michael McKibben – Geologist, University of California, Riverside.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Whales are aliens on Earth; intelligent beings who have skills for complex problem-solving and their own language. Now in what’s being called a breakthrough, scientists have carried on an extended conversation with a humpback whale. They share the story of this remarkable encounter, their evidence that the creature understood them, and how the experiment informs our Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. After all, what good is it to make contact with ET if we can’t communicate?
Guests:
Brenda McCowan – Research behaviorist at the University of California Davis in the School of Veterinary Medicine who studies the ecological aspects of animal behavior and communication.
Fred Sharpe – whale biologist and behavioral ecologist at Simon Fraser University and member of the Templeton Whale SETI Team.
Laurance Doyle – astrophysicist and information theory researcher at the SETI Institute.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By one estimate the average American home has 300,000 objects. Yet our ancient ancestors had no more than what they could carry with them. How did we go from being self-sufficient primates to nonstop shoppers? We examine the evolutionary history of stuff through the lens of archeology beginning with the ancestor who first picked up a palm-sized rock and made it into a tool.
Guest:
Chip Colwell - archeologist and former Curator of Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, editor-in-chief of the digital magazine Sapiens, and author of “So Much Stuff: How Humans Discovered Tools, Invented Meaning, and Made More of Everything.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You are getting sleeeepy and open to suggestion. But is that how hypnotism works? And does it really open up a portal to the unconscious mind? Hypnotism can be an effective therapeutic tool, and some scientists suggest replacing opioids with hypnosis for pain relief. And yet, the performance aspect of hypnotism often seems at odds with the idea of it being an effective treatment.
In our regular look at critical thinking, Skeptic Check, we ask what part of hypnotism is real and what is an illusion. Plus, we discuss how the swinging watch became hypnotism’s irksome trademark.
Guests:
David Spiegel – Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine
Devin Terhune – Reader in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London
*Originally aired June 27, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
With planets and moons, it’s what’s inside that counts. If we want to understand surface features, like volcanoes, or their history, such as how the planet formed or whether it’s suitable for life, we study their interiors. Astronomer Sabine Stanley takes us on a journey to the centers of Venus, Saturn’s large moon Titan, Jupiter’s moon Io, and of course Earth, to help us understand how they, and the solar system, came to be.
Guest:
Sabine Stanley - Planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of What’s Hidden Inside Planets.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Worried that AI will replace you? It may not seem like the Hollywood writers’ strike has anything in common with the Luddite rebellion in England in 1811, but they are surprisingly similar. Today we use the term “Luddite” dismissively to describe a technophobe, but the original Luddites – cloth workers – organized and fought Industrial Revolution automation and the factory bosses who were replacing humans with cotton spinning machines and steam powered looms. Find out what our age of AI can learn from textile workers of 200 years ago about keeping humans in the loop.
Guest:
Brian Merchant - Los Angeles Times tech columnist and author of “Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By one estimate we spend a fifth of our lives watching movies or TV. In fact, we consume entertainment almost as habitually as we eat or sleep, activities that receive scientific scrutiny and study. So why not consider the effects that watching movies and TV have on our minds and bodies too? When we do, we find that they are not mere escapism. A data scientist reveals why we are what we watch, and how scientists and filmmakers work, often with competing agendas, to create sci-fi entertainment.
Guest:
Walt Hickey - journalist, data scientist, and author of “You Are What You Watch: How Movies and TV Affect Everything”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We present a grab bag of our favorite recent science stories – from how to stop aging to the mechanics of cooking pasta. Also, in accord with our eclectic theme – the growing problem of space junk.
Guests:
Originally aired March 1, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Maybe you don’t remember the days of the earliest coal-fired stoves. They changed domestic life, and that changed society. We take you back to that era, and to millennia prior when iron was first smelt, and even earlier, when axe-handles were first fashioned from wood, as we explore how three essential materials profoundly transformed society.
We were once excited about coal’s promise to provide cheap energy, and how iron would lead to indestructible bridges, ships, and buildings. But they also caused some unintended problems: destruction of forests, greenhouse gases and corrosion. Did we foresee where the use of wood, coal, and iron would lead? What lessons do they offer for our future?
Guests:
Jonathan Waldman – Author of Rust: The Longest War.
Ruth Goodman – Historian of British social customs, presenter of a number of BBC television series, including Tudor Monastery Farm, and the author of The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything.
Roland Ennos – Professor of biological sciences at the University of Hull and author of The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization.
**Originally aired February 1, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn’t retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin’s voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems.
Guests:
Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean’s Microbiome.”
Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our information age is increasingly the disinformation age. The spread of lies and conspiracy theories has created competing experiences of reality. Facts are often useless for changing minds or even making compelling arguments. In this episode, author Naomi Klein and science philosopher Lee McIntyre discuss why the goal – not simply the byproduct - of spreading disinformation is to polarize society. They also offer ideas about how we might find our way back to a shared objective truth.
Guests:
Naomi Klein - Associate professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia and a co-director at the Center for Climate Justice. Author of Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
Lee McIntyre - Philosopher of science and a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and the History of Science at Boston University, and author of Post-Truth and On Disinformation.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcastnetwork. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nothing lasts forever. Even the universe has several possible endings. Will there be a dramatic Big Rip or a Big Chill–also known as the heat death of the universe–in trillions of years? Or will vacuum decay, which could theoretically happen at any moment, do us in? Perhaps the death of a tiny particle – the proton – will bring about the end.
We contemplate big picture endings in this episode, and whether one could be brought about by our own machine creations.
Guests:
Anders Sandberg – Researcher at
the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford
Katie Mack – Assistant professor of physics at North Carolina State
University, and the author of “The End of Everything, Astrophysically
Speaking.”
Brian Greene – Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at
Columbia, and author of “Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our
Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe”
Originally aired May 3, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The world is a colorful place, and human eyes have evolved to take it in – from vermillion red to bright tangerine to cobalt blue. But when we do, are you and I seeing the same thing?
Find out why color perception is a trick of the brain, and why you and I may not see the same shade of green. Or blue. Or red. Also, platypuses and the growing club of fluorescent mammals, and the first new blue pigment in more than two centuries.
Guests:
Paula Anich – Associate Professor of Natural Resources, Northland College
Michaela Carlson – Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Northland College
Rob DeSalle – Curator at the American Museum of Natural History, and co-author of “A Natural History of Color: the Science Behind What We See and How We See It”
Mas Subramanian – Professor of Materials Science at Oregon State University
originally aired March 8, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
T-Rex is having an identity crisis. Rocking the world of paleontology is the claim that Rex was not one species, but actually three. It’s not the first time that this particular dino has forced us to revise our understanding of the past. The discovery of the first T-Rex fossil in the 19th century taught humanity a scary lesson: species eventually go extinct. If it happened to this seemingly invincible apex predator, it could happen to us too.
Hear how the amateur fossil hunter Barnum Brown’s discovery of T-Rex changed our understanding of ourselves, and the epilogue to the dinosaur era: how our mammalian relatives survived the potential extinction bottleneck of an asteroid impact.
Guests:
Thomas Carr - Vertebrate paleontologist and Professor of Biology, Carthage College
Peter Makovicky - Vertebrate paleontologist and Professor of paleontology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota
David Randall - Author of “The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T Rex and How It Shook Our World”
Steve Brusatte - Personal Chair of Paleontology and Evolution, University of Edinburgh. Author of “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs” and, most recently, “The Rise and Reign of The Mammals”
Originally aired October 17, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Back off, you Neanderthal! It sounds as if you’ve just been dissed, but maybe you should take it as a compliment. Contrary to common cliches, our Pleistocene relatives were clever, curious, and technologically inventive. Find out how our assessment of Neanderthals has undergone a radical rethinking, and hear about the influence they have as they live on in our DNA. For example, some of their genes have a strong association with severe Covid 19 infection. Plus, how Neanderthal mini-brains grown in a lab will teach us about the evolution of Homo sapiens.
Guests:
Originally aired March 22, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Owls are both the most accessible and elusive of birds. Every child can recognize one, but you’ll be lucky to spot an owl in a tree, even if you’re looking straight at it. Besides their camouflage and silent flight, these mostly nocturnal birds, with their amazing vision and hearing, are most at home in the dead of night, a time humans find alien and scary. Ecologist Carl Safina got to know an injured baby screech owl well. Their relationship saved the owl’s life and gave Safina insider’s wisdom about these aerial hunters of the night.
Guests:
Carl Safina – ecologist at Stony Brook University, head of the non-profit Safina Center, and author of “Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe”
Tom Damiami – natural resources interpreter, singer on Long Island, NY and leader of the Shelter Island Owl Prowl
Gordy Slack – science writer, former senior editor of California Wild, the science and natural history magazine published by the California Academy of Sciences
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“To live is to count and to count is to calculate.” But before we plugged in the computer to express this ethos, we pulled out the pocket calculator. It became a monarch of mathematics that sparked a computing revolution. But it’s not the only deceptively modest innovation that changed how we work and live. Find out how sewing a scrap of fabric into clothing helped define private life and how adding lines to paper helped build an Empire. Plus, does every invention entail irrevocable cultural loss?
Guests:
Keith Houston – author of “Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator.”
Hannah Carlson – teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, author of “Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.”
Dominic Riley – bookbinder in the U.K.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Every second, lightning strikes 50 to 100 times somewhere. It can wreak havoc by starting wildfires and sometimes killing people. But lightning also produces a form of nitrogen that’s essential to vegetation. In this episode, we talk about the nature of these dramatic sparks. Ben Franklin established their electric origin, so what do we still not know? Also, why the frequency of lightning strikes is increasing in some parts of the world. And, what to do if you find someone hit by lightning.
Guests:
Thomas Yeadaker – Resident of Oakland, California
Chris Davis – Medical doctor and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Wake Forest University and Medical Director for the National Center for Outdoor Adventure Education
Jonathan Martin – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Steve Ackerman – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Peter Bieniek – Professor of Atmospheric and Space Science, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
*Originally aired September 12, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Poisonous snakes, lightning strikes, a rogue rock from space. There are plenty of scary things to fret about, but are we burning adrenaline on the right ones? Stepping into the bathtub is more dangerous than flying from a statistical point of view, but no one signs up for “fear of showering” classes.
Find out why we get tripped up by statistics, worry about the wrong things, and how the “intelligence trap” not only leads smart people to make dumb mistakes, but actually causes them to make more.
Guests:
Eric Chudler – Research associate professor, department of bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle and co-author of “Worried: Science Investigates Some of Life’s Common Concerns”
Lise Johnson – Director of the Basic Science Curriculum, Rocky Vista University, and co-author of “Worried: Science Investigates Some of Life’s Common Concerns”
Willie Turner – Vice President of Operations at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, CA
Charles Wheelan – Senior Lecturer and Policy Fellow, Dartmouth College, and author of “Naked Statistics”
David Robson – Commissioning Editor for the BBC and author of “The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes”
*Originally aired May 27, 2019
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine life without animals, trees, and fungi. The world would look very different. But while the first life was surely single-celled, we don’t know just how it evolved to multicellular organisms. Two long-term experiments hope to find out, and one has been running for more than 35 years. Hear about the moment scientists watched evolution take off in the lab, and how directed evolution was used to create a multicellular organism. Also, how single embryonic cells become humans, and what all of this says about the possibility of life on other worlds.
Guests:
Jeff Barrick – molecular scientist at the University of Texas at Austin where his lab oversees the Long-Term Evolution Experiment that’s been running since 1988.
Will Ratcliff - an evolutionary biologist at Georgia Institute of Technology
Ben Stanger - cancer researcher, professor of medicine and developmental biology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “From One Cell: A Journey into Life’s Origins and the Future of Medicine.”
Joseph L. Graves - evolutionary biologist and geneticist at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and author of “A Voice in the Wilderness: A Pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Our Biggest Problems.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Extreme heat is taking its toll on the natural world. We use words like “heat domes” and “freakish” to describe our everyday existence. These high temperatures aren’t only uncomfortable - they are lethal to humans, animals, and crops. In search of an answer to our episode’s question, we discuss the dilemma of an ever-hotter world with an author who has covered climate change for more than twenty years.
Guest:
Jeff Goodell – author of “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Near death experiences can be profound and even life changing. People describe seeing bright lights, staring into the abyss, or meeting dead relatives. Many believe these experiences to be proof of an afterlife.
But now, scientists are studying these strange events and gaining insights into the brain and consciousness itself. Will we uncover the scientific underpinning of these near-death events?
Guests:
Steve Paulson - executive producer of To the Best of Our Knowledge for Wisconsin Public Radio
Sebastian Junger - journalist, filmmaker and author of “The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea”
Christoph Koch - neuroscientist at the Allen Institute in Seattle and chief scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation in Santa Monica California
Daniel Kondziella - neuroscientist in the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Copenhagen
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Have you ever heard worms arguing? Deep-sea scientists use hydrophones to eavesdrop on “mouth-fighting worms.” It’s one of the many ways scientists are trying to catalog the diversity of the deep oceans — estimated to be comparable to a rainforest.
But the clock is ticking. While vast expanses of the deep sea are still unexplored, mining companies are ready with dredging vehicles to strip mine the seafloor, potentially destroying rare and vulnerable ecosystems. Are we willing to eradicate an alien landscape that we haven’t yet visited?
Guests:
Craig McClain - deep-sea and evolutionary biologist and ecologist, Executive Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
Steve Haddock - senior scientist at the Monetary Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and co-author of a New York Times op-ed about the dangers of mining.
Emily Hall - marine chemist at the Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, Florida
Chong Chen - deep sea biologist with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)
*Originally aired November 23, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Brace yourself for heatwave “Lucifer.” Dangerous deadly heatwaves may soon be so common that we give them names, just like hurricanes. This is one of the dramatic consequences of just a few degrees rise in average temperatures.
Also coming: Massive heat “blobs” that form in the oceans and damage marine life, and powerful windstorms called “derechos” pummeling the Midwest.
Plus, are fungal pathogens adapting to hotter temperatures and breaching the 98.6 F thermal barrier that keeps them from infecting us?
Guests:
Kathy Baughman McLeod – director and senior vice president of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at The Atlantic Council
Pippa Moore – Marine ecologist at Newcastle University in the U.K.
Ted Derouin – Michigan farmer
Jeff Dukes – Ecologist and director of Purdue Climate Change Research Center at Purdue University.
Arturo Casadevall – Molecular microbiologist and immunologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Originally aired October 19, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ready to become a space emigre? For half a century, visionaries have been talking about our future off-Earth – a speculative scenario in which many of us live in space colonies. So why haven’t we built them? Will the plans of billionaire space entrepreneurs to build settlements on Mars, or orbiting habitats that would be only minutes away from Earth, revive our long-held spacefaring dreams? And is having millions of people living off-Earth a solution to our problems… or an escape from them?
Guests:
Marianne Dyson – Author and former NASA flight controller
Emily St. John Mandel – Author, most recently of “Sea of Tranquility”
John Adams – Deputy Director, Biosphere 2, University of Arizona
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired July 25, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds and bees do it … and so do fish. In a discovery that highlights the adaptive benefits of walking, scientists have discovered fish that can walk on land. Not fin-flap their bodies, mind you, but ambulate like reptiles.
And speaking of which, new research shows that T Rex, the biggest reptile of them all, wasn’t a sprinter, but could be an efficient hunter by outwalking its prey.
Find out the advantage of legging it, and how human bipedalism stacks up. Not only is walking good for our bodies and brains, but not walking can change your personality and adversely affect your health.
Guests:
Hans Larsson – Paleontologist and biologist, and Director of the Redpath Museum at McGill University in Montréal.
Shane O’Mara – Neuroscientist and professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of “In Praise of Walking.”
Brooke Flammang – Biologist at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Originally aired October 5, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your daily mucus output is most impressive. Teaspoons or measuring cups can’t capture its entire volume. Find out how much your body churns out and why you can’t live without the viscous stuff. But slime in general is remarkable. Whether coating the bellies of slithery creatures, sleeking the surface of aquatic plants, or dripping from your nose, its protective qualities make it one of the great inventions of biology. Join us as we venture to the land of ooze!
Guests:
Christopher Viney - Professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Merced
Katharina Ribbeck - Bioengineer at MIT
Anna Rose Hopkins - Chef and partner at Hank and Bean in Los Angeles
Ruth Kassinger - author of “Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us”
*Originally aired January 27, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Diversity or die” could be your new health mantra. Don’t boost your immune system, cultivate it! Like a garden, your body’s defenses benefit from species diversity. Find out why multiple strains of microbes, engaged in a delicate ballet with your T-cells, join internal fungi in combatting disease. Plus, global ecosystems also depend on the diversity of its tiniest members; so what happens when the world’s insects bug out?
Guests:
Originally aired August 12, 2019
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
UFOs are back. This time they’ve landed on Capitol Hill in the form of a public, congressional hearing. We watched the hearing with great interest, but felt dissatisfied when it came to evidence. Claims that the government has alien technology are obviously tantalizing. So tantalizing, in fact, that it’s easy to overlook logical fallacies in how these claims are presented. We identify a few of the missteps. But what would convince you that the government is aware of alien visitation? Is the word of an authority figure all we need to accept that “they’re here?”
Guests:
Benjamin Radford - Research fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Nadia Drake - Science journalist and member of NASA’s UAP group
James McGaha - Retired military pilot and astronomer he's a longtime investigator of UFO reports and claims and he's a scientific consultant to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Mick West - A skeptical investigator who looks at claims of UFOs
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine tapeworms longer than the height of an adult human. Or microbes that turn their hosts into zombies. If the revulsion they induce doesn’t do it, the sheer number of parasites force us to pay attention. They are the most abundant form of animal life on Earth. Parasites can cause untold human suffering, like those that cause African River Blindness or Lyme disease, but their presence is also a sign of a health ecosystem. A parasitologist whose lab contains the largest parasite collection in the world gives us the ultimate inside story about these organisms.
Guest:
Scott Gardner - curator of parasites in the H.W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology at the University of Nebraska State Museum, one of the largest collections of parasites in the world, and professor of biological sciences at University of Nebraska. Co-author of Parasites: The Inside Story.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Whether in miles or pounds, meters or kilograms, we take daily measure out our lives. But how did these units ever come to be, and why do we want to change them? From light-years to leap seconds, we look at the history of efforts to quantify our lives and why there’s always room for greater precision. Plus, we debate the virtues of staying imperial measurements vs. going metric.
Guest:
James Vincent - Author of Beyond Measure, the Hidden History of Measurement
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thinking small can sometimes achieve big things. A new generation of diminutive robots can enter our bodies and deal with medical problems such as intestinal blockages. But do we really want them swimming inside us, even if they’re promising to help? You might change your mind when you hear what else is cruising through our bloodstream: microplastics!
We take a trip into the human body, beginning with the story of those who first dared to open it up for medical purposes. But were the first surgeons really cavemen?
Guests:
Originally aired June 20, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do we have physical evidence of the last day of the dinosaurs? We consider fossilized fish in South Dakota that may chronicle the dramatic events that took place when, 66 million years ago, a large asteroid slammed into the Gulf of Mexico and caused three-quarters of all species to disappear.
Also, what new discoveries have paleontologists made about these charismatic animals, and the director of Jurassic World: Dominion talks about how his film hews to the latest science. Hint: feathers!
It’s deep history, as we look at what happened as terrestrial life experienced its worst day ever.
Guests:
*Originally aired June 13, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Runny nose. Itchy, watery eyes. Sneezing. If you don’t have allergies, you probably know someone who does. The number of people with allergies, including food allergies and eczema, is increasing. What is going on?
A medical anthropologist describes how our hygiene habits, our diets, and our polluted environment are irritating our bodies. Also, the case for skipping your shower. Is skin healthier when we stop lathering?
Guests:
James Hamblin – Preventive medicine physician and a lecturer in public health at Yale and author of Clean: the New Science of Skin
Theresa MacPhail – medical anthropologist, professor of science and technology studies at Stevens Institute of Technology and author of Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do you have what it takes to survive on Mars? Beginning this month, four people will spend a year in a prototype Martian habitat meant to simulate living on the Red Planet. It’s part of NASA’s efforts to prepare us for real human missions to Mars. Find out how well we can replicate that world on Earth and what we might learn from doing so.
Also, a new robotic mission aims to be the first to bring back a piece of the Red Planet, and why Mars has enchanted us for centuries.
Guests:
Scott Smith – Lead for the nutritional biochemistry lab at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, and member of the CHAPEA team.
Matthew Shindell – Historian of science and Curator of Planetary Science and Exploration at the National Air and Space Museum. Author of For the Love of Mars; a Human History of the Red Planet.
Pascal Lee – Planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, principal investigator of the Haughton-Mars Project, and co-founder of The Mars Institute
Michela Muñoz Fernández – Program Executive for NASA’s Mars Sample Return Mission
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
NASA is studying more than 800 sightings of unidentified objects in our sky as part of its investigation into the UFO phenomenon. We get an update on the agency’s study in a conversation with a member of the NASA UAP panel.
We also hear why the belief that aliens exist has broad consensus, but that’s not the same as saying they routinely visit Earth. Plus, a UFO investigator analyzes the startling claim that the military is hiding evidence of alien technology.
Guests:
Nadia Drake – Science journalist and member of NASA’s UAP group
Mick West – Science writer, skeptical debunker, former video game programmer. Author of “Escaping the Rabbit Hole”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s the difference between a bird call and the sound of a pile driver? Not much, when you’re close to the loudest bird ever. Find out when it pays to be noisy and when noise can worsen your health. Just about everyone eventually suffers some hearing loss, but that’s not merely aging. It’s an ailment we inflict on ourselves. Hear how a team in New York City has put sensors throughout the city to catalog noise sources, hoping to tame the tumult.
And can underwater speakers blasting the sounds of a healthy reef bring life back to dead patches of the Great Barrier Reef?
Guests:
Mark Cartwright – Research Assistant Professor at New York University’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Charles Mydlarz – Research Assistant Professor at New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and the Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL)
David Owen – Staff writer at The New Yorker, and author of Volume Control: Hearing in a Deafening World
Jeff Podos – Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Steve Simpson – Professor of Marine Biology and Global Change, Exeter University, U.K.
Originally aired January 20, 2020
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Electricity plays an important role in our everyday lives, including allowing our bodies to communicate internally. But some research claims electricity may be used to diagnose and treat disease? Could electric pulses one day replace medications?
We speak with experts about the growing field of bioelectric medicine and the evidence for electricity’s healing abilities. Their comments may shock you.
Guests:
Sally Adee – Science journalist, author of “We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body’s Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds"
Samantha Payne – Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences at University of Guelph
Kevin Tracey – Neurosurgeon and President of the Feinstein Institute at Northwell Health
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Spewing lava and belching noxious fumes, volcanoes seem hostile to biology. But the search for life off-Earth includes the hunt for these hotheads on other moons and planets, and we tour some of the most imposing volcanoes in the Solar System.
Plus, a look at how tectonic forces reshape bodies from the moon to Venus to Earth. And a journey to the center of our planet reveals a surprising layer of material at the core-mantle boundary. Find out where this layer was at the time of the dinosaurs and what powerful forces drove it deep below.
Guests:
Samantha Hansen – Geologist at the University of Alabama
Paul Byrne – Associate professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Robin George Andrews – Science journalist and author of “Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Crowded subway driving you crazy? Sick of the marathon-length grocery store line? Wish you had a hovercraft to float over traffic? If you are itching to hightail it to an isolated cabin in the woods, remember, we evolved to be together. Humans are not only social, we’re driven to care for one another, even those outside our immediate family.
We look at some of the reasons why this is so – from the increase in valuable communication within social groups to the power of the hormone oxytocin. Plus, how our willingness to tolerate anonymity, a condition which allows societies to grow, has a parallel in ant supercolonies.
Guests:
Adam Rutherford – Geneticist and author of “Humanimal: How Homo sapiens Became Nature’s Most Paradoxical Creature – a New Evolutionary History”
Patricia Churchland – Neurophilosopher, professor of philosophy emerita at the University of California San Diego, and author most recently of “Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition”
Mark Moffett – Tropical biologist, Smithsonian Institution researcher, and author of “The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive and Fall”
*Originally aired July 22, 2019
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Magic mushrooms – or psilocybin – may be associated with tripping hippies and Woodstock, but they are now being studied as new treatments for depression and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Is this Age of Aquarius medicine or something that could really work? Plus, the centuries-long use of psychedelics by indigenous peoples, and a discovery in California’s Pinwheel Cave offers new clues about the relationship between hallucinogens and cave art.
Guests:
Merlin Sheldrake - Biologist and the author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds and Shape our Futures.
Albert Garcia-Romeu - Assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
David Wayne Robinson - Archeologist in the School of Forensic and Applied Sciences, University of Central Lancashire, U.K.
Sandra Hernandez - Tejon Indian Tribe spokesperson
Originally aired December 7, 2020
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We have too much “bad fire.” Not only destructive wildfires, but the combustion that powers our automobiles and provides our electricity has generated a worrying rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. And that is driving climate change which is adding to the frequency of megafires. Now we’re seeing those effects in “fire-clouds,” pyrocumulonimbus events.
But there’s such a thing as “good fire.” Indigenous peoples managed the land with controlled fires, reaped the benefits of doing so, and they’re bringing them back.
So after millions of years of controlling fire, is it time for us to revisit our attitudes and policies, not just with regard to combustion, but how we manage our wildfires?
Guests:
David Peterson - Meteorologist, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Stephen Pyne - Emeritus professor at Arizona State University, fire historian, urban farmer, author of “The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next”
Richard Wrangham - Ruth B. Moore Research Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and author of "Catching Fire: How Coooking Made Us Human"
Margo Robbins - Co-founder and president of the Cultural Fire Management Council (CFMC), organizer of the Cultural Burn Training Exchange (TREX) that takes place on the Yurok Reservation twice a year, and an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe
*Originally aired May 9, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In 1915, Endurance, the ship that took Ernest Shackleton to the Antarctic, was slowly crushed and sank. Shackleton, and the 28 men he brought with him, were camped on the ice near the ship, and watched helplessly as their transport went to a watery grave, two miles down.
But a recent expedition has found the Endurance, taking the world back to the last hurrah of the heroic age of polar expedition. How was it found, and what will be done with it?
Also, while feats of exploration inspire TV shows and magazine articles, do they have other functions in society? Is modern exploration more than just a nice thing to do?
We go to the bottom of the world on “Finding Endurance.”
Guests:
Michael Smith – Author and journalist. His book: “Shackleton: By Endurance We Conquer”
Christian Katlein – Sea ice physicist
Tim Jarvis – Adventurer and environmental scientist
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired April 8, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is your windshield accumulating less bug splatter? Insects, the most numerous animals on Earth, are becoming scarcer, and that’s not good news. They’re essential, and not just for their service as pollinators. We ask what’s causing the decrease in insect populations, and how can it be reversed.
Also, the story of how California’s early citrus crops came under attack – a problem that was solved by turning Nature on itself. And how chimpanzee “doctors” use insects to treat wounds.
We investigate the small and the many on “The Latest Buzz.”
Guests:
Martin Kernan – Historian and journalist. His article, “The Bug That Saved California,” appeared in the January-February 2022 issue of the Smithsonian
Alessandra Mascaro – Evolutionary Biologist, currently working at the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project, co-author of the Current Biology paper, “Application of insects to wounds of self and others by chimpanzees in the wild”
Lara Southern – Doctoral student at the University of Osnabruck, co-author of the Current Biology paper, “Application of insects to wounds of self and others by chimpanzees in the wild”
Oliver Milman – Environment correspondent for The Guardian in the U.S. and author of “The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired March 28, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The editing tool CRISPR is already being tested on animal and plant cells. It has even been used on humans. How might this revolutionary tool change our lives? On the one hand, it could cure inherited diseases and rid the world of malaria-spreading mosquitoes. On the other hand, scientists using it are accelerating evolution and introducing novel genetic combinations that could transform our biological landscape in unforeseen ways. We explore the ramifications of this revolutionary technology.
Guests:
Nathan Rose – Molecular biologist and head of malaria programs at U.K. based biotech company, Oxitec.
Hank Greely – Law professor and director of the Center for Law in the Biosciences at Stanford University and author of “CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans.”
Antonio Regalado – Senior Editor for Biomedicine, MIT Technology Review.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
We've been nominated for a Webby! Our episode "Vaccine Inequity" is in the top 5 of the Technology category. Vote for Big Picture Science before April 20, 2023!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s not just facts that inform our decisions. They’re also guided by how those facts feel. From deciding whether to buckle our seat belts to addressing climate change, how we regard risk is subjective. In this extended conversation with an expert on the psychology of risk, find out about our exaggerated fears, as well as risks we don’t take seriously enough. Meanwhile, while experts warn society about the dangers of self-aware AI – are those warnings being heeded?
Guest:
David Ropeik – Professor emeritus Harvard University, and expert on the psychology of risk
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
We've been nominated for a Webby! Our episode "Vaccine Inequity" is in the top 5 of the Technology category. Vote for Big Picture Science!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Are we alone in the universe? Is there other intelligence out there? COSMIC, the most ambitious SETI search yet, hopes to answer that. We hear updates on this novel signal detection project being conducted on the Very Large Array in the desert of New Mexico.
Also, we chat with award-winning science fiction writer Ted Chiang about how he envisions making contact with aliens in his stories, including the one that was the basis for the movie Arrival. And find out why some scientists don’t want only to listen for signals, they want to deliberately transmit messages to aliens. Is that wise and, if we did it, what would we say?
Guests:
Chenoa Tremblay – Postdoc researcher in radio astronomy for the SETI Institute and member of COSMIC science team
Ted Chiang – Nebula and Hugo award-winning science fiction writer, best known for his collections, Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation
Douglas Vakoch – Founder and president of METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to transmitting intentional signals to extraterrestrial civilizations
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Long before Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space, Laika, a stray dog, crossed the final frontier. Find out what other surprising species were drafted into the astronaut corps.
They may be our best friends, but we still balk at giving other creatures moral standing. And why are humans so reluctant to accept the fact that we too are animals?
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired January 24, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Scientists are increasingly finding their expertise questioned by non-experts who claim they’ve done their own “research.” Whether advocating Ivermectin to treat Covid, insisting that climate change is a hoax, or asserting that the Earth is flat, doubters are now dismissed by being told to “do your own research!” But is a Wiki page evidence? What about a YouTube video? What happens to our quest for truth along the way? Plus, a science historian goes to a Flat Earth convention to talk reason.
Guests:
*Originally aired February 7, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Before everything could come up roses, there had to be a primordial flower – the mother, and father, of all flowers. Now scientists are on the hunt for it. The eFlower project aims to explain the sudden appearance of flowering plants in the fossil record, what Darwin called an “abominable mystery.”
Meanwhile, ancient flowers encased in amber or preserved in tar are providing clues about how ecosystems might respond to changing climates. And, although it was honed by evolution for billions of years, can we make photosynthesis more efficient and help forestall a global food crisis?
Guests:
Eva-Maria Sadowski - Post doctoral paleobotanist at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Regan Dunn - Paleobotanist and assistant Curator at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum
Royal Krieger - Rosarian and volunteer at the Morcom Rose Garden, Oakland, California
Ruby Stephens - Plant ecology PhD candidate at Macquarie University in Australia, and member of the eFlower Project
Stephen Long - Professor of Plant Science, University of Illinois
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe has ignited fierce debate about bodily autonomy. But it’s remarkable how little we know about female physiology. Find out what studies have been overlooked by science, and what has been recently learned. Plus, why studying women’s bodies means being able to say words like “vagina” without shame ... a researcher who is recreating a uterus in her lab to study endometriosis … and an overdue recognition of medical pioneer Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler.
Guests:
Melody T. McCloud - Obstetrician Gynecologist and Founder and Medical Director of Atlanta Women's Health Care; co-author of “Black Women's Wellness: Your ‘I've Got This!’ Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living”
Victoria Gall - Volunteer with the Friends of the Hyde Park Library and the Hyde Park Historical Society
Rachel E. Gross - Science journalist and author of “Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage”
Linda Griffith - Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T., Director of the Center for Gynepathology Research, and author of the Boston Globe article, “‘FemTech’ and a moonshot for menstruation science”
Roshni Babal - Pediatric Asthma and Chronic Disease Program Coordinator at Boston Medical Center
Perri Klass - Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University and Author of “The Best Medicine: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired October 31, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why create more landfill? Perhaps you should resist the urge to toss those old sneakers, the broken ceiling fan, or last year’s smart phone. Instead, repurpose them! Global junk entrepreneurs are leading the way in turning trash to treasure, while right-to-repair advocates fight for legislation that would give you a decent shot at fixing your own electronic devices.
And, if you toss food scraps down the drain as you cook, are you contributing to a “fatberg” horror in the sewer?
Guests:
Originally aired December 16, 2019
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you, and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Before you check your social media feeds today. And post. And post again. And get into an argument on Twitter, lose track of time and wonder where the morning went, consider that social media was never a natural way to socialize.
A cultural anthropologist weighs in on the evolutionary reasons humans can’t thrive on social media. And we hear about the signs that social media is on its way out. If that’s the case, what’s next?
Guests:
Max Fisher – Reporter for The New York Times, author of “The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World”
Douglas Rushkoff – Professor of media theory and digital economics at City University of New York, and author of “Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires”
Ian Bogost – Professor of Media Studies and computer science at Washington University in St. Louis and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
Alex Mesoudi – Professor of Cultural Evolution at the University of Exeter, U.K.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The zombie eco-thriller “The Last of Us” has alerted us to the threats posed by fungi. But the show is not entirely science fiction. Our vulnerability to pathogenic fungi is more real than many people imagine.
Find out what human activity drives global fungal threats, including their menace to food crops and many other species. Our high body temperature has long kept lethal fungi in check; but will climate change cause fungi to adapt to warmer temperatures and threaten our health?
Plus, a radically new way to think about these organisms, how they make all life possible, and how we might find balance again.
Guests:
Emily Monosson – Toxicologist who writes about changes in the natural world. A member of the Ronin Institute and an adjunct faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she is the author of “Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic.”
Arturo Casadevall – Microbiologist, immunologist, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Michael Hathaway – Anthropologist, director of the Asian Studies Center at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and author of “What a Mushroom Lives For.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you bake, you can appreciate math’s transformative properties. Admiring the stackable potato chip is to admire a hyperbolic sheet. Find out why there’s no need to fear math - you just need to think outside the cuboid. Also, how nature’s geometric shapes inspire the next generation of squishy robots and an argument for radically overhauling math class. The end point of these common factors is acute show that’s as fun as eating Pi.
Guests:
Originally aired July 15, 2019
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hosted by Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart from the hit show Morbid.
When 90-year-old Laurence Pilgeram drops dead on the sidewalk outside his condo, you might think that’s the end of his story. But, really, it’s just the beginning. Because Laurence and others like him have signed up to be frozen and brought back to life in the future. And that belief will pull multiple generations of the Pilgeram family into a cryonics soap opera filled with dead pets, gold coins, grenades, fist fights, mysterious packages, family feuds, Hall of Fame baseball legends, and frozen heads — lots of frozen heads. From Wondery, comes a story about life, death, and what comes next.
Follow Frozen Head on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery+ in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery App.
Listen to Frozen Head: Wondery.fm/FH_BPS
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The newest Pentagon report on UAPs – or Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon – reflects long standing public interest about what’s in our skies. Now, NASA is investigating for themselves.
Should we assume that what we can’t identify is alien visitation? In our regular look at critical thinking, we look at the history of UFO sightings, visit Roswell on the 75th anniversary of the crash, and ask how our desire to believe influences our interpretation of evidence.
Guests:
Paul Hynek - Teacher at Pepperdine University and son of the late astronomer J. Allen Hynek
Roger Launius - Former chief historian for NASA and former Chair of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A radical plan could solve a historic global health inequity. Countries in the global south who waited for more than a year for ample supplies of Covid vaccines have banded together to make mRNA vaccines locally. If successful, they could end a dangerous dependency on wealthy nations and help stop pandemics before they start.
In a special episode, supported by the Pulitzer Center, journalist Amy Maxmen shares her reporting from southern Africa about the inspiring project led by the WHO that’s made fast progress. But it could fail, and a global imbalance will remain, if Big Pharma has its way. Find out what’s at stake.
Guests:
Amy Maxmen - Award-winning science journalist, Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the Nature article, "The Radical Plan for Vaccine Equity"
Petro Terblanche - Managing Director, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines in Cape Town, South Africa
Kondwani Charles Jambo - Senior Lecturer and immunologist at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Clinical Research Programme in Blantyre, Malawi
Barney Graham - Former deputy director at the Vaccine Research Center at NIH and professor of medicine and microbiology immunology biochemistry at Morehouse School of Medicine
Emile Hendricks - Research technologist at Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines in Cape Town, South Africa
Achal Prabhala - Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, Coordinator at AccessIBSA, a medicines-access initiative in Bengaluru, India
Patrick Tippoo - Head of Science and Innovation at Biovac in Cape Town, South Africa, founding member of the African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative (AVMI)
Harrison Chauluka - chief of the Mkunda village in Malawi
Agnes Joni - farmer in Chiradzulu, Malawi
Prophet Dauda - translator and writer in Blantyre, Malawi
Originally aired November 21, 2022
Thanks to the Pulitzer Center for help supporting this episode of Big Picture Science
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Catalytic converters are disappearing. If you’ve had yours stolen, you know that precious and rare earth metals are valuable. But these metals are in great demand for things other than converters, such as batteries for electric cars, wind farms and solar panels.
We need rare earth metals to combat climate change, but where to get them? Could we find substitutes?
One activity that could be in our future: Deep sea mining. But it’s controversial. Can one company’s plan to mitigate environmental harm help?
Guests:
Paul Dauenhauer - Professor of chemical engineering and material science at the University of Minnesota and a 2020 MacArthur Fellow
Chris Leighton - Distinguished University Teaching Professor, Editor, Physical Review Materials, Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota
Renee Grogan - Co-founder and Chief Sustainability Officer, Impossible Mining company
Originally aired January 17, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay.
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Climate change isn’t waiting for us to act. We’ve missed several deadlines to mitigate the dangers of this existential threat, which suggests we prefer to avert our gaze rather than deal with the problem. It’s similar to the way society reacts to an incoming comet in the movie “Don’t Look Up!”
As a major Antarctic ice sheet shows signs of collapse, it’s no wonder we feel some “climate anxiety.” Can we leverage this emotion to spur action? That, and where hope lies, in this episode.
Guests:
Joellen Russell – Oceanographer and climate scientist at the University of Arizona
Katie Mack – Professor of Theoretical Physics at North Carolina State University, and author of “The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)”
Jessica Tierney – Professor of Paleoclimatology at the University of Arizona
Susan Clayton – Professor of Psychology and Environmental Studies, College of Wooster
Originally aired February 21, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are not restricted to vision: Elephants can hear subsonic sounds, birds navigate by magnetism, and your dog lives in a world marked by odors. In this episode, we speak to science journalist Ed Yong about how other creatures sense the world. Could we ever understand what it’s like to have the hearing of a bat or the sight of a hawk?
Guest:
Ed Yong – Science writer for The Atlantic whose coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned him a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism. He is the author of, “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.”
Originally aired September 5, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The James Webb Space Telescope has turned its golden eye on the cosmos. The largest, most sensitive telescope put in space since the Hubble Space Telescope is already producing new photos of far-off galaxies and other cosmic phenomena.
In this episode: astronomers share their reactions to these stunning images, the project scientist on JWST describes how infrared cameras capture phenomena that are invisible to shorter wavelengths, and a plan to investigate the very stardust that created everything, including you and me.
Guests:
Néstor Espinoza – Assistant astronomer, Space Telescope Science Institute, principal investigator for exoplanet atmospheric physics, James Webb Space Telescope
Alyssa Pagan – Science Visuals Developer at the Space Telescope Science Institute
John Mather – Nobel Prize-winning NASA astronomer and Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope
Alex Filippenko – Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley
Originally aired August 8, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
5G, the latest mobile network standard, is coming. As new cell towers sprout around the world, do we know enough to confidently claim that this new technology is safe? After all, older networking standards relied on microwaves, radiation which has wavelengths of inches to a foot or so. 5G operates at much higher frequencies, with millimeter wavelengths.
Some are worried that being subjected to millimeter radiation could cause cancers. But what does science say? 5G: the promise and the perils.
Guests:
Jon Samet – Pulmonary physician, epidemiologist, and dean of the Colorado School of Public Health.
Claire Parkinson – Scientist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Bob Berman – Astronomer, regular contributor to Astronomy Magazine, and author of “Zapped: From Infrared to X-Rays, the Curious History of Invisible Light”
David Ropeik – Retired Harvard instructor and author of several books about the psychology of risk perception.
Originally aired February 28, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A century ago, British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the only surviving intact tomb from ancient Egypt. Inside was the mummy of the boy king Tutankhamun, together with “wonderful things” including a solid gold mask.
Treasure from King Tut’s crypt has been viewed both in person and virtually by many people since. We ask what about Egyptian civilization so captivates us, thousands of years later. Also, how new technology from modern physics allows researchers to “X-Ray” the pyramids to find hidden chambers.
Guests:
Emma Bentley – Postgraduate student in Archeology and Ancient Worlds at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K.
Sarah Parcak – Archaeologist and Egyptologist, University of Alabama, and author of “Archaeology From Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past.”
Richard Kouzes – Physicist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Salima Ikram – Professor of Egyptology at The American University in Cairo and head of the Animal Mummy Project at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Modern technology is great, but could we be losing control? As our world becomes more crowded and demands for resources are greater, some people worry about humanity’s uncertain prospects. An eminent cosmologist considers globe-altering developments such as climate change and artificial intelligence. Will we be able to stave off serious threats to our future?
There’s also another possible source of danger: our trendy digital aids. We seem all-too-willing to let algorithms classify and define our wants, our needs, and our behavior. Instead of using technology, are we being used by it – to inadvertently become social media’s product?
And while we may be skittish about the increased data our technology collects, one sci-fi writer imagines a future in which information is a pervasive and freely available commodity.
Guests:
Martin Rees – Cosmologist, astrophysicist, and Great Britain’s Astronomer Royal. Author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity.
Douglas Rushkoff – Media theorist and professor of media theory and digital economics, City University of New York. Author of Team Human.
Malka Older – Author and humanitarian worker, author of The Centenal Cycle.
Originally aired February 11, 2019
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A new theory about life’s origins updates Darwin’s warm little pond. Scientists say they’ve created the building blocks of biology in steaming hot springs. Meanwhile, we visit a NASA lab where scientists simulate deep-sea vent chemistry to produce the type of environment that might spawn life. Which site is best suited for producing biology from chemistry?
Find out how the conditions of the early Earth were different from today, how meteors seeded Earth with organics, and a provocative idea that life arose as an inevitable consequence of matter shape-shifting to dissipate heat. Could physics be the driving force behind life’s emergence?
Guests:
Caleb Scharf – Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University, New York
Laurie Barge – Research scientist in astrobiology at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Bruce Damer – Research scientist in biomolecular engineering, University of California,
Jeremy England – Physicist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Originally aired May 13, 2019
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A radical plan could solve a historic global health inequity. Countries in the global south who waited for more than a year for ample supplies of Covid vaccines have banded together to make mRNA vaccines locally. If successful, they could end a dangerous dependency on wealthy nations and help stop pandemics before they start.
In a special episode, supported by the Pulitzer Center, journalist Amy Maxmen shares her reporting from southern Africa about the inspiring project led by the WHO that’s made fast progress. But it could fail, and a global imbalance will remain, if Big Pharma has its way. Find out what’s at stake.
Guests:
Amy Maxmen - Award-winning science journalist, Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the Nature article, "The Radical Plan for Vaccine Equity"
Petro Terblanche - Managing Director, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines in Cape Town, South Africa
Kondwani Charles Jambo - Senior Lecturer and immunologist at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Clinical Research Programme in Blantyre, Malawi
Barney Graham - Former deputy director at the Vaccine Research Center at NIH and professor of medicine and microbiology immunology biochemistry at Morehouse School of Medicine
Emile Hendricks - Research technologist at Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines in Cape Town, South Africa
Achal Prabhala - Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, Coordinator at AccessIBSA, a medicines-access initiative in Bengaluru, India
Patrick Tippoo - Head of Science and Innovation at Biovac in Cape Town, South Africa, founding member of the African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative (AVMI)
Harrison Chauluka - chief of the Mkunda village in Malawi
Agnes Joni - farmer in Chiradzulu, Malawi
Prophet Dauda - translator and writer in Blantyre, Malawi
Thanks to the Pulitzer Center for help supporting this episode of Big Picture Science
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Declining biodiversity is a problem as fraught as climate change.
Loss of habitat, monoculture crops, and the damming of waterways all lead to massive species extinction. They tear at life’s delicate web, and threaten a balance established by four billion years of evolution.
Can we reassess our relationship to Nature? We consider logging efforts that make elephants part of the work force, and how to leverage the cooperative behavior of trees.
Becoming Nature’s ally, rather than its enemy.
Guests:
Originally aired November 8, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A thousand years ago, most people didn’t own a single book. The only way to access knowledge was to consult their memory.
But technology – from paper to hard drives – has permitted us to free our brains from remembering countless facts. Alphabetization and the simple filing cabinet have helped to systematize and save information we might need someday.
But now that we can Google just about any subject, have we lost the ability to memorize information? Does this make our brains better or worse?
Guests:
Originally aired October 11, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe has ignited fierce debate about bodily autonomy. But it’s remarkable how little we know about female physiology. Find out what studies have been overlooked by science, and what has been recently learned. Plus, why studying women’s bodies means being able to say words like “vagina” without shame ... a researcher who is recreating a uterus in her lab to study endometriosis … and an overdue recognition of medical pioneer Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler.
Guests:
Melody T. McCloud - Obstetrician Gynecologist and Founder and Medical Director of Atlanta Women's Health Care; co-author of “Black Women's Wellness: Your ‘I've Got This!’ Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living”
Victoria Gall - Volunteer with the Friends of the Hyde Park Library and the Hyde Park Historical Society
Rachel E. Gross - Science journalist and author of “Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage”
Linda Griffith - Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T., Director of the Center for Gynepathology Research, and author of the Boston Globe article, “‘FemTech’ and a moonshot for menstruation science”
Roshni Babal - Pediatric Asthma and Chronic Disease Program Coordinator at Boston Medical Center
Perri Klass - Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University and Author of “The Best Medicine: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When a Google software engineer claimed that a piece of chatbot software was sentient, it was a major story. Just like your dog is sentient, could it be that some computer code – a chatbot system called LaMDA – has feelings?
But was it truly sentient, or was it pulling algorithmic wool over our eyes? Were we simply being fooled by high-tech mimicry? In this, our regular look at critical thinking: Skeptic Check, we ask what is the evidence that this system is sentient. Also, even A.I. that’s not sentient can still be powerful – and that has serious implications.
Guests:
Blake Lemoine – Software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher
Oren Etzioni – Emeritus Professor at the University of Washington, and former CEO at the Allen Institute for AI in Seattle
Mark Coeckelbergh – Professor of Philosophy of Media and Technology, University of Vienna, and author of “Robot Ethics“
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Free 1-Year NordVPN Subscription*
Click the link and enter the code to activate your free account!
https://nordvpn.com/order/activate/
CODE: nord12mm5eytjnaAL2GJZSgL
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
T-Rex is having an identity crisis. Rocking the world of paleontology is the claim that Rex was not one species, but actually three. It’s not the first time that this particular dino has forced us to revise our understanding of the past. The discovery of the first T-Rex fossil in the 19th century taught humanity a scary lesson: species eventually go extinct. If it happened to this seemingly invincible apex predator, it could happen to us too.
Hear how the amateur fossil hunter Barnum Brown’s discovery of T-Rex changed our understanding of ourselves, and the epilogue to the dinosaur era: how our mammalian relatives survived the potential extinction bottleneck of an asteroid impact.
Guests:
Thomas Carr - Vertebrate paleontologist and Professor of Biology, Carthage College
Peter Makovicky - Vertebrate paleontologist and Professor of paleontology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota
David Randall - Author of “The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T Rex and How It Shook Our World”
Steve Brusatte - Personal Chair of Paleontology and Evolution, University of Edinburgh. Author of “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs” and, most recently, “The Rise and Reign of The Mammals”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They’re cute and cuddly. But they can also be obnoxious.
Science writer Mary Roach has numerous tales about how our animal friends don’t always bow to their human overlords and behave the way we’d want. The resulting encounters, such as when gulls disrupt the Vatican’s Easter mass, make for amusing stories. But others, such as wolves threatening farmers’ livestock, can be tragic.
We hear what happens at the messy crossroads of human and wildlife encounters.
Guest:
Mary Roach – Author of bestselling nonfiction books, most recently “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.”
Originally aired September 13, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It was a radical idea a century ago, when Einstein said space and time can be bent, and gravity was really geometry. We hear how his theories inspire young minds even today.
At small scales, different rules apply: quantum mechanics and the Standard Model for particles. New experiments suggest that muons – cousins of the electron – may be telling us that the Standard Model is wrong. Also, where the physics of both the large and small apply, and why black holes have no hair.
Guests:
Originally aired August 16, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sexist snow plowing? Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender. In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.” Human bias also infects artificial intelligence, with speech recognition triggered only by male voices and facial recognition that can’t see black faces. We question the assumptions baked into these numbers and algorithms.
Guests:
Originally aired September 2, 2019
Featuring opening theme by Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Above the Arctic Circle, much of the land is underlaid by permafrost. But climate change is causing it to thaw. This is not good news for the planet.
As the carbon rich ground warms, microbes start to feast… releasing greenhouse gases that will warm the Earth even more.
Another possible downside was envisioned by a science-fiction author. Could ancient pathogens–released from the permafrost’s icy grip–cause new pandemics? We investigate what happens when the far north defrosts.
Guests:
Originally aired September 6, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Every second, lightning strikes 50 to 100 times somewhere. It can wreak havoc by starting wildfires and sometimes killing people. But lightning also produces a form of nitrogen that’s essential to vegetation. In this episode, we talk about the nature of these dramatic sparks. Ben Franklin established their electric origin, so what do we still not know? Also, why the frequency of lightning strikes is increasing in some parts of the world. And, what to do if you find someone hit by lightning.
Guests:
Thomas Yeadaker – Resident of Oakland, California
Chris Davis – Medical doctor and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Wake Forest University and Medical Director for the National Center for Outdoor Adventure Education
Jonathan Martin – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Steve Ackerman – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Peter Bieniek – Professor of Atmospheric and Space Science, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are not restricted to vision: Elephants can hear subsonic sounds, birds navigate by magnetism, and your dog lives in a world marked by odors. In this episode, we speak to science journalist Ed Yong about how other creatures sense the world. Could we ever understand what it’s like to have the hearing of a bat or the sight of a hawk?
Guest:
Ed Yong – Science writer for The Atlantic whose coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned him a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism. He is the author of, “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do we still need doctors? There are umpteen alternative sources of medical advice, including endless and heartfelt health tips from people without medical degrees. Frankly, self-diagnosis with a health app is easier and cheaper than a trip to a clinic. Since we’re urged to be our own health advocate and seek second opinions, why not ask Alexa or consult with a celebrity about what ails us?
Find out if you can trust these alternative medical advice platforms. Plus, lessons from an AIDS fighter about ignoring the findings of medical science.
And, if AI can diagnose better than an MD, will we stop listening to doctors altogether?
It’s our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
originally aired September 24, 2018
A special offer to Big Picture Science listeners: Receive 60% off the first month of a MEL Physics, MEL Chemistry or MEL STEM subscription. Just go to MELscience.com and use the promo code BPS or follow this link: https://melscience.com/sBI3/.
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They look like a cross between a beaver and a duck, and they all live Down Under. The platypus may lay eggs, but is actually a distant mammalian cousin, one that we last saw, in an evolutionary sense, about 166 million years ago.
Genetic sequencing is being used to trace that history, while scientists intensify their investigation of the habits and habitats of these appealing Frankencreatures; beginning by taking a census to see just how many are out there, and if their survival is under threat.
Guests:
Originally aired August 2, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
A special offer to Big Picture Science listeners: Receive 60% off the first month of a MEL Physics, MEL Chemistry or MEL STEM subscription. Just go to MELscience.com and use the promo code BPS or follow this link: https://melscience.com/sBI3/. You like science, that’s why you listen to Big Picture Science. So why not check out MEL science for your kids?
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your shower pipes are alive. So are your sinks, books, and floorboards. New studies of our homes are revealing just what species live there – in the thousands, from bacteria to flies to millipedes. Meanwhile, life keeps surprising us by popping up in other unexpected places: the deep biosphere houses the majority of the world’s bacteria and the Arctic tundra has kept worms frozen, but alive, for 40,000 years.
We embrace the multitude of life living on us, in us, and – as it turns out – in every possible ecological niche. Most of it is harmless, some is beneficial, and it’s all testament to the amazing diversity and adaptability of life. In addition, the hardiest organisms suggest where we might find life beyond Earth.
Guests:
Originally aired January 21, 2019
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
A special offer to Big Picture Science listeners: Receive 60% off the first month of a MEL Physics, MEL Chemistry or MEL STEM subscription. Just go to MELscience.com and use the promo code BPS or follow this link: https://melscience.com/sBI3/. You like science, that’s why you listen to Big Picture Science. So why not check out MEL science for your kids?
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The James Webb Space Telescope has turned its golden eye on the cosmos. The largest, most sensitive telescope put in space since the Hubble Space Telescope is already producing new photos of far-off galaxies and other cosmic phenomena.
In this episode: astronomers share their reactions to these stunning images, the project scientist on JWST describes how infrared cameras capture phenomena that are invisible to shorter wavelengths, and a plan to investigate the very stardust that created everything, including you and me.
Guests:
Néstor Espinoza – Assistant astronomer, Space Telescope Science Institute, principal investigator for exoplanet atmospheric physics, James Webb Space Telescope
Alyssa Pagan – Science Visuals Developer at the Space Telescope Science Institute
John Mather – Nobel Prize-winning NASA astronomer and Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope
Alex Filippenko – Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
A special offer to Big Picture Science listeners: Receive 60% off the first month of a MEL Physics, MEL Chemistry or MEL STEM subscription. Just go to MELscience.com and use the promo code BPS or follow this link: https://melscience.com/sBI3/. You like science, that’s why you listen to Big Picture Science. So why not check out MEL science for your kids?
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ready to become a space emigre? For half a century, visionaries have been talking about our future off-Earth – a speculative scenario in which many of us live in space colonies. So why haven’t we built them? Will the plans of billionaire space entrepreneurs to build settlements on Mars, or orbiting habitats that would be only minutes away from Earth, revive our long-held spacefaring dreams? And is having millions of people living off-Earth a solution to our problems… or an escape from them?
Guests:
Marianne Dyson – Author and former NASA flight controller
Emily St. John Mandel – Author, most recently of “Sea of Tranquility”
John Adams – Deputy Director, Biosphere 2, University of Arizona
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
One of the many shocking aspects of the Capitol attack was that it revealed how thoroughly the nation had cleaved into alternate realities. How did we get to this point? How did misinformation come to create beliefs embraced by millions?
In this episode, experts in social media, cults, and the history of science join us for a discussion about how these alternative realities formed, why people are drawn to them, and the benefits of a shared reality.
Guests:
Originally aired January 25, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Are you ready to defer all your personal decision-making to machines? Polls show that most Americans are uneasy about the unchecked growth of artificial intelligence. The possible misuse of genetic engineering also makes us anxious. We all have a stake in the responsible development of science and technology, but fortunately, science fiction films can help.
The movies Ex Machina and Jurassic Park suggest where A.I. and unfettered gene-tinkering could lead. But even less popular sci-fi movies can help us imagine unsettling scenarios regarding over-population, smart drugs, and human cloning.
And not all tales are grim. The 1951 film, The Man in the White Suit, weaves a humorous story of materials science run amok.
So, grab a bowl of popcorn and join us in contemplating the future of humanity as Hollywood sees it!
Guest:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The toilet: A ubiquitous appliance that dates to the time of Shakespeare. But billions of people around the world still lack modern sanitation infrastructure. And the incentive to modernize includes the possibility that recycling human waste could help with conservation efforts, energy generation, and even medicine.
Also, a sixth-grader puts lipstick on cats’ bottoms to map places their tush has touched, and in Michigan, why peeing on the peonies can be a good thing.
Guests:
Originally aired Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Standing on your own two feet isn’t easy. While many animals can momentarily balance on their hind legs, we’re the only critters, besides birds, for whom bipedalism is completely normal. Find out why, even though other animals are faster, we’re champions at getting around. Could it be that our upright stance made us human? Plus, why arches help stiffen feet, the argument for bare-footin’, and 12,000-year old footprints that tell a story about an Ice Age mother, her child, and a sloth.
Guests:
Originally aired May 24, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You are getting sleeeepy and open to suggestion. But is that how hypnotism works? And does it really open up a portal to the unconscious mind? Hypnotism can be an effective therapeutic tool, and some scientists suggest replacing opioids with hypnosis for pain relief. And yet, the performance aspect of hypnotism often seems at odds with the idea of it being an effective treatment.
In our regular look at critical thinking, Skeptic Check, we ask what part of hypnotism is real and what is an illusion. Plus, we discuss how the swinging watch became hypnotism’s irksome trademark.
Guests:
David Spiegel – Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine
Devin Terhune – Reader in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Graphic by Shannon Rose Geary
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thinking small can sometimes achieve big things. A new generation of diminutive robots can enter our bodies and deal with medical problems such as intestinal blockages. But do we really want them swimming inside us, even if they’re promising to help? You might change your mind when you hear what else is cruising through our bloodstream: microplastics!
We take a trip into the human body, beginning with the story of those who first dared to open it up for medical purposes. But were the first surgeons really cavemen?
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
This episode brought to you in part by DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT. Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do we have physical evidence of the last day of the dinosaurs? We consider fossilized fish in South Dakota that may chronicle the dramatic events that took place when, 66 million years ago, a large asteroid slammed into the Gulf of Mexico and caused three-quarters of all species to disappear.
Also, what new discoveries have paleontologists made about these charismatic animals, and the director of Jurassic World: Dominion talks about how his film hews to the latest science. Hint: feathers!
It’s deep history, as we look at what happened as terrestrial life experienced its worst day ever.
Guests:
This episode brought to you in part by DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT and Hero Wars. Learn more about Hero Wars at hero-wars.com
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Heredity was once thought to be straightforward. Genes were passed in an immutable path from parents to you, and you were stuck – or blessed – with what you got. DNA didn’t change.
But now we know that’s not true. Epigenetic factors, such as your environment and your lifestyle, control how your genes are expressed. Meanwhile, the powerful tool CRISPR allows us to tinker with the genes themselves. DNA is no longer destiny.
Hear the results from the NASA twin study and what happened to astronaut Scott Kelly’s DNA after a year on the International Space Station. Plus, whether there’s evidence that epigenetic changes can be passed down. And, if we can wipe out deadly malaria by engineering the mosquito genome for sterility, should we do it?
Guests:
Originally aired October 15, 2018
This episode brought to you in part by Hero Wars. Learn more about Hero Wars at hero-wars.com
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Olympic athlete gasp.
We inquire about these daunting migrations and how birds can fly for days without rest. And what can we do to save disappearing species? Will digital tracking technology help? Plus, how 19th century bird-lovers, appalled by feathered hats, started the modern conservation movement.
Guests:
Originally aired May 10, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nothing lasts forever. Even the universe has several possible endings. Will there be a dramatic Big Rip or a Big Chill–also known as the heat death of the universe–in trillions of years? Or will vacuum decay, which could theoretically happen at any moment, do us in? Perhaps the death of a tiny particle – the proton – will bring about the end.
We contemplate big picture endings in this episode, and whether one could be brought about by our own machine creations.
Guests:
Originally aired May 3, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Back off, you Neanderthal! It sounds as if you’ve just been dissed, but maybe you should take it as a compliment. Contrary to common cliches, our Pleistocene relatives were clever, curious, and technologically inventive. Find out how our assessment of Neanderthals has undergone a radical rethinking, and hear about the influence they have as they live on in our DNA. For example, some of their genes have a strong association with severe Covid 19 infection. Plus, how Neanderthal mini-brains grown in a lab will teach us about the evolution of Homo sapiens.
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We have too much “bad fire.” Not only destructive wildfires, but the combustion that powers our automobiles and provides our electricity has generated a worrying rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. And that is driving climate change which is adding to the frequency of megafires. Now we’re seeing those effects in “fire-clouds,” pyrocumulonimbus events.
But there’s such a thing as “good fire.” Indigenous peoples managed the land with controlled fires, reaped the benefits of doing so, and they’re bringing them back.
So after millions of years of controlling fire, is it time for us to revisit our attitudes and policies, not just with regard to combustion, but how we manage our wildfires?
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dr. Oz’s personable and folky approach when talking about difficult health subjects has made him a trusted source for medical information. But some of the claims offered on The Doctor Oz Show are clearly questionable, such as the existence of miracle diet pills. Now the show is on hiatus so that “America’s Doctor” can run for the U.S. Senate.
In our regular look at critical thinking, Skeptic Check, we evaluate Mehmet Oz’s record on presenting evidence-based health and medical information in light of his running for Congress, where he would be empowered to influence health policy.
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
This episode brought to you in part by Private Internet Access - America's #1 virtual private network. Try out the best VPN on the planet, completely risk free at privateinternetaccess.com/BPS.
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The world is a colorful place, and human eyes have evolved to take it in – from vermillion red to bright tangerine to cobalt blue. But when we do, are you and I seeing the same thing?
Find out why color perception is a trick of the brain, and why you and I may not see the same shade of green. Or blue. Or red. Also, platypuses and the growing club of fluorescent mammals, and the first new blue pigment in more than two centuries.
Guests:
originally aired March 8, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We present a grab bag of our favorite recent science stories – from how to stop aging to the mechanics of cooking pasta. Also, in accord with our eclectic theme – the growing problem of space junk.
Guests:
Originally aired March 1, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In 1915, Endurance, the ship that took Ernest Shackleton to the Antarctic, was slowly crushed and sank. Shackleton, and the 28 men he brought with him, were camped on the ice near the ship, and watched helplessly as their transport went to a watery grave, two miles down.
But a recent expedition has found the Endurance, taking the world back to the last hurrah of the heroic age of polar expedition. How was it found, and what will be done with it?
Also, while feats of exploration inspire TV shows and magazine articles, do they have other functions in society? Is modern exploration more than just a nice thing to do?
We go to the bottom of the world on “Finding Endurance.”
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Solid materials get all the production credit. Don’t get us wrong, we depend on their strength and firmness for bridges, bones, and bento boxes. But liquids do us a solid, too. Their free-flowing properties drive the Earth’s magnetic field, inspire a new generation of smart electronics, and make biology possible. But the weird thing is, they elude clear definition. Is tar a liquid or a solid? What about peanut butter?
In this episode: A romp through a cascade of liquids with a materials scientist who is both admiring and confounded by their properties; how Earth’s molten iron core is making the magnetic north pole high-tail it to Siberia; blood as your body’s information superhighway; and how a spittlebug can convert 200 times its body weight in urine into a cozy, bubble fortress.
Guests:
originally aired April 8, 2019
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is your windshield accumulating less bug splatter? Insects, the most numerous animals on Earth, are becoming scarcer, and that’s not good news. They’re essential, and not just for their service as pollinators. We ask what’s causing the decrease in insect populations, and how can it be reversed.
Also, the story of how California’s early citrus crops came under attack – a problem that was solved by turning Nature on itself. And how chimpanzee “doctors” use insects to treat wounds.
We investigate the small and the many on “The Latest Buzz.”
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The nuclear threat is back, and the Doomsday Clock is almost at midnight. How did we end up here again? In the 1930s, German physicists learned that splitting the nuclei of heavy atoms could release tremendous amounts of energy. Such theoretical ideas became relevant when WW II began.
Today, we try to eliminate nuclear weaponry while exploiting the atom for peaceful uses, such as energy generation. But as the invasion of Ukraine shows, power plants can also be military targets. We lay out some of the questions that scientists and strategists are grappling with considering recent events.
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
DNA is the gold standard of identification. Except when it’s not. In rare cases when a person has two complete sets of DNA, that person’s identity may be up in the air. Meanwhile, DNA ancestry tests are proving frustratingly vague: dishing up generalities about where you came from rather than anything specific. And decoding a genome is still relatively expensive and time-consuming. So, while we refine our ability to work with DNA, the search is on for a quick and easy biomarker test to tell us who we are.
In this hour: the story of chimeras – people who have two sets of DNA; a reporter whose ancestry tests revealed she is related to Napoleon and Marie Antoinette; and the eyes have it in Somaliland, the first nation to use iris scans in an election. Find out why your irises may be what ultimately distinguishes you from the crowd.
Guests:
Originally aired July 23, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There’s no place like “ome.” Your microbiome is highly influential in determining your health. But it’s not the only “ome” doing so. Your exposome – environmental exposure over a lifetime – also plays a role.
Hear how scientists hope to calculate your entire exposome, from food to air pollution to water contamination.
Plus, new research on the role that microbes play in the development of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s, and the hot debate about when microbes first colonize the body. Could a fetus have its own microbiome?
Also, choose your friends wisely: studies of microbe-swapping gazelles reveal the benefits – and the downsides – of being social.
And, why sensors on future toilets will let you do microbiome analysis with every flush.
Guests:
Originally aired May 14, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
5G, the latest mobile network standard, is coming. As new cell towers sprout around the world, do we know enough to confidently claim that this new technology is safe? After all, older networking standards relied on microwaves, radiation which has wavelengths of inches to a foot or so. 5G operates at much higher frequencies, with millimeter wavelengths.
Some are worried that being subjected to millimeter radiation could cause cancers. But what does science say? 5G: the promise and the perils.
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Climate change isn’t waiting for us to act. We’ve missed several deadlines to mitigate the dangers of this existential threat, which suggests we prefer to avert our gaze rather than deal with the problem. It’s similar to the way society reacts to an incoming comet in the movie “Don’t Look Up!”
As a major Antarctic ice sheet shows signs of collapse, it’s no wonder we feel some “climate anxiety.” Can we leverage this emotion to spur action? That, and where hope lies, in this episode.
Guests:
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Maybe you don’t remember the days of the earliest coal-fired stoves. They changed domestic life, and that changed society. We take you back to that era, and to millennia prior when iron was first smelt, and even earlier, when axe-handles were first fashioned from wood, as we explore how three essential materials profoundly transformed society.
We were once excited about coal’s promise to provide cheap energy, and how iron would lead to indestructible bridges, ships, and buildings. But they also caused some unintended problems: destruction of forests, greenhouse gases and corrosion. Did we foresee where the use of wood, coal, and iron would lead? What lessons do they offer for our future?
Guests:
originally aired February 1, 2021
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Scientists are increasingly finding their expertise questioned by non-experts who claim they’ve done their own “research.” Whether advocating Ivermectin to treat Covid, insisting that climate change is a hoax, or asserting that the Earth is flat, doubters are now dismissed by being told to “do your own research!” But is a Wiki page evidence? What about a YouTube video? What happens to our quest for truth along the way? Plus, a science historian goes to a Flat Earth convention to talk reason.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You may not feel that your skeleton does very much. But without it you’d be a limp bag of protoplasm, unable to move. And while you may regard bones as rigid and inert, they are living tissue.
Bones are also time capsules, preserving much of your personal history. Find out how evolutionary biologists, forensic anthropologists, and even radiation scientists read them.
And why won’t your dog stop gnawing on that bone?
Guests:
Originally aired November 30, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Long before Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space, Laika, a stray dog, crossed the final frontier. Find out what other surprising species were drafted into the astronaut corps.
They may be our best friends, but we still balk at giving other creatures moral standing. And why are humans so reluctant to accept the fact that we too are animals?
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake.
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Catalytic converters are disappearing. If you’ve had yours stolen, you know that rare earth metals are valuable. But these metals are in great demand for things other than converters, such as batteries for electric cars, wind farms and solar panels.
We need rare earth metals to combat climate change, but where to get them? Could we find substitutes?
One activity that could be in our future: Deep sea mining. But it’s controversial. Can one company’s plan to mitigate environmental harm help?
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay.
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Have you ever heard worms arguing? Deep-sea scientists use hydrophones to eavesdrop on “mouth-fighting worms.” It’s one of the many ways scientists are trying to catalog the diversity of the deep oceans — estimated to be comparable to a rainforest.
But the clock is ticking. While vast expanses of the deep sea are still unexplored, mining companies are ready with dredging vehicles to strip mine the seafloor, potentially destroying rare and vulnerable ecosystems. Are we willing to eradicate an alien landscape that we haven’t yet visited?
Guests:
Originally aired November 23, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Brace yourself for heatwave “Lucifer.” Dangerous deadly heatwaves may soon be so common that we give them names, just like hurricanes. This is one of the dramatic consequences of just a few degrees rise in average temperatures.
Also coming: Massive heat “blobs” that form in the oceans and damage marine life, and powerful windstorms called “derechos” pummeling the Midwest.
Plus, are fungal pathogens adapting to hotter temperatures and breaching the 98.6 F thermal barrier that keeps them from infecting us?
Guests:
Originally aired October 19, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Beneath our feet is a living network just as complex and extensive as the root systems in a forest. Fungi, which evolved in the oceans, were among the first to colonize the barren continents more than a half-billion years ago. They paved the way for land plants, animals, and (eventually) you.
Think beyond penicillin and pizza, and take a moment to consider these amazing organisms. Able to survive every major extinction, essential as Nature’s decomposers, and the basis of both ale and antibiotics, fungi are essential to life. And their behavior is so complex you’ll be wondering if we shouldn’t call them intelligent!
Guest:
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The omicron variant is surging. More contagious than delta, omicron demonstrates how viruses use mutations to quickly adapt.
Mutations drive evolution, although most don’t do much. But occasionally a mutation improves an organism. Omicron, the latest in a string of variants, is bad for us, but good for the virus.
How mutation of viruses ensures their own survival while threatening ours, and the prospect of a universal vaccine that would protect us against all a viruses’ variants.
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay.
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The universe is not just expanding; it’s accelerating. Supermassive black holes are hunkered down at the center of our galaxy and just about every other galaxy, too. We talk about these and other big discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, now in orbit for over 30 years.
But two new next-generation telescopes will soon be joining Hubble: the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. Hear what cosmic puzzles they’ll address. Plus, life in a clean room while wearing a coverall “bunny suit”; what it takes to assemble a telescope.
Guests:
Originally aired September 21, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Pentagon’s report on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) said nothing about the possibility that some might be alien spacecraft. Nonetheless, the report has generated heightened interest in figuring out what these UAPs are, and that interest extends to some scientists. We talk to two researchers who want an open and strictly scientific investigation of these phenomena. What should they do and what do they expect to find? And finally, will the possibility of alien visitors ever be resolved?
Guests:
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds and bees do it … and so do fish. In a discovery that highlights the adaptive benefits of walking, scientists have discovered fish that can walk on land. Not fin-flap their bodies, mind you, but ambulate like reptiles.
And speaking of which, new research shows that T Rex, the biggest reptile of them all, wasn’t a sprinter, but could be an efficient hunter by outwalking its prey.
Find out the advantage of legging it, and how human bipedalism stacks up. Not only is walking good for our bodies and brains, but not walking can change your personality and adversely affect your health.
Guests:
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
originally aired October 5, 2020
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Magic mushrooms – or psilocybin - may be associated with tripping hippies and Woodstock, but they are now being studied as new treatments for depression and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Is this Age of Aquarius medicine or something that could really work? Plus, the centuries-long use of psychedelics by indigenous peoples, and a discovery in California’s Pinwheel Cave offers new clues about the relationship between hallucinogens and cave art.
Guests:
Originally aired December 7, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Life nearby? We’ve not yet found any on our favorite planet, Mars. But even if Mars is sterile, could we ever change that by terraforming it? Or seeding it with life from Earth?
The Red Planet is not the only game in town: A new NASA mission to a Jovian moon may give clues to biology on a world where, unlike Mars, liquid water still exists.
Also, the promise of the James Webb Space Telescope and why the solar system’s largest active volcano offers clues to the habitability of other worlds.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Declining biodiversity is a problem as fraught as climate change.
Loss of habitat, monoculture crops, and the damming of waterways all lead to massive species extinction. They tear at life’s delicate web, and threaten a balance established by four billion years of evolution.
Can we reassess our relationship to Nature? We consider logging efforts that make elephants part of the work force, and how to leverage the cooperative behavior of trees.
Becoming Nature’s ally, rather than its enemy.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Does geoengineering offer a Plan B if nations at the U.N. climate meeting can't reduce carbon emissions? The Glasgow meeting has been called “the last best chance” to take measures to slow down global heating. But we're nowhere near to achieving the emission reductions necessary to stave off a hothouse planet. We consider both the promise and the perils of geoengineering, and ask who decides about experimenting with Earth’s climate.
Guests:
· Elizabeth Kolbert – Staff Writer at The New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Sixth Extinction,” and, most recently, of “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future.”
· David Keith – Professor of public policy and applied physics at Harvard University who also participates in the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPex) geoengineering project.
· Kim Cobb – Professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Tech, and the director of its Global Change Program.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Looking to boost your brainpower? Luckily, there are products promising to help. Smart drugs, neurofeedback exercises, and brain-training video games all promise to improve your gray matter’s performance. But it’s uncertain whether these products really work. Regulatory agencies have come down hard on some popular brain training companies for false advertising. But other brain games have shown benefits in clinical trials. And could we skip the brain workout altogether and pop a genius pill instead?
In our regular look at critical thinking, we separate the pseudo from the science of commercial cognitive enhancement techniques.
Guests:
· Caroline Williams – Science journalist and author of “My Plastic Brain: One Woman’s Yearlong Journey to Discover If Science Can Improve Her Mind”
· Adam Gazzaley – Neuroscientist, University of California, San Francisco, and the executive director of Neuroscape. His book is “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World.”
· Amy Arnsten – Professor of neuroscience and psychology at Yale Medical School
· Kevin Roose – Journalist for the New York Times.
· Leonard Mlodinow – Physicist and author of “Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change”
Originally aired August 6, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
400 years ago, some ideas about the cosmos were too scandalous to mention. When the Dominican friar Giordano Bruno suggested that planets existed outside our Solar System, the Catholic Inquisition had him arrested, jailed, and burned at the stake for heresy.
Today, we have evidence of thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Our discovery of extrasolar planets has dramatically changed ideas about the possibility for life elsewhere in the universe.
Modern theories about the existence of the ghostly particles called neutrinos or of collapsed stars with unfathomable gravity (black holes), while similarly incendiary, didn’t prompt arrest, of course. Neutrinos and black holes were arresting ideas because they came decades before we had the means to prove their existence.
Hear about scientific ideas that came before their time and why extrasolar planets, neutrinos, and black holes are now found on the frontiers of astronomical research.
Guests:
Originally aired February 18, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A thousand years ago, most people didn’t own a single book. The only way to access knowledge was to consult their memory.
But technology – from paper to hard drives – has permitted us to free our brains from remembering countless facts. Alphabetization and the simple filing cabinet have helped to systematize and save information we might need someday.
But now that we can Google just about any subject, have we lost the ability to memorize information? Does this make our brains better or worse?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As we struggle to control a viral invader that moves silently across the globe and into its victims, we are also besieged by other invasions. Murder hornets have descended upon the Pacific Northwest, threatening the region’s honeybees. In Africa, locust swarms darken the sky. In this episode, we draw on a classic science fiction tale to examine the nature of invasions, and what prompts biology to go on the move.
Guests:
Originally aired August 31, 2020
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The benefits of artificial intelligence are manifest and manifold, but can we recognize the drawbacks … and avoid them in time?
In this episode, recorded before a live audience at the Seattle meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, we discuss who is making the ethical decisions about how we use this powerful technology, and a proposal to create a Hippocratic Oath for AI researchers.
Guests:
Originally aired February 24, 2020
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Climate change isn’t happening. Vaccines make you sick. When it comes to threats to public or environmental health, a surprisingly large fraction of the population still denies the consensus of scientific evidence. But it’s not the first time – many people long resisted the evidentiary link between HIV and AIDS and smoking with lung cancer.
There’s a sense that science denialism is on the rise. It prompted a gathering of scientists and historians in New York City to discuss the problem, which included a debate on the usefulness of the word “denial” itself. Big Picture Science was there. We report from the Science Denial symposium held jointly by the New York Academy of Sciences and Rutgers Global Health Institute.
Find out why so many people dig in their heels and distrust scientific findings. Plus, the techniques wielded by special interest groups to dispute some inconvenient truths. We also hear how simply stating more facts may be the wrong approach to combating scientific resistance.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They’re cute and cuddly. But they can also be obnoxious.
Science writer Mary Roach has numerous tales about how our animal friends don’t always bow to their human overlords and behave the way we’d want. The resulting encounters, such as when gulls disrupt the Vatican’s Easter mass, make for amusing stories. But others, such as wolves threatening farmers’ livestock, can be tragic.
We hear what happens at the messy crossroads of human and wildlife encounters.
Guest:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Above the Arctic Circle, much of the land is underlaid by permafrost. But climate change is causing it to thaw. This is not good news for the planet.
As the carbon rich ground warms, microbes start to feast… releasing greenhouse gases that will warm the Earth even more.
Another possible downside was envisioned by a science-fiction author. Could ancient pathogens–released from the permafrost’s icy grip–cause new pandemics? We investigate what happens when the far north defrosts.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Without sand, engineering would be stuck in the Middle Ages. Wooden houses would line mud-packed streets, and Silicon Valley would be, well, just a valley. Sand is the building material of modern cities, and we use more of this resource than any other except water and air. Now we’re running out of it.
Hear why the Roman recipe for making concrete was lost until the 19th century, and about the super-secret mine in North Carolina that makes your smartphone possible.
Plus, engineered sand turns stormwater into drinking water, and why you might think twice about running barefoot on some tropical beaches once you learn about their biological source.
And, a special report from the coast of Louisiana where livelihoods and ecosystems depend on the successful release of Mississippi sand from levees into sediment-starved wetlands.
Guests:
Originally aired January 14, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SMS isn’t the original instant messaging system. Plants can send chemical warnings through their leaves in a fraction of a second. And while we love being in the messaging loop – frenetically refreshing our browsers – we miss out on important conversations that no Twitter feed or inbox can capture. That’s because eavesdropping on the communications of non-human species requires the ability to decode their non-written signals.
Dive into Arctic waters where scientists make first-ever recordings of the socializing clicks and squeals of narwhals, and find out how climate shifts may pollute their acoustic landscape. Also, why the chemical defense system of plants has prompted one biologist to give greenery an “11 on the scale of awesomeness.” And, you can’t see them, but they sure can sense one another: how communicating microbes plan their attack.
Guests:
Originally aired October 29, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It was a radical idea a century ago, when Einstein said space and time can be bent, and gravity was really geometry. We hear how his theories inspire young minds even today.
At small scales, different rules apply: quantum mechanics and the Standard Model for particles. New experiments suggest that muons – cousins of the electron – may be telling us that the Standard Model is wrong. Also, where the physics of both the large and small apply, and why black holes have no hair.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They were developed in a matter of months, and they’re 90 percent effective at stopping infection. They protect against serious illness or death. And yet, roughly one-third of Americans refuse to get the Covid vaccine.
How can this be? How could something that our ancestors would have considered a miracle be refused by so many? The reasons are many, and not all are because of an anti-vax attitude. We talk to health professionals to learn what’s stopping the public from stopping the pandemic.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They look like a cross between a beaver and a duck, and they all live Down Under. The platypus may lay eggs, but is actually a distant mammalian cousin, one that we last saw, in an evolutionary sense, about 166 million years ago.
Genetic sequencing is being used to trace that history, while scientists intensify their investigation of the habits and habitats of these appealing Frankencreatures; beginning by taking a census to see just how many are out there, and if their survival is under threat.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your daily mucus output is most impressive. Teaspoons or measuring cups can’t capture its entire volume. Find out how much your body churns out and why you can’t live without the viscous stuff. But slime in general is remarkable.
Whether coating the bellies of slithery creatures, sleeking the surface of aquatic plants, or dripping from your nose, its protective qualities make it one of the great inventions of biology. Join us as we venture to the land of ooze!
Guests:
Originally aired January 27, 2020
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The seas are rising. It’s no longer a rarity to see kayakers paddling through downtown Miami. By century’s end, the oceans could be anywhere from 2 to 6 feet higher, threatening millions of people and property. But humans once knew how to adapt to rising waters. As high water threatens to drown our cities, can we learn do it again.
Hear stories of threatened land: submerged Florida suburbs, the original sunken city (Venice), and the U.S. East Coast, where anthropologists rush to catalogue thousands of low-lying historical and cultural sites in harm’s way, including Jamestown, Virginia and ancient Native American sites.
But also, stories of ancient adaptability: from the First American tribes of the Colusa in South Florida to the ice age inhabitants of Doggerland. And, modern approaches to staying dry: stilt houses, seawalls, and floating cities.
Guests:
· Jeff Goodell – Journalist and author of “The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World”
· Brian Fagan – Archaeologist and Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of California Santa Barbara, and author of many books including “The Attacking Ocean: the Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels”
· David Anderson – Professor of Anthropology, University of Tennessee. His team’s PLOS ONE paper is “Sea-level rise and archaeological site destruction.” His DINAA site can be used to generate maps of where people were living in the past, up to ca. 15,000 years ago.
Originally aired August 27, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Rip van Winkle snoozed for 20 years, and Sleeping Beauty for 100. But seeds in an underground bottle have easily beaten both these records, germinating long after the scientist who buried them a few feet underground had died. We investigate biology’s long haulers–from seeds to small creatures–who are able to wake up and restart their lives, even after tens of thousands of years. Also, what are those buried 17-year cicadas doing as they wait to come back topside?
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When the government announced it would release a report about strange aerial phenomena, public excitement and media coverage took off like a Saturn V rocket. But what’s really in the report? Do we finally have the long-awaited evidence of alien visitation? We discuss the report’s content and implications with both a former U.S. Air Force pilot and a skeptical investigator. And if it hasn’t proven alien presence, what happens next with those who nonetheless think Earth is being visited?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The scientific method is tried and true. It has led us to a reliable understanding of things from basic physics to biomedicine. So yes, we can rely on the scientific method. The fallible humans behind the research, not so much. And politicians? Don’t get us started. Remember when one brought a snowball to the Senate floor to “prove” that global warming was a hoax? Oy vey.
We talk to authors about new books that seem to cast a skeptical eye on the scientific method… but that are really throwing shade on the ambitious labcoat-draped humans who heat the beakers and publish the papers … as well as the pinstriped politicians who twist science to win votes.
Find out why the hyper-competitive pursuit of results that are “amazing” and “incredible” is undermining medical science… how a scientific breakthrough can turn into a societal scourge (heroin as miracle cure)… and what happens when civil servants play the role of citizen scientists on CSPAN.
Guests:
Originally aired May 22, 2017
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Everyone is familiar with the immediate consequences of a pandemic – sickness and death. But the long-term ramifications can be just as dramatic: a breakdown of the family and society, shifts in political power, and widespread appeals to magical thinking.
Plagues are societal disrupters. Their effects can linger long after the pathogens have gone.
Also, hear how art responded to a pandemic and how the Louisiana Purchase was made possible by an outbreak of fever in the Caribbean.
Guest:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The toilet: A ubiquitous appliance that dates to the time of Shakespeare. But billions of people around the world still lack modern sanitation infrastructure. And the incentive to modernize includes the possibility that recycling human waste could help with conservation efforts, energy generation, and even medicine.
Also, a sixth-grader puts lipstick on cats’ bottoms to map places their tush has touched, and in Michigan, why peeing on the peonies can be a good thing.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s the difference between a bird call and the sound of a pile driver? Not much, when you’re close to the loudest bird ever. Find out when it pays to be noisy and when noise can worsen your health. Just about everyone eventually suffers some hearing loss, but that’s not merely aging. It’s an ailment we inflict on ourselves. Hear how a team in New York City has put sensors throughout the city to catalog noise sources, hoping to tame the tumult.
And can underwater speakers blasting the sounds of a healthy reef bring life back to dead patches of the Great Barrier Reef?
Guests:
Originally aired January 20, 2020
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Whether you yawn, gasp, sniff, snore, or sigh, you’re availing yourself of our very special atmosphere. It’s easy to take this invisible chemical cocktail for granted, but it’s not only essential to your existence: it unites you and every other life form on the planet, dead or alive. The next breath you take likely includes molecules exhaled by Julius Caesar or Eleanor Roosevelt.
And for some animals, air is an information superhighway. Dogs navigate with their noses. Their sniffing snouts help them to identify their owners, detect trace amounts of drugs, and even sense some diseases. Find out what a dog’s nose knows, and why no amount of bathing and dousing in perfume can mask your personal smelliness.
Plus, why your own schnoz is key to not only enjoying a fine Bordeaux, but to survival of our species.
Guests:
Originally aired December 4, 2017
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Standing on your own two feet isn’t easy. While many animals can momentarily balance on their hind legs, we’re the only critters, besides birds, for whom bipedalism is completely normal. Find out why, even though other animals are faster, we’re champions at getting around. Could it be that our upright stance made us human? Plus, why arches help stiffen feet, the argument for bare-footin’, and 12,000-year old footprints that tell a story about an Ice Age mother, her child, and a sloth.
Guests:
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Two heads may be better than one. But what about three or more? A new study shows that chimpanzees excel at complex tasks when they work in groups, and their accumulated knowledge can even be passed from one generation to the next.
But group-think also can be maladaptive. When humans rely on knowledge that they assume other people possess, they can become less than rational.
Find out why one cognitive scientist says that individual thinking is a myth. Most of your decisions are made in groups, and most derive from emotion, not rationality.
Also, why we know far less than we think we do. For example, most people will say they understand how an everyday object like a zipper works, but draw a blank when asked to explain it.
Plus, why we have a biological drive to categorize people as “us” or “them,” and how we can override it.
Guests:
Originally aired July 3, 2017
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Olympic athlete gasp.
We inquire about these daunting migrations and how birds can fly for days without rest. And what can we do to save disappearing species? Will digital tracking technology help? Plus, how 19th century bird-lovers, appalled by feathered hats, started the modern conservation movement.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Olympic athlete gasp.
We inquire about these daunting migrations and how birds can fly for days without rest. And what can we do to save disappearing species? Will digital tracking technology help? Plus, how 19th century bird-lovers, appalled by feathered hats, started the modern conservation movement.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Earth is not round. Technically, it’s an oblate spheroid. But for some people, the first statement is not even approximately correct. Flat Earthers believe that our planet resembles – not a slightly squashed grapefruit – but a thick pancake. A journalist who covered a Flat Earth convention describes the rationale behind this ever-more popular belief.
So how do you establish science truth? We look at the difference between a truly scientific examination of extraordinary claims and approaches that feel and look science-y but aren’t.
Find out how one man will use telescopes and balloons in the desert to demonstrate that the Earth is a globe, while a biologist runs a test on the waters of Loch Ness to see if it contains prehistoric reptile DNA.
And what happens when amateur investigators chase ghosts, UFOs, and Bigfoot with science instruments, but without an understanding of the scientific method.
Guests:
· James Underdown – Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry in Los Angeles and of the Independent Investigations Group. The results of his experiment are available here.
· Alex Moshakis – Journalist who writes for the Observer, the Guardian, and Esquire. His article on the U.K.’s first Flat Earth convention appeared in May, 2018 in the Guardian.
· Harry Dyer – Lecturer in education at the University of East Anglia. His article about the flat earth convention is titled "I Watched an Entire Flat Earth Convention for my Research, Here is What I Learned."
· Neil Gemmell – Professor in the Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, New Zealand
· Sharon Hill – Geologist, science writer, speaker, and author of "Scientifical Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers."
Originally aired June 11, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why create more landfill? Perhaps you should resist the urge to toss those old sneakers, the broken ceiling fan, or last year’s smart phone. Instead, repurpose them! Global junk entrepreneurs are leading the way in turning trash to treasure, while right-to-repair advocates fight for legislation that would give you a decent shot at fixing your own electronic devices.
And, if you toss food scraps down the drain as you cook, are you contributing to a “fatberg” horror in the sewer?
Guests:
Originally aired December 16, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all get defensive sometimes. For some animals, evolution has provided a highly effective mechanism for saying “back off!”. A puncture by a pair of venom-filled fangs gets the point across nicely.
But one animal’s poison may be another’s cure. Some dangerous critters churn out compounds that can be synthesized into life-saving drugs.
Meet the spiny, fanged, and oozing creatures who could help defend us against such illnesses as hypertension and kidney disease.
Plus, the King of Pain - a scientist who has been stung by more than 80 species of insects in his pursuit of a better understanding of venom’s biochemistry. Find out which winged stinger scored the highest on his pain index.
And, why the drug we need most may come from the quietest members of the biosphere: turning to plants for a new generation of antibiotics.
Guests:
Originally aired October 3, 2016
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Earth’s surface is dappled with more than a thousand volcanoes. They mark the edges of tectonic plates, spewing hot gas and ash, and boiling over with lava. We can detect the warning signs of an eruption, but why is it still so hard to predict?
Meet a few currently active hot heads: Mauna Loa, Nyiragongo, Fagradalsfjall, and Soufrière – and find out what gives them individual personalities. Plus, what a newly excavated snack bar in Pompeii, buried and preserved when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, can teach us about eruptions.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Can self-deception be useful? During the pandemic, it has been fashionable to say that we’re “following the science,” and that our behavior is determined by verifiable facts. We are, after all, self-declared rational beings, and that’s clearly useful in guiding our reaction to a pandemic. It’s true that fear and suspicion have caused some to make contrary choices such as declining vaccines, but that behavior is considered irrational. But are there situations when delusional thinking can help you thrive? Why are we not as rational as we think?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Back off, you Neanderthal! It sounds as if you’ve just been dissed, but maybe you should take it as a compliment. Contrary to common cliches, our Pleistocene relatives were clever, curious, and technologically inventive. Find out how our assessment of Neanderthals has undergone a radical rethinking, and hear about the influence they have as they live on in our DNA. For example, some of their genes have a strong association with severe Covid 19 infection. Plus, how Neanderthal mini-brains grown in a lab will teach us about the evolution of Homo sapiens.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They were pioneers in their fields, yet their names are scarcely known – because they didn’t have a Y chromosome. We examine the accomplishments of two women who pioneered code breaking and astronomy during the early years of the twentieth century and did so in the face of social opprobrium and a frequently hostile work environment.
Henrietta Leavitt measured the brightnesses of thousands of stars and discovered a way to gauge the distances to galaxies, a development that soon led to the concept of the Big Bang.
Elizabeth Friedman, originally hired to test whether William Shakespeare really wrote his plays, was soon establishing the science of code breaking, essential to success in the two world wars.
Also, the tech industry is overwhelmingly male. Girls Who Code is an initiative to redress the balance by introducing girls to computer programming, and encouraging them to follow careers in tech.
Guests:
Originally aired April 1, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The world is a colorful place, and human eyes have evolved to take it in – from vermillion red to bright tangerine to cobalt blue. But when we do, are you and I seeing the same thing?
Find out why color perception is a trick of the brain, and why you and I may not see the same shade of green. Or blue. Or red. Also, platypuses and the growing club of fluorescent mammals, and the first new blue pigment in more than two centuries.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We present a grab bag of our favorite recent science stories – from how to stop aging to the mechanics of cooking pasta. Also, in accord with our eclectic theme – the growing problem of space junk.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Okay you animals, line up: stoned sloths, playful pandas, baleful bovines, and vile vultures. We’ve got you guys pegged, thanks to central casting.
Or do we? Our often simplistic view of animals ignores their remarkable adaptive abilities. Stumbly sloths are in fact remarkably agile and a vulture’s tricks for thermoregulation can’t be found in an outdoors store.
Our ignorance about some animals can even lead to their suffering and to seemingly intractable problems. The South American nutria was brought to Louisiana to supply the fur market. But the species got loose and tens of millions of these rodents are destroying the environment. It literally has a bounty on its tail.
Hear about research that corrects a menagerie of misunderstandings about our fellow furry, feathered, and scaly animals, and how getting over ourselves to know them better can have practical benefits. Will you still recoil from termites if you learn that they are relevant to the future of robots, global warming, and smart design?
Guests:
Originally aired October 8, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Diversity or die” could be your new health mantra. Don’t boost your immune system, cultivate it! Like a garden, your body’s defenses benefit from species diversity. Find out why multiple strains of microbes, engaged in a delicate ballet with your T-cells, join internal fungi in combatting disease. Plus, global ecosystems also depend on the diversity of its tiniest members; so what happens when the world’s insects bug out?
Guests:
Originally aired August 12, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Earth invades Mars in February. In a historic trifecta for space exploration, spacecraft of three countries will arrive at Mars, and for two of those it will be their first time at the Red Planet. We talk to the science lead for the Emirates Mars Mission, a NASA engineer piloting the first helicopter on Mars, and a British space expert – all to learn how these spacecraft may bring greater understanding of this rusty world – including whether Mars ever supported life.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Maybe you don’t remember the days of the earliest coal-fired stoves. They changed domestic life, and that changed society. We take you back to that era, and to millennia prior when iron was first smelt, and even earlier, when axe-handles were first fashioned from wood, as we explore how three essential materials profoundly transformed society.
We were once excited about coal’s promise to provide cheap energy, and how iron would lead to indestructible bridges, ships, and buildings. But they also caused some unintended problems: destruction of forests, greenhouse gases and corrosion. Did we foresee where the use of wood, coal, and iron would lead? What lessons do they offer for our future?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
One of the many shocking aspects of the Capitol attack was that it revealed how thoroughly the nation had cleaved into alternate realities. How did we get to this point? How did misinformation come to create beliefs embraced by millions?
In this episode, experts in social media, cults, and the history of science join us for a discussion about how these alternative realities formed, why people are drawn to them, and the benefits of a shared reality.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do you have a hard-to-answer question? The Summit, Sierra, Trinity, Frontier, and Aurora supercomputers are built to tackle it. Summit tops the petaflop heap – at least for now. But Frontier and Aurora are catching up as they take aim at a new performance benchmark called exascale.
So why do we need all this processing power? From climate modeling to personalized medicine, find out why the super-est computers are necessary to answer our biggest questions. But is the dark horse candidate, quantum computing, destined to leave classical computing in the dust?
Guests:
Originally aired November 4, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Psychics may not be able to predict the future or sense your thoughts. Nonetheless, they rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. But the harm from pseudoscience can go far beyond your wallet – especially when it promotes unscientific treatments for serious disease. Find out what alarming discovery led one naturopath to quit her practice and why scientific ignorance is not bliss.
It’s our regular look at critical thinking, but don’t take our word for it.
Guests:
Originally aired November 25, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The stone heads on Easter Island are an enduring mystery: why were they built and why were they abandoned and destroyed? The old ideas about cultural collapse are yielding to new ones based on careful investigation on the ground - but also from above. What surprising explanations have we found and are we off base to think that ancient societies such as the Easter Islanders or the classical Egyptians were, in the end, failures? Can what we learn from these histories help predict which societies will survive?
Guests:
Originally aired September 30, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The reign of Le Grand K has come to an end. After 130 years, this hunk of metal sitting in a Parisian vault will no longer define the kilogram. The new kilogram mass will be defined by Planck’s constant, joining three other units for redefinition by fundamental constants. But as we measure with increasing precision – from cesium atomic clocks to gravity waves 1000th the width of a proton – is something fundamental lost along the way? Meanwhile, the BiPiSci team accepts the banana-measurement challenge.
Guests:
Originally aired September 9, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The stress of the holidays can make you want to hide under the covers with a warm cup of cocoa. From gift buying to family gatherings, the holidays can feel like being inside a pressure cooker. But don’t despair! Science can help make the holidays a little brighter, from some gift-giving tips from our animal friends to embracing pessimism before a challenging social event to stopping that annoying merry melody on repeat in your head.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Small bodies will hit the big time next year; a sample return from asteroid Bennu and the launch of both the DART and Lucy missions could unravel puzzles about the formation of the solar system, as well teach us how to deflect any asteroids headed our way. Meanwhile, the Juno mission to Jupiter has shown us its hard-to-study poles, where swirling gas and magnetic fields rule. On Earth, warmer temperatures threaten peat bog biodiversity and the structure of the Arctic. And massive wildfires have sent soot circling the globe. They’re all highlights from the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Magic mushrooms – or psilocybin - may be associated with tripping hippies and Woodstock, but they are now being studied as new treatments for depression and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Is this Age of Aquarius medicine or something that could really work? Plus, the centuries-long use of psychedelics by indigenous peoples, and a discovery in California’s Pinwheel Cave offers new clues about the relationship between hallucinogens and cave art.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You may not feel that your skeleton does very much. But without it you’d be a limp bag of protoplasm, unable to move. And while you may regard bones as rigid and inert, they are living tissue.
Bones are also time capsules, preserving much of your personal history. Find out how evolutionary biologists, forensic anthropologists, and even radiation scientists read them.
And why won’t your dog stop gnawing on that bone?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Have you ever heard worms arguing? Deep-sea scientists use hydrophones to eavesdrop on “mouth-fighting worms.” It’s one of the many ways scientists are trying to catalog the diversity of the deep oceans — estimated to be comparable to a rainforest.
But the clock is ticking. While vast expanses of the deep sea are still unexplored, mining companies are ready with dredging vehicles to strip mine the seafloor, potentially destroying rare and vulnerable ecosystems. Are we willing to eradicate an alien landscape that we haven’t yet visited?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds do it, bees do it, but humans may not do it for much longer. At least not for having children. Relying on sex to reproduce could be supplanted by making babies in the lab, where parents-to-be can select genomes that will ensure ideal physical and behavioral traits.
Men hoping to be fathers should act sooner rather than later. These same advancements in biotechnology could allow women to fertilize their own eggs, making the need for male sperm obsolete.
Meanwhile, some animals already reproduce asexually. Find out how female African bees can opt to shut out male bees intent on expanding the hive.
Will engineering our offspring have a down side? Sex creates vital genetic diversity, as demonstrated by evolution of wild animals in urban areas. Find out how birds, rodents and insects use sex in the city to adapt and thrive.
Guests:
Originally aired September 19, 2016
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hey, let’s meet last week for coffee. Okay, we can’t meet in the past… yet. But could it be only a matter of time before we can? In an attempt to defy the grandfather paradox, scientists try sending a photon back in time to destroy itself.
Also, find out how teleportation allows particles to instantaneously skip through space-time and why sending humans wouldn’t violate the laws of physics.
But before you pack your bags for that instantaneous trip to Paris, we need to understand the nature of time. A physicist offers a testable theory and ponders how it bears on free will.
Plus, feel as if time comes to a standstill when you’re standing in line? Tricks for altering your perception of time while you wait. Some businesses already use them on you.
Guests:
Originally aired October 17, 2016
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Reason for hope is just one thing that ecologist Carl Safina can offer. He understands why many of us turn to nature to find solace during this stressful time. Safina studies the challenges facing the ultimate survival of many species, but also gives a portrait of animals from their point of view. He describes how diverse animals such as sperm whales, bear cubs, macaws, and chickens deal with uncertainty, and assert their quirky individuality while learning to become part of a community. So is it possible for us to reconnect not just with humanity, but also with the other living world?
Guest:
originally aired April 13, 2020
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Whether you call it hooey, codswallop, or malarky, misinformation is not what it used to be. It’s harder to spot now. New-school BS is often cloaked in the trappings of math, science, and statistics. Can you identify which tweets about a new COVID study are fraudulent? Plus, deceptive on-line advertisements that relentlessly beg for our attention. All in all, it’s a jungle out there. We have tips for getting through it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Brace yourself for heatwave “Lucifer.” Dangerous deadly heatwaves may soon be so common that we give them names, just like hurricanes. This is one of the dramatic consequences of just a few degrees rise in average temperatures.
Also coming: Massive heat “blobs” that form in the oceans and damage marine life, and powerful windstorms called “derechos” pummeling the Midwest.
Plus, are fungal pathogens adapting to hotter temperatures and breaching the 98.6 F thermal barrier that keeps them from infecting us?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The record of the rocks is not just the history of Earth; it’s your history too. Geologists can learn about events going back billions of years that influenced – and even made possible – our present-day existence and shaped our society.
If the last Ice Age had been a bit warmer, the rivers and lakes of the Midwest would have been much farther north and the U.S. might still be a small country of 13 states. If some Mediterranean islands hadn’t twisted a bit, no roads would have led to Rome.
Geology is big history, and the story is on-going. Human activity is changing the planet too, and has introduced its own geologic era, the Anthropocene. Will Earthlings of a hundred million years from now dig up our plastic refuse and study it the way we study dinosaur bones?
Plus, the dodo had the bad luck to inhabit a small island and couldn’t adapt to human predators. But guess what? It wasn’t as dumb as you think.
Guests:
Originally aired January 16, 2017
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds and bees do it … and so do fish. In a discovery that highlights the adaptive benefits of walking, scientists have discovered fish that can walk on land. Not fin-flap their bodies, mind you, but ambulate like reptiles.
And speaking of which, new research shows that T Rex, the biggest reptile of them all, wasn’t a sprinter, but could be an efficient hunter by outwalking its prey.
Find out the advantage of legging it, and how human bipedalism stacks up. Not only is walking good for our bodies and brains, but not walking can change your personality and adversely affect your health.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Beneath our feet is a living network just as complex and extensive as the root systems in a forest. Fungi, which evolved in the oceans, were among the first to colonize the barren continents more than a half-billion years ago. They paved the way for land plants, animals, and (eventually) you.
Think beyond penicillin and pizza, and take a moment to consider these amazing organisms. Able to survive every major extinction, essential as Nature’s decomposers, and the basis of both ale and antibiotics, fungi are essential to life. And their behavior is so complex you’ll be wondering if we shouldn’t call them intelligent!
Guest:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The universe is not just expanding; it’s accelerating. Supermassive black holes are hunkered down at the center of our galaxy and just about every other galaxy, too. We talk about these and other big discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, now in orbit for 30 years.
But two new next-generation telescopes will soon be joining Hubble: the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. Hear what cosmic puzzles they’ll address. Plus, life in a clean room while wearing a coverall “bunny suit”; what it takes to assemble a telescope.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Have scientists found evidence of life on Venus? Known for its scorching temperatures and acidic atmosphere, Earth’s twin hardly seems a promising place for living things. But could a discovery of phosphine by researchers at MIT point to a high-altitude biosphere on this nearby world?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It takes a lot of energy and technology to leave terra firma. But why rocket into space when there’s so much to be done on Earth? From the practical usefulness of satellites to the thrill of exploring other worlds, let us count the ways.
The launch of a NOAA weather satellite to join its twin provides unparalleled observation of storms, wildfires, and even lightning. Find out what it’s like to watch hurricanes form from space.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen countries want their own satellites to help solve real-world problems, including tracking disease. Learn how one woman is helping make space accessible to everyone.
Plus, now that we’ve completed our grand tour of the Solar System, which bodies are targets for return missions and which for human exploration?
Guests:
Originally aired March 5, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As we struggle to control a viral invader that moves silently across the globe and into its victims, we are also besieged by other invasions. Murder hornets have descended upon the Pacific Northwest, threatening the region’s honeybees. In Africa, locust swarms darken the sky. In this episode, we draw on a classic science fiction tale to examine the nature of invasions, and what prompts biology to go on the move.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Insect populations are declining. But before you say “good riddance,” consider that insects are the cornerstone of many ecosystems. They are dinner for numerous animal species and are essential pollinators. Mammals are loved, but they are not indispensable. Insects are.
Meanwhile, marvel at the extraordinary capabilities of some insects. The zany aerial maneuvers of the fly are studied by pilots. And, contrary to the bad press, cockroaches are very clean creatures. Also, take a listen as we host some Madagascar hissing cockroaches in our studio (yes, they audibly hiss).
Plus, how insects first evolved … and the challenges in controlling lethal ones. Are genetically-engineering mosquitoes the best way to combat malaria?
Guests:
Originally aired March 19, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Poisonous snakes, lightning strikes, a rogue rock from space. There are plenty of scary things to fret about, but are we burning adrenaline on the right ones? Stepping into the bathtub is more dangerous than flying from a statistical point of view, but no one signs up for “fear of showering” classes.
Find out why we get tripped up by statistics, worry about the wrong things, and how the “intelligence trap” not only leads smart people to make dumb mistakes, but actually causes them to make more.
Guests:
Originally aired May 27, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you bake, you can appreciate math’s transformative properties. Admiring the stackable potato chip is to admire a hyperbolic sheet. Find out why there’s no need to fear math - you just need to think outside the cuboid. Also, how nature’s geometric shapes inspire the next generation of squishy robots and an argument for radically overhauling math class. The end point of these common factors is acute show that’s as fun as eating Pi.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Water is essential for life – that we know. But the honeycomb lattice that forms when you chill it to zero degrees Celsius is also inexorably intertwined with life.
Ice is more than a repository for water that would otherwise raise sea levels. It’s part of Earth’s cooling system, a barrier preventing decaying organic matter from releasing methane gas, and a vault entombing ancient bacteria and other microbes.
From the Arctic to the Antarctic, global ice is disappearing. Find out what’s at stake as atmospheric CO2 threatens frozen H2O.
Guests:
Originally aired August 14, 2017
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Think you’re some kind of expert? Join the club. It’s one thing to question authority; another to offer up your untrained self as its replacement. Rebellion may be a cherished expression of American individualism, but, from sidelining Dr. Fauci to hiding public health data, find out what we lose when we silence health experts and “go with our gut” during a pandemic. Plus, from ancestors to algorithms: how we’ve replaced credentialed experts with sketchy web sites and social media posts.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Inhale. Now exhale. Notice anything different? Our response to the virus is changing the air in unexpected ways. A pandemic-driven pause on travel has produced clear skies and a world-wide air quality experiment. And a new study reveals that hundreds of tons of microplastics are raining down on us each day.
But we can improve the quality of the breaths we do take; engineers have devised a high-tech mask that may kill coronavirus on contact. Plus, although you do it 25,000 times a day, you may not be breathing properly. Nose-breathing vs mouth breathing: getting the ins-and-outs of respiration.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
COVID Curiosities
Some dogs and cats have become sick with COVID. But it’s not just domestic critters that are vulnerable: zoo animals have fallen ill too. There’s more strange news about the pandemic, for example scientists who track the coronavirus in our sewage, and computer models that show that flushing the toilet can launch persistent, pathogenic plumes into the room. And scientists have warned the WHO that infectious virus remains airborne. Also, how a shortage of glass vials could delay the deployment of a vaccine.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your cat is smart, but its ability to choreograph a ballet or write computer code isn’t great. A lot of animals are industrious and clever, but humans are the only animal that is uniquely ingenious and creative.
Neuroscientist David Eagleman and composer Anthony Brandt discuss how human creativity has reshaped the world. Find out what is going on in your brain when you write a novel, paint a watercolor, or build a whatchamacallit in your garage.
But is Homo sapiens’ claim on creativity destined to be short-lived? Why both Eagleman and Brandt are prepared to step aside when artificial intelligence can do their jobs.
Guests:
Originally aired February 5, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Laughing rats, sorrowful elephants, joyful chimpanzees. The more carefully we observe, and the more we learn about animals, the closer their emotional lives appear to resemble our own. Most would agree that we should minimize the physical suffering of animals, but should we give equal consideration to their emotional stress? Bioethicist Peter Singer weighs in. Meanwhile, captivity that may be ethical: How human-elephant teamwork in Asia may help protect an endangered species.
Guests:
Originally aired June 24, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Crowded subway driving you crazy? Sick of the marathon-length grocery store line? Wish you had a hovercraft to float over traffic? If you are itching to hightail it to an isolated cabin in the woods, remember, we evolved to be together. Humans are not only social, we’re driven to care for one another, even those outside our immediate family.
We look at some of the reasons why this is so – from the increase in valuable communication within social groups to the power of the hormone oxytocin. Plus, how our willingness to tolerate anonymity, a condition which allows societies to grow, has a parallel in ant supercolonies.
Guests:
originally aired July 22, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sexist snow plowing? Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender. In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.” Human bias also infects artificial intelligence, with speech recognition triggered only by male voices and facial recognition that can’t see black faces. We question the assumptions baked into these numbers and algorithms.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
While citizens take to the streets to protest racist violence, the pandemic has its own brutal inequities. Black, Latino, and Native American people are bearing the brunt of COVID illness and death. We look at the multitude of factors that contribute to this disparity, most of which existed long before the pandemic. Also, how the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe maintained their coronavirus safeguards in defiance of the South Dakota governor. And, the biological reasons why we categorize one another by skin color.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Some safeguards against COVID-19 don’t require a medical breakthrough. Catching sufficient Z’s makes for a healthy immune system. And, while you wash your hands for the umpteenth time, we'll explain how soap sends viruses down the drain. Plus, your body’s largest organ – skin – is your first line of defense against the pandemic and is also neglected because of it. Find out why we're suffering from "skin hunger" during this crisis.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your virtual assistant is not without a sense of humor. Its repertoire includes the classic story involving a chicken and a road. But will Alexa laugh at your jokes? Will she groan at your puns?
Telling jokes is one thing. Teaching a computer to recognize humor is another, because a clear definition of humor is lacking. But doing so is a step toward making more natural interactions with A.I.
Find out what’s involved in tickling A.I.’s funny bone. Also, an interstellar communication challenge: Despite debate about the wisdom of transmitting messages to space, one group sends radio signals to E.T. anyway. Find out how they crafted a non-verbal message and what it contained.
Plus, why using nuanced language to connive and scheme ultimately turned us into a more peaceful species. And yes, it’s all gouda: why melted cheese may be the cosmic message of peace we need.
Guests:
Originally aired April 22, 2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It will be the shot heard ‘round the world, once it comes. But exactly when can we expect a COVID vaccine? We discuss timelines, how it would work, who’s involved, and the role of human challenge trials.
Also, although he doesn’t consider himself brave, we do. Meet a Seattle volunteer enrolled in the first coronavirus vaccine trial. And, while we mount an elaborate defense against a formidable foe, scientists ask a surprising question: is a virus even alive?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
To fight a pandemic, you need to first understand where a virus comes from. That quest takes disease ecologist Jon Epstein to gloomy caverns where bats hang out. There he checks up on hundreds of the animals as his team from the EcoHealth Alliance trace the origins of disease-causing viruses. But their important work is facing its own threat; the Trump administration recently terminated funding to the Alliance because of its collaboration with Chinese scientists.
Hear how Dr. Epstein finds the viruses, what kind of human activity triggers outbreaks, and how science counters the unsubstantiated claim that the virus escaped from a lab.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A new theory about life’s origins updates Darwin’s warm little pond. Scientists say they’ve created the building blocks of biology in steaming hot springs. Meanwhile, we visit a NASA lab where scientists simulate deep-sea vent chemistry to produce the type of environment that might spawn life. Which site is best suited for producing biology from chemistry?
Find out how the conditions of the early Earth were different from today, how meteors seeded Earth with organics, and a provocative idea that life arose as an inevitable consequence of matter shape-shifting to dissipate heat. Could physics be the driving force behind life’s emergence?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nature abhors a vacuum, but conspiracy theorists love one. While we wait for scientists to nail down the how and why of the coronavirus, opportunists have jumped into the void, peddling DIY testing kits and fake COVID cures like colloidal silver. They’ve even cooked up full-blown conspiracy theories about a lab-grown virus. Find out why this crisis has dished up more than the usual share of misinformation and hucksterism, and how these interfere with our ability to navigate it safely.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Treating the Virus
It’s not like waiting for Godot, because he never arrived. A coronavirus vaccine will come. But it is still months away. Meanwhile, scientists are adding other weapons to our growing arsenal against this virus. The development of antibody tests, antibody cures, and antivirals offer hope that we can soon have the tools to battle those who’ve been sickened by the COVID-19 virus while we wait for the inoculation that will prevent it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Reason for hope is just one thing that ecologist Carl Safina can offer. He understands why many of us turn to nature to find solace during this stressful time. Safina studies the challenges facing the ultimate survival of many species, but also gives a portrait of animals from their point of view. He describes how diverse animals such as sperm whales, bear cubs, macaws, and chickens deal with uncertainty, and assert their quirky individuality while learning to become part of a community. So is it possible for us to reconnect not just with humanity, but also with the other living world?
Guest:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What do a zombie attack and a viral pandemic have in common? They are both frightening, mindless, and relentless in their assault. And both require preparedness. That’s why the author of “World War Z” – a story about a battle against zombies – lectures at West Point.
Max Brooks has also recorded a public service announcement with his celebrated father, Mel Brooks, touting the importance of social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. His newest novel portrays a different assailant: Bigfoot.
Whether our enemy is the undead, a hirsute forest dweller, or an invisible virus, panic won’t help us survive. Find out what will.
Guest:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Humans aren’t the only animals stressed-out by social distancing. Narwhals send out echolocation clicks to locate their buddies and ease their loneliness. And a plant about to be chomped by a caterpillar knows that the world can be a scary place.
In this episode, from dogs to narwhals to plants, we put aside human-centric stories to find out how other living creatures map their world, deal with stress, and communicate.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Climate change at warp speed” is the way one scientist described the coronavirus outbreak.
In a show recorded before a live audience at the Seattle AAAS meeting, and co-presented with the BBC World Service, we discuss out how politics and psychology lead people to tune out inconvenient scientific findings even when the stakes are high – as well as what we can do about it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Astronauts are made of the “right stuff,” but what about their spacesuits? NASA’s pressurized and helmeted onesies are remarkable, but they need updating if we’re to boldly go into deep space. Suiting up on Mars requires more manual flexibility, for example. Find out what innovative materials might be used to reboot the suit.
Meanwhile, strange new materials are in the pipeline for use on terra firma: spider silk is kicking off the development of biological materials that are inspiring ultra-strong, economical, and entirely new fabrics. And, while flesh-eating bacteria may seem like an unlikely ally in materials science, your doctor might reach for them one day. The bacterium’s proteins are the inspiration for a medical molecular superglue.
Plus, an overview of more innovative materials to come, from those that are 3D printed to self-healing concrete.
Guests:
Originally aired October 2, 2017
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Contagion aside, coronavirus is a powerful little virus. It has prompted a global experiment in behavior modification: elbow bumps instead of handshakes, hand sanitizer and mask shortages, a gyrating stock market.
Pragmatism motivates our behavior toward the spread of this virus, but so do fear and panic. In 1918, amplified fear made the Spanish Flu pandemic more deadly.
Can we identify when we’re acting sensibly in the face of COVID-19, or when fear has hijacked our ability to think rationally and protect ourselves?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They were pioneers in their fields, yet their names are scarcely known – because they didn’t have a Y chromosome. We examine the accomplishments of two women who pioneered code breaking and astronomy during the early years of the twentieth century and did so in the face of social opprobrium and a frequently hostile work environment.
Henrietta Leavitt measured the brightnesses of thousands of stars and discovered a way to gauge the distances to galaxies, a development that soon led to the concept of the Big Bang.
Elizabeth Friedman, originally hired to test whether William Shakespeare really wrote his plays, was soon establishing the science of code breaking, essential to success in the two world wars.
Also, the tech industry is overwhelmingly male. Girls Who Code is an initiative to redress the balance by introducing girls to computer programming, and encouraging them to follow careers in tech.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The benefits of artificial intelligence are manifest and manifold, but can we recognize the drawbacks … and avoid them in time?
In this episode, recorded before a live audience at the Seattle meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, we discuss who is making the ethical decisions about how we use this powerful technology, and a proposal to create a Hippocratic Oath for AI researchers.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Have you adapted to the changing climate? Rising waters, more destructive wildfires, record-breaking heatwaves. Scientists have long predicted these events, but reporting on climate change has moved from prediction to description. There’s no time for dwelling on “we should haves.” Communities and organizations are being forced to adapt. Find out what that means, the role of the new “resilience officers,” and the unique response of Native American cultures. Plus, is the coronavirus outbreak made worse by climate change?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s one of the most bizarre biological experiments ever. In the 18th century, a scientist fitted a pair of tailor-made briefs on a male frog to determine the animal’s contribution to reproduction. The process of gestation was a mystery and scientists had some odd-ball theories.
Today, a 5th grader can tell you how babies are made, but we still don’t know exactly what life is. In our quest to understand, we’re still at the frogs’ pants stage.
Find out why conception took centuries to figure out. Also, why the 1970s Viking experiments, specifically designed to detect life on Mars, couldn’t give us a definitive answer. Plus, can knowing where life isn’t help define what it is? Take a tour of the world’s barren places.
Guests:
Originally aired July 10, 2017
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Climate change isn’t happening. Vaccines make you sick. When it comes to threats to public or environmental health, a surprisingly large fraction of the population still denies the consensus of scientific evidence. But it’s not the first time – many people long resisted the evidentiary link between HIV and AIDS and smoking with lung cancer.
There’s a sense that science denialism is on the rise. It prompted a gathering of scientists and historians in New York City to discuss the problem, which included a debate on the usefulness of the word “denial” itself. Big Picture Science was there. We report from the Science Denial symposium held jointly by the New York Academy of Sciences and Rutgers Global Health Institute.
Find out why so many people dig in their heels and distrust scientific findings. Plus, the techniques wielded by special interest groups to dispute some inconvenient truths. We also hear how simply stating more facts may be the wrong approach to combating scientific resistance.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your daily mucus output is most impressive. Teaspoons or measuring cups can’t capture its entire volume. Find out how much your body churns out and why you can’t live without the viscous stuff. But slime in general is remarkable. Whether coating the bellies of slithery creatures, sleeking the surface of aquatic plants, or dripping from your nose, its protective qualities make it one of the great inventions of biology. Join us as we venture to the land of ooze!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s the difference between a bird call and the sound of a pile driver? Not much, when you’re close to the loudest bird ever. Find out when it pays to be noisy and when noise can worsen your health. Just about everyone eventually suffers some hearing loss, but that’s not merely aging. It’s an ailment we inflict on ourselves. Hear how a team in New York City has put sensors throughout the city to catalog noise sources, hoping to tame the tumult.
And can underwater speakers blasting the sounds of a healthy reef bring life back to dead patches of the Great Barrier Reef?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Get ready for compassionate computers that feel your pain, share your joy, and generally get where you’re coming from. Computers that can tell by your voice whether you’re pumped up or feeling down, or sense changes in heart rate, skin, or muscle tension to determine your mood. Empathetic electronics that you can relate to.
But wait a minute – we don’t always relate to other humans. Our behavior can be impulsive and even self-sabotaging – our emotions are often conflicted and irrational. We cry when we’re happy. Frown when we’re pensive. A suite of factors, much of them out of our control, govern how we behave, from genes to hormones to childhood experience.
One study says that all it takes for a defendant to receive a harsher sentence is a reduction in the presiding judge’s blood sugar.
So grab a cookie, and find out how the heck we can build computers that understand us anyway.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You are your brain. But what happens when your brain changes for the worse – either by physical injury or experience? Are you still responsible for your actions?
We hear how the case of a New York man charged with murder was one of the first to introduce neuroscience as evidence in court. Plus, how technology hooks us – a young man so addicted to video games, he lacked social skills, or even a desire to eat. Find out how technology designers conspire against his digital detox.
Also, even if your brain is intact and your only task is choosing a sock color, are you really in control? How your unconscious directs even mundane behavior … and how you can outwit it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do we still need doctors? There are umpteen alternative sources of medical advice, including endless and heartfelt health tips from people without medical degrees. Frankly, self-diagnosis with a health app is easier and cheaper than a trip to a clinic. Since we’re urged to be our own health advocate and seek second opinions, why not ask Alexa or consult with a celebrity about what ails us?
Find out if you can trust these alternative medical advice platforms. Plus, lessons from an AIDS fighter about ignoring the findings of medical science.
And, if AI can diagnose better than an MD, will we stop listening to doctors altogether?
It’s our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
originally aired September 24, 2018
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The stress of the holidays can make you want to hide under the covers with a warm cup of cocoa. From gift buying to family gatherings, the holidays can feel like being inside a pressure cooker. But don’t despair! Science can help make the holidays a little brighter, from some gift-giving tips from our animal friends to embracing pessimism before a challenging social event to stopping that annoying merry melody on repeat in your head.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why create more landfill? Perhaps you should resist the urge to toss those old sneakers, the broken ceiling fan, or last year’s smart phone. Instead, repurpose them! Global junk entrepreneurs are leading the way in turning trash to treasure, while right-to-repair advocates fight for legislation that would give you a decent shot at fixing your own electronic devices.
And, if you toss food scraps down the drain as you cook, are you contributing to a “fatberg” horror in the sewer?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) We all may retreat to our protective shells, but evolution has perfected the calcite variety to give some critters permanent defense against predators. So why did squids and octopuses lose their shells? Find out what these cephalopods gained by giving up the shell game.
Plus why Chesapeake Bay oyster shells are shells of their former selves. What explains the absence of the dinner-plate sized oysters of 500,000 years ago, and how conservation paleobiology is probing deep time for strategies to bring back these monster mollusks.
Also, was the Earth once encased in a giant, continental shell? A new theory of plate tectonics. Land ho!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Fir tree needles embedded in carpet are a holiday headache. Why not decorate a genetically-modified, needle-retaining tree instead? It’s just another way that science is relevant to the holidays. We have more.
How about science experiments on fruitcake? There’s a competition that includes launching it with a pneumatic device, running a heavy electric current though it, or blasting it with a blowtorch. Meanwhile, physics provides insight into those tricky how-does-he-do-it questions about Santa’s delivery rounds.
Finally, step away from the relatives and consider the implications of the winter solstice.
Enjoy a better holiday through science!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Psychics may not be able to predict the future or sense your thoughts. Nonetheless, they rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. But the harm from pseudoscience can go far beyond your wallet – especially when it promotes unscientific treatments for serious disease. Find out what alarming discovery led one naturopath to quit her practice and why scientific ignorance is not bliss.
It’s our regular look at critical thinking, but don’t take our word for it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A new vaccine may help turn Ebola into a disease we can prevent, and a new drug may make it one we can cure. But the political crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo has fueled violence against health workers and Ebola treatment centers. Find out why context matters in the efforts to stop Ebola, what new drugs and vaccines are on the horizon, and whether the world is prepared for the next infectious pandemic. Even if Ebola’s threat is diminishing, what about the next pandemic? Is the world prepared?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) 400 years ago, some ideas about the cosmos were too scandalous to mention. When the Dominican friar Giordano Bruno suggested that planets existed outside our Solar System, the Catholic Inquisition had him arrested, jailed, and burned at the stake for heresy.
Today, we have evidence of thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Our discovery of extrasolar planets has dramatically changed ideas about the possibility for life elsewhere in the universe.
Modern theories about the existence of the ghostly particles called neutrinos or of collapsed stars with unfathomable gravity (black holes), while similarly incendiary, didn’t prompt arrest, of course. Neutrinos and black holes were arresting ideas because they came decades before we had the means to prove their existence.
Hear about scientific ideas that came before their time and why extrasolar planets, neutrinos, and black holes are now found on the frontiers of astronomical research.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do you have a hard-to-answer question? The Summit, Sierra, Trinity, Frontier, and Aurora supercomputers are built to tackle it. Summit tops the petaflop heap – at least for now. But Frontier and Aurora are catching up as they take aim at a new performance benchmark called exascale.
So why do we need all this processing power? From climate modeling to personalized medicine, find out why the super-est computers are necessary to answer our biggest questions. But is the dark horse candidate, quantum computing, destined to leave classical computing in the dust?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Two heads may be better than one. But what about three or more? A new study shows that chimpanzees excel at complex tasks when they work in groups, and their accumulated knowledge can even be passed from one generation to the next.
But group-think also can be maladaptive. When humans rely on knowledge that they assume other people possess, they can become less than rational.
Find out why one cognitive scientist says that individual thinking is a myth. Most of your decisions are made in groups, and most derive from emotion, not rationality.
Also, why we know far less than we think we do. For example, most people will say they understand how an everyday object like a zipper works, but draw a blank when asked to explain it.
Plus, why we have a biological drive to categorize people as “us” or “them,” and how we can override it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For two Swiss astronomers, it’s “Stockholm, here we come.” Their first-ever discovery of a planet orbiting another star has been awarded the most prestigious prize in science. Find out how their exoplanet discovery led to 4,000 more and how that changes the odds of finding life beyond Earth. Also, the Nobel committee is not alone in finding distant worlds inspirational: a musician is translating their orbital signatures into sound.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Solid materials get all the production credit. Don’t get us wrong, we depend on their strength and firmness for bridges, bones, and bento boxes. But liquids do us a solid, too. Their free-flowing properties drive the Earth’s magnetic field, inspire a new generation of smart electronics, and make biology possible. But the weird thing is, they elude clear definition. Is tar a liquid or a solid? What about peanut butter?
In this episode: A romp through a cascade of liquids with a materials scientist who is both admiring and confounded by their properties; how Earth’s molten iron core is making the magnetic north pole high-tail it to Siberia; blood as your body’s information superhighway; and how a spittlebug can convert 200 times its body weight in urine into a cozy, bubble fortress.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We can’t say we weren’t warned. More than 75 years ago, bacteriologist Rene Dubos cautioned that misuse of antibiotics could breed drug-resistant bacteria – and he has been proved prescient. In this episode: the rise of superbugs, why we ignored the warnings about them, how some are enlisting an old therapy to fight back, and whether we’ll heed history’s lessons in the face of a future pandemic. Plus, a weird unforeseen effect of antibiotics being investigated at the Body Farm.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The stone heads on Easter Island are an enduring mystery: why were they built and why were they abandoned and destroyed? The old ideas about cultural collapse are yielding to new ones based on careful investigation on the ground - but also from above. What surprising explanations have we found and are we off base to think that ancient societies such as the Easter Islanders or the classical Egyptians were, in the end, failures? Can what we learn from these histories help predict which societies will survive?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Modern technology is great, but could we be losing control? As our world becomes more crowded and demands for resources are greater, some people worry about humanity’s uncertain prospects. An eminent cosmologist considers globe-altering developments such as climate change and artificial intelligence. Will we be able to stave off serious threats to our future?
There’s also another possible source of danger: our trendy digital aids. We seem all-too-willing to let algorithms classify and define our wants, our needs, and our behavior. Instead of using technology, are we being used by it – to inadvertently become social media’s product?
And while we may be skittish about the increased data our technology collects, one sci-fi writer imagines a future in which information is a pervasive and freely available commodity.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Your shower pipes are alive. So are your sinks, books, and floorboards. New studies of our homes are revealing just what species live there – in the thousands, from bacteria to flies to millipedes. Meanwhile, life keeps surprising us by popping up in other unexpected places: the deep biosphere houses the majority of the world’s bacteria and the Arctic tundra has kept worms frozen, but alive, for 40,000 years.
We embrace the multitude of life living on us, in us, and – as it turns out – in every possible ecological niche. Most of it is harmless, some is beneficial, and it’s all testament to the amazing diversity and adaptability of life. In addition, the hardiest organisms suggest where we might find life beyond Earth.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The reign of Le Grand K has come to an end. After 130 years, this hunk of metal sitting in a Parisian vault will no longer define the kilogram. The new kilogram mass will be defined by Planck’s constant, joining three other units for redefinition by fundamental constants. But as we measure with increasing precision – from cesium atomic clocks to gravitational wave detectors able to measure spacetime distortions to 1/1000th the width of a proton – is something fundamental lost along the way? Meanwhile, the BiPiSci team accepts the banana-measurement challenge.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sexist snow plowing? Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender. In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.” Human bias also infects artificial intelligence, with speech recognition triggered only by male voices and facial recognition that can’t see black faces. We question the assumptions baked into these numbers and algorithms.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Looking to boost your brainpower? Luckily, there are products promising to help. Smart drugs, neurofeedback exercises, and brain-training video games all promise to improve your gray matter’s performance. But it’s uncertain whether these products really work. Regulatory agencies have come down hard on some popular brain training companies for false advertising. But other brain games have shown benefits in clinical trials. And could we skip the brain workout altogether and pop a genius pill instead?
In our monthly look at critical thinking, we separate the pseudo from the science of commercial cognitive enhancement techniques.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Without sand, engineering would be stuck in the Middle Ages. Wooden houses would line mud-packed streets, and Silicon Valley would be, well, just a valley. Sand is the building material of modern cities, and we use more of this resource than any other except water and air. Now we’re running out of it.
Hear why the Roman recipe for making concrete was lost until the 19th century, and about the super-secret mine in North Carolina that makes your smartphone possible.
Plus, engineered sand turns stormwater into drinking water, and why you might think twice about running barefoot on some tropical beaches once you learn about their biological source.
And, a special report from the coast of Louisiana where livelihoods and ecosystems depend on the successful release of Mississippi sand from levees into sediment-starved wetlands.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Diversity or die” could be your new health mantra. Don’t boost your immune system, cultivate it! Like a garden, your body’s defenses benefit from species diversity. Find out why multiple strains of microbes, engaged in a delicate ballet with your T-cells, join internal fungi in combatting disease. Plus, global ecosystems also depend on the diversity of its tiniest members; so what happens when the world’s insects bug out?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Are you ready to defer all your personal decision-making to machines? Polls show that most Americans are uneasy about the unchecked growth of artificial intelligence. The possible misuse of genetic engineering also makes us anxious. We all have a stake in the responsible development of science and technology, but fortunately, science fiction films can help.
The movies Ex Machina and Jurassic Park suggest where A.I. and unfettered gene-tinkering could lead. But even less popular sci-fi movies can help us imagine unsettling scenarios regarding over-population, smart drugs, and human cloning.
And not all tales are grim. The 1951 film, The Man in the White Suit, weaves a humorous story of materials science run amok.
So, grab a bowl of popcorn and join us in contemplating the future of humanity as Hollywood sees it!
Guest:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) The Earth is not round. Technically, it’s an oblate spheroid. But for some people, the first statement is not even approximately correct. Flat Earthers believe that our planet resembles – not a slightly squashed grapefruit – but a thick pancake. A journalist who covered a Flat Earth convention describes the rationale behind this ever-more popular belief.
So how do you establish science truth? We look at the difference between a truly scientific examination of extraordinary claims and approaches that feel and look science-y but aren’t.
Find out how one man will use telescopes and balloons in the desert to demonstrate that the Earth is a globe, while a biologist runs a test on the waters of Loch Ness to see if it contains prehistoric reptile DNA.
And what happens when amateur investigators chase ghosts, UFOs, and Bigfoot with science instruments, but without an understanding of the scientific method.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Crowded subway driving you crazy? Sick of the marathon-length grocery store line? Wish you had a hovercraft to float over traffic? If you are itching to hightail it to an isolated cabin in the woods, remember, we evolved to be together. Humans are not only social, we’re driven to care for one another, even those outside our immediate family.
We look at some of the reasons why this is so – from the increase in valuable communication within social groups to the power of the hormone oxytocin. Plus, how our willingness to tolerate anonymity, a condition which allows societies to grow, has a parallel in ant supercolonies.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you bake, you can appreciate math’s transformative properties. Admiring the stackable potato chip is to admire a hyperbolic sheet. Find out why there’s no need to fear math - you just need to think outside the cuboid. Also, how nature’s geometric shapes inspire the next generation of squishy robots and an argument for radically overhauling math class. The end point of these common factors is acute show that’s as fun as eating Pi.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Heredity was once thought to be straightforward. Genes were passed in an immutable path from parents to you, and you were stuck – or blessed – with what you got. DNA didn’t change.
But now we know that’s not true. Epigenetic factors, such as your environment and your lifestyle, control how your genes are expressed. Meanwhile, the powerful tool CRISPR allows us to tinker with the genes themselves. DNA is no longer destiny.
Hear the results from the NASA twin study and what happened to astronaut Scott Kelly’s DNA after a year on the International Space Station. Plus, whether there’s evidence that epigenetic changes can be passed down. And, if we can wipe out deadly malaria by engineering the mosquito genome for sterility, should we do it?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Neil, Buzz, and Michael made it look effortless, but the moon landing was neither easy nor inevitable. Soon after President Kennedy publicly stated the goal of sending Americans to the moon, NASA confessed that the chances of success were only about 50/50. But on July 20, 1969, despite enormous difficulties, astronauts stepped onto the lunar regolith.
In this special anniversary episode, we go behind the iconic phrases and familiar photos to consider the errors, mishaps, and the Plan B contingencies that dogged the project, as well as hear of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who made Apollo 11 possible.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Laughing rats, sorrowful elephants, joyful chimpanzees. The more carefully we observe, and the more we learn about animals, the closer their emotional lives appear to resemble our own. Most would agree that we should minimize the physical suffering of animals, but should we give equal consideration to their emotional stress? Bioethicist Peter Singer weighs in. Meanwhile, captivity that may be ethical: How human-elephant teamwork in Asia may help protect an endangered species.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) SMS isn’t the original instant messaging system. Plants can send chemical warnings through their leaves in a fraction of a second. And while we love being in the messaging loop – frenetically refreshing our browsers – we miss out on important conversations that no Twitter feed or inbox can capture. That’s because eavesdropping on the communications of non-human species requires the ability to decode their non-written signals.
Dive into Arctic waters where scientists make first-ever recordings of the socializing clicks and squeals of narwhals, and find out how climate shifts may pollute their acoustic landscape. Also, why the chemical defense system of plants has prompted one biologist to give greenery an “11 on the scale of awesomeness.” And, you can’t see them, but they sure can sense one another: how communicating microbes plan their attack.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) There’s evidence for a subsurface lake on Mars, and scientists are excitedly using the “h” word. Could the Red Planet be habitable, not billions of years ago, but today? While we wait – impatiently – for a confirmation of this result, we review the recipe for habitable alien worlds. For example, the moon Titan has liquid lakes on its surface. Could they be filled with Titanites?
Dive into a possible briny, underground lake on Mars … protect yourself from the methane-drenched rain on a moon of Saturn … and cheer on the missed-it-by-that-much planets, asteroids Ceres and Vesta.
Also, do tens of billions of potentially habitable extrasolar planets mean that Earth is not unique?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Okay you animals, line up: stoned sloths, playful pandas, baleful bovines, and vile vultures. We’ve got you guys pegged, thanks to central casting.
Or do we? Our often simplistic view of animals ignores their remarkable adaptive abilities. Stumbly sloths are in fact remarkably agile and a vulture’s tricks for thermoregulation can’t be found in an outdoors store.
Our ignorance about some animals can even lead to their suffering and to seemingly intractable problems. The South American nutria was brought to Louisiana to supply the fur market. But the species got loose and tens of millions of these rodents are destroying the environment. It literally has a bounty on its tail.
Hear about research that corrects a menagerie of misunderstandings about our fellow furry, feathered, and scaly animals, and how getting over ourselves to know them better can have practical benefits. Will you still recoil from termites if you learn that they are relevant to the future of robots, global warming, and smart design?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Poisonous snakes, lightning strikes, a rogue rock from space. There are plenty of scary things to fret about, but are we burning adrenaline on the right ones? Stepping into the bathtub is more dangerous than flying from a statistical point of view, but no one signs up for “fear of showering” classes.
Find out why we get tripped up by statistics, worry about the wrong things, and how the “intelligence trap” not only leads smart people to make dumb mistakes, but actually causes them to make more.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) The seas are rising. It’s no longer a rarity to see kayakers paddling through downtown Miami. By century’s end, the oceans could be anywhere from 2 to 6 feet higher, threatening millions of people and property. But humans once knew how to adapt to rising waters. As high water threatens to drown our cities, can we learn do it again.
Hear stories of threatened land: submerged Florida suburbs, the original sunken city (Venice), and the U.S. East Coast, where anthropologists rush to catalogue thousands of low-lying historical and cultural sites in harm’s way, including Jamestown, Virginia and ancient Native American sites.
But also, stories of ancient adaptability: from the First American tribes of the Colusa in South Florida to the ice age inhabitants of Doggerland. And, modern approaches to staying dry: stilt houses, seawalls, and floating cities.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A new theory about life’s origins updates Darwin’s warm little pond. Scientists say they’ve created the building blocks of biology in steaming hot springs. Meanwhile, we visit a NASA lab where scientists simulate deep-sea vent chemistry to produce the type of environment that might spawn life. Which site is best suited for producing biology from chemistry?
Find out how the conditions of the early Earth were different from today, how meteors seeded Earth with organics, and a provocative idea that life arose as an inevitable consequence of matter shape-shifting to dissipate heat. Could physics be the driving force behind life’s emergence?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The catastrophic explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 triggered the full-scale destruction of the reactor. But now researchers with access to once-classified Soviet documents are challenging the official version of what happened both before and after the explosion. They say that the accident was worse than we thought and that a number of factors – from paranoia to poor engineering – made the mishap inevitable. Others claim a much larger death toll from extended exposure to low levels of radiation. But with nuclear energy being a possibly essential component of dealing with rising carbon dioxide emissions, how do we evaluate risk under the long shadow of Chernobyl?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) DNA is the gold standard of identification. Except when it’s not. In rare cases when a person has two complete sets of DNA, that person’s identity may be up in the air. Meanwhile, DNA ancestry tests are proving frustratingly vague: dishing up generalities about where you came from rather than anything specific. And decoding a genome is still relatively expensive and time-consuming. So, while we refine our ability to work with DNA, the search is on for a quick and easy biomarker test to tell us who we are.
In this hour: the story of chimeras – people who have two sets of DNA; a reporter whose ancestry tests revealed she is related to Napoleon and Marie Antoinette; and the eyes have it in Somaliland, the first nation to use iris scans in an election. Find out why your irises may be what ultimately distinguishes you from the crowd.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your virtual assistant is not without a sense of humor. Its repertoire includes the classic story involving a chicken and a road. But will Alexa laugh at your jokes? Will she groan at your puns?
Telling jokes is one thing. Teaching a computer to recognize humor is another, because a clear definition of humor is lacking. But doing so is a step toward making more natural interactions with A.I.
Find out what’s involved in tickling A.I.’s funny bone. Also, an interstellar communication challenge: Despite debate about the wisdom of transmitting messages to space, one group sends radio signals to E.T. anyway. Find out how they crafted a non-verbal message and what it contained.
Plus, why using nuanced language to connive and scheme ultimately turned us into a more peaceful species. And yes, it’s all gouda: why melted cheese may be the cosmic message of peace we need.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Dinosaurs are once again stomping and snorting their way across the screen of your local movie theater. But these beefy beasts stole the show long before CGI brought them back in the Jurassic Park blockbusters. Dinosaurs had global dominance for the better part of 165 million years. Compare that with a measly 56 million years of primate activity. We bow to our evolutionary overlords in this episode.
Our conversation about these thunderous lizards roams freely as we talk with the paleontologist who discovered Dreadnoughtus – the largest land lizard unearthed to date. Kenneth Lacovara asks that we please stop using the term “dinosaur” to refer to something outmoded, when in fact the dinos were among the most well-adapted, long-lived creatures ever.
Plus, intriguing dino facts: if you like eating chicken, you like eating dinosaurs, and how T-Rex’s puny arms helped him survive.
Also, with dozens of new species unearthed every year – nearly one a week – why we’ve entered the golden age of dinosaur discovery.
Guest:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
DecodeHer
They were pioneers in their fields, yet their names are scarcely known – because they didn’t have a Y chromosome. We examine the accomplishments of two women who pioneered code breaking and astronomy during the early years of the twentieth century and did so in the face of social opprobrium and a frequently hostile work environment.
Henrietta Leavitt measured the brightnesses of thousands of stars and discovered a way to gauge the distances to galaxies, a development that soon led to the concept of the Big Bang.
Elizabeth Friedman, originally hired to test whether William Shakespeare really wrote his plays, was soon establishing the science of code breaking, essential to success in the two world wars.
Also, the tech industry is overwhelmingly male. Girls Who Code is an initiative to redress the balance by introducing girls to computer programming, and encouraging them to follow careers in tech.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) There’s no place like “ome.” Your microbiome is highly influential in determining your health. But it’s not the only “ome” doing so. Your exposome – environmental exposure over a lifetime – also plays a role.
Hear how scientists hope to calculate your entire exposome, from food to air pollution to water contamination.
Plus, new research on the role that microbes play in the development of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s, and the hot debate about when microbes first colonize the body. Could a fetus have its own microbiome?
Also, choose your friends wisely: studies of microbe-swapping gazelles reveal the benefits – and the downsides – of being social.
And, why sensors on future toilets will let you do microbiome analysis with every flush.
Guests:
Rob Knight – Professor of Pediatrics, Computer Science and Engineering, and Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at the University of California, San Diego
Vanessa Ezenwa – Ecologist at the University of Georgia
Indira Mysorekar – Microbiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri
Gary Miller – Professor of public health at the Rollins School of Public Health and director of the HERCULES Exposome Research Center at Emory University. After August 2018, his lab will be at Columbia University.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Hundreds of thousands of scientists took to the streets during the March for Science. The divisive political climate has spurred some scientists to deeper political engagement – publicly challenging lawmakers and even running for office themselves. But the scientist-slash-activist model itself is contested, even by some of their colleagues.
Find out how science and politics have been historically intertwined, what motivates scientists to get involved, and the possible benefits and harm of doing so. Is objectivity damaged when scientists advocate?
Plus, how Michael Mann became a reluctant activist, whether his “street fighter” approach is effective in defending climate science, and the price he and his family paid for speaking out.
Also, how the organization 314 Action is helping a record number of scientists run for Congress. But will the group support only Democratic contenders?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Stephen Hawking felt gravity’s pull. His quest to understand this feeble force spanned his career, and he was the first to realize that black holes actually disappear – slowly losing the mass of everything they swallow in a dull, evaporative glow called Hawking radiation.
But one of gravity’s deepest puzzles defied even his brilliant mind. How can we connect theories of gravity on the large scale to what happens on the very small? The Theory of Everything remains one of the great challenges to physicists.
Also, the latest on deciphering the weirdness of black holes and why the gravitational wave detector LIGO has added colliding neutron stars to its roster of successes.
Plus, a fellow physicist describes Dr. Hawking’s extraordinary deductive abilities and what it was like to collaborate with him. And, a surprise awaits Molly when she meets a local string theorist to discuss his search for the Theory of Everything.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) "The moon or bust” is now officially bust. No private company was able to meet the Lunar X Prize challenge, and arrange for a launch by the 2018 deadline. The $30 million award goes unclaimed, but the race to the moon is still on. Find out who wants to go and why this is not your parents’ – or grandparents’ – space race.
With or without a cash incentive, private companies are still eyeing our cratered companion, hoping to set hardware down on its dusty surface. Meanwhile, while the U.S. waffles about a return to the moon, India and China are sending a second round of robots skyward. And a proposed orbiting laboratory – the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway – may literally put scientists over, and around, the moon.
The moon continues to entice sci-fi writers, and Andy Weir’s new novel describes a vibrant lunar colony. Its premise of colonists launched from Kenya is not entirely fiction: the nation is one of many in Africa with space programs.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Will virtual reality make you a better person? It’s been touted as the “ultimate empathy machine,” and one that will connect people who are otherwise emotionally and physically isolated. The promise of the technology has come a long way since BiPiSci last took a VR tour. Find out why researchers say virtual reality is no longer an exclusive club for gamers, but a powerful tool to build community.
Seth puts on a VR headset for an immersive experience of a man who’s evicted from his apartment. Find out why researchers say the experience creates empathy and sparks activism to address homelessness.
Also, why our spouses will love our avatars as much as they do us, the dark side of VR as a space for unchecked harassment, and consider: what if you’re already living a simulation created by your brain?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The fault is in our stars. And according to astrology, so is our destiny, our moods, and our character. Mars may be in retrograde, but interest in the ancient practice of astrology is rising. The fact that it is not science is irrelevant to those who claim “it works.”
Find out why “what’s your sign” is replacing “what do you do?” as an icebreaker, the historical roots of astrology and whether its truth-value matters today, and what conclusions we can draw from the many studies examining the full moon’s influence on human behavior.
It’s our monthly look at critical thinking, but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Move over Roomba. Café robots are the latest in adorable automation. And they may be more than a fad. As robots and artificial intelligence enter the workforce, they could serve up more than machine-made macchiato. Digital workers are in training to do a wide variety jobs. Will humans be handed the mother of all pink slips?
We sip lattes in a robot café and contemplate the future of work. Some say the workplace will have more machines than people, while others maintain that A.I. will augment, not replace, human workers.
Meanwhile, future intelligent automation may not come from Silicon Valley. Why China wants to become the global center for A.I.
Plus, NASA’s first bipedal humanoid robot - Valkyrie, a prototype of a construction worker for use on Mars - teaches us that moving like a human is not as easy as it looks.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Insect populations are declining. But before you say “good riddance,” consider that insects are the cornerstone of many ecosystems. They are dinner for numerous animal species and are essential pollinators. Mammals are loved, but they are not indispensable. Insects are.
Meanwhile, marvel at the extraordinary capabilities of some insects. The zany aerial maneuvers of the fly are studied by pilots. And, contrary to the bad press, cockroaches are very clean creatures. Also, take a listen as we host some Madagascar hissing cockroaches in our studio (yes, they audibly hiss).
Plus, how insects first evolved … and the challenges in controlling lethal ones. Are genetically-engineering mosquitoes the best way to combat malaria?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) It takes a lot of energy and technology to leave terra firma. But why rocket into space when there’s so much to be done on Earth? From the practical usefulness of satellites to the thrill of exploring other worlds, let us count the ways.
The launch of a NOAA weather satellite to join its twin provides unparalleled observation of storms, wildfires, and even lightning. Find out what it’s like to watch hurricanes form from space.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen countries want their own satellites to help solve real-world problems, including tracking disease. Learn how one woman is helping make space accessible to everyone.
Plus, now that we’ve completed our grand tour of the Solar System, which bodies are targets for return missions and which for human exploration?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) The scientific method is tried and true. It has led us to a reliable understanding of things from basic physics to biomedicine. So yes, we can rely on the scientific method. The fallible humans behind the research, not so much. And politicians? Don’t get us started. Remember when one brought a snowball to the Senate floor to “prove” that global warming was a hoax? Oy vey.
We talk to authors about new books that seem to cast a skeptical eye on the scientific method… but that are really throwing shade on the ambitious labcoat-draped humans who heat the beakers and publish the papers … as well as the pinstriped politicians who twist science to win votes.
Find out why the hyper-competitive pursuit of results that are “amazing” and “incredible” is undermining medical science … how a scientific breakthrough can turn into a societal scourge (heroin as miracle cure) … and what happens when civil servants play the role of citizen scientists on CSPAN.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your cat is smart, but its ability to choreograph a ballet or write computer code isn’t great. A lot of animals are industrious and clever, but humans are the only animal that is uniquely ingenious and creative.
Neuroscientist David Eagleman and composer Anthony Brandt discuss how human creativity has reshaped the world. Find out what is going on in your brain when you write a novel, paint a watercolor, or build a whatchamacallit in your garage.
But is Homo sapiens’ claim on creativity destined to be short-lived? Why both Eagleman and Brandt are prepared to step aside when artificial intelligence can do their jobs.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(Repeat) Why did the chicken take antibiotics? To fatten it up and prevent bacterial infection. As a result, industrial farms have become superbug factories, threatening our life-saving antibiotics.
Find out how our wonder drugs became bird feed, and how antibiotic resistant bugs bred on the farm end up on your dinner plate. A journalist tells the story of the 1950s fad of “acronizing” poultry; the act of dipping it in an antibiotic bath so it can sit longer on a refrigerator shelf.
Plus, some ways we can avoid a post-antibiotic era. The steps one farm took to make their chickens antibiotic free… and resurrecting an old therapy: enlisting viruses to target and destroy multi-drug resistant bacteria. Set your “phages” to stun.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s not a bird or a plane, and probably not an alien spaceship, although the jury’s still deliberating that one. Some astronomers have proposed that an oddly-shaped object that recently passed through our Solar System could be an alien artifact. We consider the E.T. explanation for ‘Oumuamua, but also other reasons asteroids are invigorating our imagination. Are these orbiting rocks key to our future as a spacefaring species?
Find out why traditional incentives for human exploration of space – such as political rivalry –aren’t igniting our rockets the way they once did, but why the potentially trillions of dollars to be made mining asteroids might.
These small bodies may also hold the key to our ancient past: the New Horizons flyby of Thule in early 2019 will provide an historic look at a distant Kuiper belt object, and provide clues about the formation of the Solar System.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Climate change isn’t happening. Vaccines make you sick. When it comes to threats to public or environmental health, a surprisingly large fraction of the population still denies the consensus of scientific evidence. But it’s not the first time – many people long resisted the evidentiary link between HIV and AIDS and smoking with lung cancer.
There’s a sense that science denialism is on the rise. It prompted a gathering of scientists and historians in New York City to discuss the problem, which included a debate on the usefulness of the word “denial” itself. Big Picture Science was there. We report from the Science Denial symposium held jointly by the New York Academy of Sciences and Rutgers Global Health Institute.
Find out why so many people dig in their heels and distrust scientific findings. Plus, the techniques wielded by special interest groups to dispute some inconvenient truths. We also hear how simply stating more facts may be the wrong approach to combating scientific resistance.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(Repeat) Lost your sense of direction? Blame your GPS. Scientists say that our reliance on dashboard devices is eroding our ability to create cognitive maps and is messing with our minds in general. We don’t even look at landmarks or the landscape anymore. We’ve become no more than interfaces between our GPS and our steering wheels.
But in other ways, GPS can spark a new appreciation of the physical world. A real-time flyover app reveals the stunning geological features otherwise invisible from our window seat.
And sensitive electronic sensors let us see where the wild things are and where they go. Learn how scientists put belts on jellyfish and produce maps that reveal the surprising routes taken by various species – from a single wolf, a group of phytoplankton, or a float of crocodiles.
Plus, one man is not ready to say goodbye to the traditional map. Find out why this cartographer insists on paper maps, not digital apps.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(Repeat) Whether you yawn, gasp, sniff, snore, or sigh, you’re availing yourself of our very special atmosphere. It’s easy to take this invisible chemical cocktail for granted, but it’s not only essential to your existence: it unites you and every other life form on the planet, dead or alive. The next breath you take likely includes molecules exhaled by Julius Caesar or Eleanor Roosevelt.
And for some animals, air is an information superhighway. Dogs navigate with their noses. Their sniffing snouts help them to identify their owners, detect trace amounts of drugs, and even sense some diseases. Find out what a dog’s nose knows, and why no amount of bathing and dousing in perfume can mask your personal smelliness.
Plus, why your own schnoz is key to not only enjoying a fine Bordeaux, but to survival of our species.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(Repeat) We’re hearing about harassment of, and barriers to, women seeking careers in politics and entertainment. But what about science? Science is supposed to be uniquely merit-based and objective. And yet the data say otherwise. A new study reveals widespread harassment of women of color in space science.
We look at the role that a hostile work environment plays in keeping women from pursuing scientific careers. While more women than ever are holding jobs in science, the percentage in tech and computer science has flattened out or even dropped. A memo from a software engineer at an Internet giant claims it’s because female brains aren’t suited for tech. Find out what the science says.
Plus, women staring down discrimination. One woman’s reaction to her guidance counselor’s suggestion that she skip calculus and have babies. And SACNAS, the organization changing the face of science for Latina and Native American women.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do we still need doctors? There are umpteen alternative sources of medical advice, including endless and heartfelt health tips from people without medical degrees. Frankly, self-diagnosis with a health app is easier and cheaper than a trip to a clinic. Since we’re urged to be our own health advocate and seek second opinions, why not ask Alexa or consult with a celebrity about what ails us?
Find out if you can trust these alternative medical advice platforms. Plus, lessons from an AIDS fighter about ignoring the findings of medical science.
And, if AI can diagnose better than an MD, will we stop listening to doctors altogether?
It’s our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(Repeat) The biotech tool CRISPR lets us do more than shuffle genes. Researchers have embedded an animated GIF into a living organism’s DNA, proving that the molecule is a great repository for information. This has encouraged speculation that DNA could be used by aliens to send messages.
Meanwhile, nature has seized on this powerful storage system in surprising ways. Scientists have learned that the 98% of our genome – once dismissed as “junk” – contains valuable genetic treasure. Find out what project ENCODE is learning about the “dark genome.”
Plus, how viruses became the original stealth coders, inserting their DNA into ancient bacteria and eventually leading to the development of CRISPR technology. Discover the potential of this powerful tool, from curing disease to making pig organs transplant-friendly, and the possible dark side of quick-and-easy gene editing.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Changed your computer password recently? We all try to stay one step ahead of the hackers, but the fear factor is increasing. The risks can range from stolen social security numbers to sabotaging a national power grid.
Sixty years ago, when hacking meant nosing around the telephone network, it seemed innocent enough. And not all modern hacking has criminal intent. Today, there are biohackers who experiment with implanted electronic devices to improve themselves, and geoengineers who propose to hack the climate. But in our efforts to cool an overheated planet, might we be going down a dangerous path?
In this second of two episodes on hacking, the modern variations of “hacking,” and their consequences. Plus: when does hacking a system improve it?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(repeat) Long before cyber criminals were stealing ATM passwords, phone phreaks were tapping into the telephone system. Their motivation was not monetary, but the thrill of defeating a complex, invisible network. Today “hacking” can apply to cyberwarfare, biological tinkering, or even geoengineering. Often it has negative connotations, but the original definition of “hacking” was something else.
In this first of two episodes on hacking, we look at the original practitioners – the teenagers and mavericks who hacked Ma Bell for thrills - and the difference between hacking for fun and for profit.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(Repeat) Celebrations are in order for the physicists who won the 2017 Nobel Prize, for the detection of gravitational waves. But the road to Stockholm was not easy. Unfolding over a century, it went from doubtful theory to daring experiments and even disrepute. 100 years is a major lag between a theory and its confirmation, and new ideas in physics may take even longer to prove.
Why it may be your great, great grandchildren who witness the confirmation of string theory. Plus, the exciting insights that gravitational waves provide into the phenomena of our universe, beginning with black holes.
And, physics has evolved - shouldn’t its rewards? A case for why the Nobel committee should honor collaborative groups rather than individuals, and the scientific breakthroughs it’s missed.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(Repeat) Astronauts are made of the “right stuff,” but what about their spacesuits? NASA’s pressurized and helmeted onesies are remarkable, but they need updating if we’re to boldly go into deep space. Suiting up on Mars requires more manual flexibility, for example. Find out what innovative materials might be used to reboot the suit.
Meanwhile, strange new materials are in the pipeline for use on terra firma: spider silk is kicking off the development of biological materials that are inspiring ultra-strong, economical, and entirely new fabrics. And, while flesh-eating bacteria may seem like an unlikely ally in materials science, your doctor might reach for them one day. The bacterium’s proteins are the inspiration for a medical molecular superglue.
Plus, an overview of more innovative materials to come, from those that are 3D printed to self-healing concrete.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Water is essential for life – that we know. But the honeycomb lattice that forms when you chill it to zero degrees Celsius is also inexorably intertwined with life.
Ice is more than a repository for water that would otherwise raise sea levels. It’s part of Earth’s cooling system, a barrier preventing decaying organic matter from releasing methane gas, and a vault entombing ancient bacteria and other microbes.
From the Arctic to the Antarctic, global ice is disappearing. Find out what’s at stake as atmospheric CO2 threatens frozen H2O.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE It’s not just tin cans and newspapers. One man says that, from a technical standpoint, everything can be recycled – cigarette butts, yoga mats, dirty diapers. Even radioactive waste. You name it, we can recycle it. But we choose not to. Find out why we don’t, and how we could do more.
Plus, a solar-powered device that pulls water from the air – even desert air.
And, something upon which life depends that seems dirt cheap, but can’t be replenished: soil. What happens when we pave over this living resource?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE It’s one of the most bizarre biological experiments ever. In the 18th century, a scientist fitted a pair of tailor-made briefs on a male frog to determine the animal’s contribution to reproduction. The process of gestation was a mystery and scientists had some odd-ball theories.
Today, a 5th grader can tell you how babies are made, but we still don’t know exactly what life is. In our quest to understand, we’re still at the frogs’ pants stage.
Find out why conception took centuries to figure out. Also, why the 1970s Viking experiments, specifically designed to detect life on Mars, couldn’t give us a definitive answer. Plus, can knowing where life isn’t help define what it is? Take a tour of the world’s barren places.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Get ready for compassionate computers that feel your pain, share your joy, and generally get where you’re coming from. Computers that can tell by your voice whether you’re pumped up or feeling down, or sense changes in heart rate, skin, or muscle tension to determine your mood. Empathetic electronics that you can relate to.
But wait a minute – we don’t always relate to other humans. Our behavior can be impulsive and even self-sabotaging – our emotions are often conflicted and irrational. We cry when we’re happy. Frown when we’re pensive. A suite of factors, much of them out of our control, govern how we behave, from genes to hormones to childhood experience.
One study says that all it takes for a defendant to receive a harsher sentence is a reduction in the presiding judge’s blood sugar.
So grab a cookie, and find out how the heck we can build computers that understand us anyway.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Pluto, we hardly knew ye. Well, not anymore! Until recently, Pluto and Mars were respectively the least-known and best-known planet-sized bodies in our Solar System. Thanks to the New Horizons spacecraft, our picture of Pluto has changed from a featureless dot to a place where we can name the geologic features. And with rovers and orbiters surveying the red planet, we now know much more about Mars than our parents ever did. Examining our planetary backyard has provided insight into the trillion other planets in our galaxy.
Dive into a mountain lake and trek though the driest desert on Earth with a scientist who’s had not one but two near-fatal incidents in these extreme environments. Find out what questions compel her to keep returning.
And scientists on the New Horizons mission remember why the nail-biting Pluto flyby almost failed at the last minute. Find out what surprises Pluto offered and what the mission might uncover as it heads to its next, outer solar-system target.
Also, from Earth-like planets to super Earths and water worlds: a tour of some of Kepler’s most intriguing extrasolar planets.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Time passes like an arrow, but what if it flew like a boomerang? Scientists are learning how to reverse time’s most relentless march: aging. But before we rewind time, let’s try to define it, because there’s plenty of debate about just what time is – a fundamental component of the universe or a construct of our consciousness?
Find out why, even though pondering the future may cause heartburn, mental time travel has an evolutionary survival advantage.
Plus, your brain as a clock; why “brain age” may be more accurate than chronological age in determining lifespan.
And while a million-dollar monetary prize hopes to inspire researchers to crack the aging code, one group claims they already have. By reprogramming special genes, they’ve reversed the biological clocks in mice. Find out when human trials begin.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE You are your brain. But what happens when your brain changes for the worse – either by physical injury or experience? Are you still responsible for your actions?
We hear how the case of a New York man charged with murder was one of the first to introduce neuroscience as evidence in court. Plus, how technology hooks us – a young man so addicted to video games, he lacked social skills, or even a desire to eat. Find out how technology designers conspire against his digital detox.
Also, even if your brain is intact and your only task is choosing a sock color, are you really in control? How your unconscious directs even mundane behavior … and how you can outwit it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Whether they swim, slither, jump, or fly, animal locomotion is more than just an urge to roam: it’s necessary for survival. Evolution has come up with ingenious schemes to get from here to there. Hear how backbones evolved as a consequence of fish needing to wag their fins, and why no animals have wheels.
Motion is more than locomotion. Test the physics of movement in your kitchen and find out what popping corn has in common with the first steam engine.
And while physics insists that atoms are always moving, find how what happens to these basic building blocks when placed in the coldest spot in the universe. The Cold Atom Laboratory chills material to nearly absolute zero, creating some weird superfluid effects as atoms slow down.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Know your brain? Think again. Driven by a hidden agenda, powered by an indecipherable web of neurons, and influenced by other brains, your grey matter is a black box.
To "know thyself" may be a challenge, and free will nonexistent, but maybe more technology can shed light on the goings on in your noggin, and the rest of your body.
Find out how tiny implanted sensors called “brain dust” may reveal what really going on.
Plus, the day when your brain is uploaded into a computer as ones and zeros. Will you still be you?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Sherlock Holmes doesn’t have a science degree, yet he thinks rationally – like a scientist. You can too! Learn the secrets of being irritatingly logical from the most famous sleuth on Baker Street. Plus, discover why animal trackers 100,000 years ago may have been the first scientists, and what we can learn from about deductive reasoning from today’s African trackers.
Also, the author of a book on teaching physics to your dog provides tips for unleashing your inner scientist, even if you hated science in school.
And newly-minted scientists imagine classes they wish were available to them as grad students, such as “You Can’t Save the World 101.”
Guests:
First released February 9, 2015.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Einstein thought that quantum mechanics might be the end of physics, and most scientists felt sure it would never be useful. Today, everything from cell phones to LED lighting is completely dependent on the weird behavior described by quantum mechanics.
But the story continues. Quantum computers may be millions of times faster than your laptop, and applying them to big data could be transformational for biology and health. Quantum entanglement – “spooky” action at a distance – may not allow faster-than-light communication, but could be important in other ways. And there’s even the suggestion that quantum mechanics defines the difference between life and death.
Quantum physics. It’s weird and exotic. But it’s how the universe works.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It was a shocker of a story, splashed across the New York Times front page: The existence of a five-year long, hidden Pentagon investigation of UFOs. With one-third of the American public convinced that aliens are visiting Earth, could this study finally provide the proof?
We consider how this story came to light and what the $22 million program has produced. Does the existence of a secret study mean there’s now decent proof of extraterrestrial craft in our skies? We take a look at the evidence made public so far.
And why, six years after the study ended, are we learning about it now?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE For a half-century, space has been the playground of large, government agencies. While everyone could dream of becoming an astronaut, few could actually do so.
Things have changed. We hear how a geeky son of immigrant parents incentivized the ground-breaking launch of SpaceShipOne, and spawned the commercial rocket industry.
And while you’re waiting for a ticket to ride, why not build your own satellite to keep tabs on the kids or just check out the back forty? A CubeSat could be your next basement project.
And the hitherto untold story of how black women mathematicians a half-century ago helped get a man into orbit, and astronauts to the moon.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE The record of the rocks is not just the history of Earth; it’s your history too. Geologists can learn about events going back billions of years that influenced – and even made possible – our present-day existence and shaped our society.
If the last Ice Age had been a bit warmer, the rivers and lakes of the Midwest would have been much farther north and the U.S. might still be a small country of 13 states. If some Mediterranean islands hadn’t twisted a bit, no roads would have led to Rome.
Geology is big history, and the story is on-going. Human activity is changing the planet too, and has introduced its own geologic era, the Anthropocene. Will Earthlings of a hundred million years from now dig up our plastic refuse and study it the way we study dinosaur bones?
Plus, the dodo had the bad luck to inhabit a small island and couldn’t adapt to human predators. But guess what? It wasn’t as dumb as you think.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE You own a cat, or is it vice versa? Family friendly felines have trained their owners to do their bidding. Thanks to a successful evolutionary adaptation, they rule your house.
Find out how your cat has you wrapped around its paw. And it’s not the only animal to outwit us. Primatologist Frans de Waal shares the surprising intellectual capabilities of chimps, elephants, and bats. In fact, could it be that we’re simply not smart enough to see how smart animals are?
Plus, the discovery of a fossilized dinosaur brain. Were those lumbering lizards more clever than we thought?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Not that they haven’t tried. History is replete with attempts to control the weather, but we’d settle for an accurate seven-day forecast.
Find out how sophisticated technology might improve accuracy, including predicting the behavior of severe storms. Plus, the age when “weather forecast” was a laughable idea, but why 19th century rebel scientists pursued it anyway.
Also, a meteorologist who was falsely claimed to have “solved” the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, and a climate scientist recounts the history of trying to control the weather, and the potential future of geoengineering.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Got aches and pains? Critters in the Cretaceous would have been sympathetic. A new study reveals that painful arthritis plagued a duck-billed dinosaur. Scientists impressively diagnosed the animal’s condition without a house call by examining its 70 million-year old bones.
The technology we use for health diagnoses are becoming so sophisticated, some people are prompted to bypass doctors and do it themselves. Meet a man who had his genome sequenced and then had all 70 gigabytes delivered directly to him so that he could gauge his genetic health.
Also, practitioners who are trying to improve cognitive function using a battery and a few wires. Find out the possible risks and benefits of DIY brain stimulation.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE You are not alone. You can’t see ‘em, but your face is a festival of face mites. They’ve evolved with us for millennia. And a new study finds that hundreds of different tiny spiders, beetles, and – our favorite - book lice make your home theirs. But before you go bonkers with the disinfectant, consider: eradicating these critters may do more harm than good. Some are such close evolutionary partners with humans that they keep us healthy and can even reveal something about our ancestry.
But then there are bed bugs. Pests without redemption. However, their newly-sequenced genome may help us end their nightly nuisances. And of course some microscopic critters are deadly. So when it comes to bugs: when do we accommodate and when do we attack?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hey, let’s meet last week for coffee. Okay, we can’t meet in the past … yet. But could it be only a matter of time before we can? In an attempt to defy the grandfather paradox, scientists try sending a photon back in time to destroy itself.
Also, find out how teleportation allows particles to instantaneously skip through space-time and why sending humans wouldn’t violate the laws of physics.
But before you pack your bags for that instantaneous trip to Paris, we need to understand the nature of time. A physicist offers a testable theory and ponders how it bears on free will.
Plus, feel as if time comes to a standstill when you’re standing in line? Tricks for altering your perception of time while you wait. Some businesses already use them on you.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Will your calendar entry for November 19th be your last? Some people say yes, predicting a catastrophic collision between Earth and planet Nibiru on that date and the end of the world. But it won’t happen, because this hypothesized rogue world doesn’t exist. Nibiru’s malevolent disruptions have been foretold many times, most dramatically in 2012 and three times so far in 2017. But this year NASA issued a rare public assurance that doomsday was not in the offing.
Find out why the agency decided to speak out. Meanwhile, hoaxes and alarmist stories from the 19th century demonstrate that we have a long history of being susceptible to hooey.
Also, an astronomer who doesn’t believe that Nibiru is hiding in the outer Solar System, but that Planet X is.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all get defensive sometimes. For some animals, evolution has provided a highly effective mechanism for saying “back off!”. A puncture by a pair of venom-filled fangs gets the point across nicely.
But one animal’s poison may be another’s cure. Some dangerous critters churn out compounds that can be synthesized into life-saving drugs.
Meet the spiny, fanged, and oozing creatures who could help defend us against such illnesses as hypertension and kidney disease.
Plus, the King of Pain - a scientist who has been stung by more than 80 species of insects in his pursuit of a better understanding of venom’s biochemistry. Find out which winged stinger scored the highest on his pain index.
And, why the drug we need most may come from the quietest members of the biosphere: turning to plants for a new generation of antibiotics.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds do it, bees do it, but humans may not do it for much longer. At least not for having children. Relying on sex to reproduce could be supplanted by making babies in the lab, where parents-to-be can select genomes that will ensure ideal physical and behavioral traits.
Men hoping to be fathers should act sooner rather than later. These same advancements in biotechnology could allow women to fertilize their own eggs, making the need for male sperm obsolete.
Meanwhile, some animals already reproduce asexually. Find out how female African bees can opt to shut out male bees intent on expanding the hive.
Will engineering our offspring have a down side? Sex creates vital genetic diversity, as demonstrated by evolution of wild animals in urban areas. Find out how birds, rodents and insects use sex in the city to adapt and thrive.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The military is a dangerous calling. But technology can help out, so researchers are constantly trying to make soldiers safer. Writer Mary Roach investigates how scientists studying so-called human factors are protecting troops from such aggressive foes as heat, noise, and fatigue. She also learns how bad odors were once considered a secret weapon.
And while soldiers have long used camouflage to help them blend in, insects may be the original masters of disguise. A discovery in fossilized amber shows that a variety of bugs employed D.I.Y. camouflaging tricks 100 million years ago.
But where is the defense race headed? The top-secret branch of the Pentagon whose job is to make tomorrow happen today has some ideas. A reporter shares DARPA’s plan for augmented super-soldiers.
Plus, do we always need a technological boost to stay safe? Find out how your innate chemical defense system protects you. It’s an adrenaline rush!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Once again the aliens have landed … in theaters. It’s no spoiler to say that the latest cinematic sci-fi, Arrival, involves extraterrestrials visiting Earth.
But for some folks, the film’s premise is hardly shocking. They’re convinced that the aliens have already come. But is there any proof that aliens are here now or that they landed long ago to, for example, help build the Egyptian pyramids?
Meanwhile, SETI scientists are deploying their big antennas in an effort to establish that extraterrestrials exist far beyond Earth.
Find out why – even if E.T. is out there – one scientist says making contact is a long shot, while another pioneering scientist involved in SETI remains hopeful … and could aliens be responsible for the peculiar behavior of two star systems now making the news?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We know how the stars shine, but how do you make a star? We take an all-night ride on a high-flying jet – an airborne observatory called SOFIA – to watch astronomers investigate how a star is born.
As for how the universe was born, we know about the Big Bang but modern physics suggests that similar cosmic explosions may be happening all the time, and even hint that we could – in principle – create a new universe in a laboratory. What does this mean, and how could we do it?
From stars to universes, how it all came to be.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s elementary, Watson. Things are in flux – from the elements in the air you breathe to party balloons. We investigate the massive, historic loss of nitrogen from the atmosphere and meet the culprits behind a modern-day helium shortage.
But it’s not all a disappearing act: be thankful that oxygen showed up in our atmosphere a few billion years ago. Meanwhile, atom smashers have recently produced some new elements. Their appearance was brief, but long enough to fill out the periodic table.
And perhaps the tastiest use of an element – one that gives Seth a chilly reception.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In space, no one can hear you scream, but, using the right instruments, scientists can pick up all types of cosmic vibrations – the sort we can turn into sound. After a decade of listening, LIGO, a billion-dollar physics experiment, has detected gravitational waves caused by the collision of massive black holes, a brief shaking of spacetime that can be translated into a short squeal.
We listen to the chirp of black holes crashing into each other and wonder: could the universe contain more than individual sounds, but have actual musical structure?
A theoretical physicist and jazz saxophonist updates the ancient philosophical concept of the Music of the Spheres to probe the most vexing questions confronting modern cosmology. Find out how the evolution of the universe resembles an improvisational jazz piece, and the musical inspiration John Coltrane drew from Albert Einstein.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Can an opera singer’s voice really shatter glass? Can you give your car a rocket-assisted boost and survive the test drive? How do you protect yourself from a shark attack? Those are among the many intriguing questions and urban legends tested by the MythBusters team in front of the camera.
Now that the series has ended after a 16 year run, co-host Adam Savage tells us how it all began, how he and Jamie Hyneman walked the line between science and entertainment, and why he considers himself a scientist but not a “skeptic.”
Also, he reveals the location of the episode, “Duct Tape Island.”
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"Locked and loaded” is how one scientist recently described the San Andreas fault. Find out when this famous west-coast rift might cause “the big one;” also, the state of early earthquake warning systems.
Plus, another sign of our planet’s unceasing turmoil: volcanos! Could the eruption that produced the Deccan Traps, and not a rock from space, have been the nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs? One seismologist shares new evidence about some suspicious timing.
And, the man who was the first to take the temperature of lava, established the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and essentially pioneered the field of volcanology a century ago is nearly lost to history. A scientist rescues fellow volcanologist Thomas Jagger from obscurity.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They say that the experience of watching a total eclipse is so profound, you’re not the same afterward. If life-changing events are your thing and you’re in the lower 48 states on August 21st, let us help you make the most of viewing the Great American Solar Eclipse.
Learn the basics of where to be and what to bring, even on short notice. No eclipse glasses? Find out why a kitchen colander is an excellent Plan B.
Also, the strange behavior of animals and private jet pilots during an eclipse. The latter is making the FAA sweat.
Plus, how 1878 eclipse fever inspired Thomas Edison and astronomer Maria Mitchell, and what was at stake for them scientifically. And today, with astronauts able to view the Sun from space, what new science can we still learn by eclipse expeditions on Earth?
And, NASA turns up the heat on solar studies with a probe to within a hair’s breadth of the Sun.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Baby, it’s cold outside… but you still might want to be there. Some people claim that chilly temperatures are good for your health, and proponents of cryotherapy suggest you have a blast – of sub-zero air – to stave off wrinkles and perhaps halt aging altogether.
Meanwhile the field of cryonics offers the ultimate benefit by suggesting that you put future plans – and your body – on ice when you die. That way you might be revived when the technology to do so is developed.
So, will a chill wind blow you some good? Possibly, as scientists are discovering that the body can endure colder temperatures than previously thought. We examine the science of extreme cold and claims of its salubrious benefits.
It’s our monthly look at critical thinking, Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
No one knows what the future will bring, but science fiction authors are willing to take a stab at imagining it. We take our own stab at imagining them imagining it. Find out why the genre of science fiction is more than a trippy ride through a bizarre, hi-tech world, but a way to assess and vote on our possible shared future.
Also, an astronomer learns how many rejection slips it takes before becoming a published science fiction author …. what author Bruce Sterling wants to get off his chest … and what the joke about the neutron walking into a bar to ask the price of beer has in common with H.G. Wells, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ridley Scott.
Oh, and the price of beer? Bartender: “For you, no charge.”
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You can’t pick your parents. But soon you may be able to change the DNA they gave you. CRISPR technology is poised to take DNA editing to new levels of precision and speed. Imagine deleting genes from your body that you don’t like and inserting the ones you want. The swap might not even require a fancy lab. Biohackers are already tinkering with genes in their homes.
Find out how CRISPR technology might change everything when the genetic lottery is no longer destiny.
Plus, a cardiologist identifies the troublesome genes that once gave us evolutionary advantages but today are fueling obesity, depression and other modern illness.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It was “one giant leap for mankind,” but the next step forward may require going back. Yes, back to the moon. Only this time the hardware may come from China. Or perhaps Europe. In fact, it seems that the only developed nation not going lunar is the U.S.
Find out why our pockmarked satellite is such hot real estate, and whether it has the raw materials we’d need to colonize it. A new theory of how the moon formed may tell us what’s below its dusty surface.
But – before packing your bags – you’ll want to skim Article IX of the U.N. treaty on planetary protection. We can’t go contaminating any old planetary body, can we?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In astronomy, the rule of thumb was simple: If you can’t see it with a telescope, it’s not real. Seeing is believing. Well, tell that to the astronomers who discovered dark energy, or dark matter … or, more recently, Planet 9. And yet we have evidence that all these things exist (although skepticism about the ninth – or is it tenth? – planet still lingers).
Find out how we know what we know about the latest cosmic discoveries – even if we can’t see them directly. The astronomer who found Planet 9 – and killed Pluto – offers his evidence.
And, a speculative scenario suggests that dark matter helped do away with the dinosaurs.
Plus, the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics explains why neutrinos that are zipping through your body right now may hold clues to the origin of the universe.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Only two of the following three creations have had lasting scientific or cultural impact: The telescope … the Sistine Chapel ceiling … the electric banana. Find out why one didn’t make the cut as a game-changer, and why certain eras and places produce a remarkable flowering of creativity (we’re looking at you, Athens).
Plus, Yogi Berra found it difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, but we try anyway. A technology expert says he’s identified the next Silicon Valley. Hint: its focus is on genetic – not computer – code and its language in the lab is Mandarin.
We got the past and the future covered. Where’s innovation now? We leave that to the biohackers who are remaking the human body one sensory organ at a time. Are you ready for eye-socket cameras and mind readers?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Exploration: It’s exciting, it’s novel, and you can’t always count on a round-trip ticket. You can boldly go, but you might not come back. That’s no showstopper for robotic explorers, though. Spacecraft go everywhere.
While humans have traveled no farther than the moon, our mechanical proxies are climbing a mountain on Mars, visiting an ice ball far beyond Pluto, plunging through the rings of Saturn, and landing on a comet. Oh, and did we mention they’re also bringing rock and roll to the denizens of deep space, in case they wish to listen.
We consider some of the most daring explorers since the 16th century – made of metal and plastic - venturing to places where no one else could go. What have they done, what are they doing, and at what point do they declare “mission accomplished” and head for that great spacecraft graveyard in the sky?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eat dark chocolate. Don’t drink coffee. Go gluten-free. If you ask people for diet advice, you’ll get a dozen different stories. Ideas about what’s good for us sprout up faster than alfalfa plants (which are still healthy … we think). How can you tell if the latest is fact or fad?
We’ll help you decide, and show you how to think skeptically about popular trends. One example: a study showing that gluten-free diets didn’t ease digestive problems in athletes. Also, medical researchers test whether wearable devices succeed in getting us off the couch and a nutritionist explains how things got so confusing.
Plus, why part of our confusion may be language. Find out why one cook says that no foods are “healthy,” not even kale.
It’s Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ask anyone what extraordinary powers they’d love to have, and you’re sure to hear “be able to fly.” We’ve kind of scratched that itch with airplanes. But have we gone as far as we can go, or are better flying machines in our future? And whatever happened to our collective dream of flying cars? We look at the evolution - and the future - of flight.
Animals and insects have taught us a lot about the mechanics of becoming airborne. But surprises remain. For example, bats may flit around eccentrically, but they are actually more efficient fliers than birds.
Meanwhile, new technology may change aviation when self-healing material repairs structural cracks in mid-flight. And a scientist who worked on flying cars for DARPA says he’s now working on the next best thing.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Admit it – the universe is cool, but weird. Just when you think you’ve tallied up all the peculiar phenomena that the cosmos has to offer – it throws more at you. We examine some of the recent perplexing finds.
Could massive asteroid impacts be as predictable as phases of the moon? Speaking of moons – why are some of Pluto’s spinning like turbine-powered pinwheels? Plus, we examine a scientist’s claim of evidence for parallel universes.
And, could the light patterns from a distant star be caused by alien mega-structures?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Obesity, diabetes, heart disease … maybe even Alzheimer’s. Could these modern scourges have a common denominator? Some people believe they do: sugar.
But is this accusation warranted? We talk with a journalist who has spent two decades reporting on nutrition science, and while he says there’s still not definitive proof that sugar makes us sick, he can make a strong case for it.
Also, how a half-century ago the sugar industry secretly paid Harvard scientists to shift the culprit for heart disease from their product to dietary fat. We hear how the companies borrowed from the playbook of Big Tobacco.
So is your sweet tooth a threat to your health?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Congratulations, you have a big brain. Evolution was good to Homo sapiens. But make some room on the dais. Research shows that other animals, such as crows, may not look smart, but can solve complex problems.
Meanwhile human engineers are busily developing cogitating machines. Intelligent entities abound – but are they all capable of actual thought?
Hear how crows fashion tools from new materials and can recognize you by sight. Also, how an IBM computer may one day outthink the engineers who designed it.
Plus, scientists who simulated a rat brain in a computer, neuron-by-neuron, look ahead to modeling the human brain. And, what brain disorders teach us about the brain and our sense of self.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ENCORE Meet your new relatives. The fossilized bones of Homo naledi are unique for their sheer number, but they may also be fill a special slot in our ancestry: the first of our genus Homo. Sporting modern hands and feet but only a tiny brain, this creature may link us and our ape-like ancestors.
Some anthropologists hail the discovery as that of a new hominid species. Not all their colleagues agree. Find out what’s at stake in the debate.
Also, the scientist who helped retrieve the fossils describes her perilous crawl through a cave with only ten inches of elbow room. And a radical theory about what these old bones might mean: could they be from a burial two million years ago?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
She’s among the most famous missing persons in history. On the eightieth anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, mystery still shrouds her fate. What happened during the last leg of her round-the-world trek?
Theories abound. Perhaps she ran out of fuel, and plunged into the ocean … or was captured by the Japanese. A non-profit international organization, TIGHAR, suggests she was a castaway, and offers up a new analysis of bones found on a Pacific atoll during the time of the Second World War. Their researchers will return to this possible landing spot to seek more clues this summer.
We consider these theories and weigh the new evidence surrounding Earhart’s puzzling last flight. Also, why are we uncomfortable with open-ended mysteries?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Face it – your mug is not entirely yours. It’s routinely uploaded to social media pages and captured on CCTV cameras with – and without – your consent. Sophisticated facial recognition technology can identify you and even make links to your personal data. There are few places where you’re safe from scrutiny.
Find out how a computer analyzes the geometry of a face and why even identical twins don’t fool its discerning gaze. Proponents say that biometrics are powerful tools to stop crime, but the lack of regulation concerns privacy groups. Do you want to be identified – and your habits tracked – whenever you step outside?
Plus, astronomy meets forensics. How analyzing photos and paintings using weather records, sky charts, and phases of the moon help solve intriguing mysteries, including the history of an iconic V.J. Day photo.
Guests:
• Donald Olson – Physicist, astronomer, Texas State University
• Marios Savvides – Computer engineer, Director, CyLab Biometrics Center, Carnegie Mellon University
• Alvaro Bedoya – Executive director, Center on Privacy and Technology, Georgetown Law
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The light bulb needs changing. Edison’s incandescent bulb, virtually unaltered for more than a century, is now being eclipsed by the LED. The creative applications for these small and efficient devices are endless: on tape, on wallpaper, even in contact lenses. They will set the world aglow. But is a brighter world a better one?
Discover the many ingenious applications for LEDs and the brilliance of the 19th century scientist, James Clerk Maxwell, who first discovered just what light is. But both biologists and astronomers are alarmed by the disappearance of dark. Find out how light pollution is making us and other animals sick and – when was the last time you saw a starry night?
Guests:
• Ian Ferguson – Engineer, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing, Missouri University of Science and Technology
• Jay Neitz – Professor, department of ophthalmology, University of Washington
• Martin Hendry - Professor, gravitational astrophysics and cosmology, University of Glasgow
• John Barentine - Program manager, International Dark Sky Association
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The moon jellyfish has remarkable approach to self-repair. If it loses a limb, it rearranges its remaining body parts to once again become radially symmetric. Humans can’t do that, but a new approach that combines biology with nanotechnology could give our immune systems a boost. Would you drink a beaker of nanobots if they could help you fight cancer?
Also, materials science gets into self-healing with a novel concrete that fixes its own cracks.
Plus, why even the most adaptive systems can be stretched to their limit. New research suggests that the oceans will take a millennium to recover from climate change.
Guests:
• Lea Goentoro – Professor of biology, California Institute of Technology
• Michael Abrams - Biologist, California Institute of Technology
• Sarah Moffitt – Paleo-oceanographer, Bodega Marine Laboratory, University of California, Davis
• Mark Miodownik – Materials scientist, director of the Institute of Making, University College, London. Author of “Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape our Man-Made World”
• Shawn Douglas - Computer scientist, assistant professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Shhh. Is someone coming? Okay, we’ll make this quick. There are a lot of scary things going on in the world. Naturally you’re fearful. But sometimes fear has a sister emotion: suspicion. A nagging worry about what’s really going on. You know, the stuff they aren’t telling you. Don’t share this, but we have evidence that both our fear response and our tendency to believe conspiracy theories are evolutionarily adaptive.
A sociologist who studies fear tells us why we’re addicted to its thrill when we control the situation, and how the media exploit our fear of losing control to keep us on edge. Plus, we examine some alien “cover-ups” and discover why it’s not just the tinfoil hat crowd that falls for outrageous plots.
It’s Skeptic Check …. but you didn’t hear it from us!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What you can’t see may astound you. The largest unexplored region of Earth is the ocean. Beneath its churning surface, oceanographers have recently discovered the largest volcano in the world – perhaps in the solar system.
Find out what is known – and yet to be discovered – about the marine life of the abyss, and how a fish called the bristlemouth has grabbed the crown for “most numerous vertebrate on Earth” from the chicken.
Plus, the menace of America’s Cascadia fault, which has the potential to unleash a devastating magnitude 9 earthquake.
Follow Dr. Sager’s voyage back to Tamu Massif in Fall 2015.
Guests
• Bruce Robison – Deep sea biologist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
• William Sager – Marine geophysicist, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston
• Chris Goldfinger - Marine geologist, geophysicist, paleo-seismologist, Oregon State University
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Earth may be the cradle of life, but our bodies are filled with materials cooked up billions of years ago in the scorching centers of stars. As Carl Sagan said, “We are all stardust.” We came from space, and some say it is to space we will return.
Discover an astronomer’s quest to track down remains of these ancient chemical kitchens. Plus, a scientist who says that it’s in our DNA to explore – and not just the nearby worlds of the solar system, but perhaps far beyond.
But would be still be human when we arrive? Hear what biological and cultural changes we might undergo in a multi-generational interstellar voyage.
Guests:
• Timothy Beers – Astronomer, University of Notre Dame
• Chris Impey – Astronomer, University of Arizona, author of Beyond: Our Future in Space
• Cameron Smith – Archaeologist, Portland State University
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Archaeologists continue to hunt for the city of Atlantis, even though it may never have existed. But, what if it did? Its discovery would change ancient history. Sometimes when we dig around in the past, we can change our understanding of how we got to where we are.
We thought we had wrapped up the death of the dinosaurs: blame it on an asteroid. But evidence unearthed in Antarctica and elsewhere suggests the rock from space wasn’t the sole culprit.
Also, digging into our genetic past can turn up surprising – and sometimes uncomfortable truths – from ancestral origins to genes that code for disease. But do we always want to know?
Guests:
• Mark Adams – author, Meet Me in Atlantis: My Obsessive Quest to Find the Sunken City
• David Morrison – Senior scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
• Peter Ward – Paleontologist, University of Washington, author of A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth
• Christine Kenneally – Journalist and author of The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"If it bleeds, it leads” is the tried and true tenet of news. Indeed, headlines are often no more than a long list of moral atrocities. Yet one man argues that we’re living in the most civilized era in history. And he credits this to scientific thought and reason.
Hang on! Our executive function isn’t enough to promote ethical behavior, says a psychologist. The real fuel behind our drive to be good? Anger, compassion, pride: your emotions!
But whether or not you’re a pillar of the community, good intentions might all be for naught when future ethical decisions are made by our silicon successors. Get ready for moral machines. Or not.
Guests:
• Michael Shermer - Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, author of The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom
• David DeSteno – Psychologist, Northeastern University, author of The Truth About Trust
• Colin Allen – Historian, philosopher of science and cognitive science, Indiana University. Co-author of Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This year’s election is divisive, but one subject enjoys some consensus: science and technology policies are important. So why aren’t the candidates discussing these issues? The answers might surprise you.
The organizer of Science Debate, who wants a live debate devoted to science and technology, describes one obstacle to meaningful discussion. He also shares how the candidates responded to probing questions about science.
Communication expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson looks back to the televised debate of Kennedy and Nixon to discern trends that have made productive discussion about science nearly impossible today (it didn’t start out that way!)
And, the unique situation in which the man at the top of one political ticket is flat out wrong about science: a physicist describes how Donald Trump’s anti-science position affects the election.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Are you skeptical? Sure, you raise an eyebrow when some Nigerian prince asks for your bank numbers, or when a breakfast cereal claims that it will turn your kid into a professional athlete overnight.
But what do you really know about the benefits of organic milk? Or the power of whitening ingredients in your toothpaste? How credible is what you read on Twitter?
Today, information overwhelms us, and the need to keep our skeptical wits about us has never been greater. We follow Seth around as he faces the daily onslaught of hype and hokum.
It’s Skeptic Check, our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
• Steven Novella – Assistant professor of neurology at Yale University School of Medicine and host of the “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” podcast
• Guy P. Harrison – journalist and author. His latest book, Good Thinking: What You Need to Know to be Smarter, Safer, Wealthier, and Wiser, will be in bookstores in October 2015.
• Andrew Maynard – Professor in the School for Innovation in Society, Arizona State University
• Peter Adams – Senior vice president for educational programs with the News Literacy Project
• Daniel Armistead – Dentist, Palo Alto, California
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Darwinian evolution is adaptive and slow … millennia can go by before a species changes very much. But with the tools of genetic engineering we can now make radical changes in just one generation. By removing genes or inserting new ones, we can give an organism radically different traits and behaviors. We are taking evolution into our own hands.
It all began with the domestication of plants and animals, which one science writer says created civilization. Today, as humans tinker with their own genome, is it possible we will produce Homo sapiens 2.0?
Also, what happens to those species who can’t control their destiny? How climate change is forcing the biggest genetic reshuffling in recorded history.
Guests:
• Richard Francis – Science writer, author of Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World
• Juan Enriquez – Academic, businessman, author, founding director of the Life Sciences Project, Harvard Business School, managing director, Excel Venture Management, and author of Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth
• Jessica Hellmann – Biologist, University of Notre Dame
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Everyone knows that a big rock did in the dinosaurs, but smaller asteroids are millions of times more common and can also make a violent impact. Yet unlike the bigger asteroids, we’re not tracking them. Find out what we’d need to keep an eye on the size of space rocks such as that which exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia. And how an asteroid whizzed by Earth in late August 2016, only hours after it had been spotted.
Asteroids are the one natural disaster we can defend against, but an economist explains why humans are reluctant to invest in protection against “low probability, high impact” threats.
Also, how to authenticate that chunk of asteroid that you found in a field and NASA’s first ever return mission to an asteroid. It plans to bring some fresh samples back to Earth.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You’re a private person. But as long as you’re on-line and have skin and hair, you’re shedding little bits of data and DNA everywhere you go. Find out how that personal information – whether or not it’s used against you – is no longer solely your own. Are your private thoughts next?
A security expert shares stories of ingenious computer hacking … a forensic scientist develops tools to create a mug shot based on a snippet of DNA … and from the frontiers of neuroscience: mind reading may no longer be the stuff of sketchy psychics.
Guests:
• Marc Goodman – Global security advisor, founder, Future Crimes Institute, author of Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
• Susan Walsh – Forensic geneticist, Indiana University – Purdue University in Indianapolis
• Marvin Chun – Psychologist, Yale University
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When astronaut Gene Cernan stepped off the moon in 1972, he didn’t think he’d be the last human ever to touch its surface. But no one’s been back. Hear astronaut Cernan’s reaction to being the last man on the moon, the reasons why President Kennedy launched the Apollo program, and why Americans haven’t returned.
Now other countries – and companies – are vying for a bigger piece of the space pie. Find out who – or what – will be visiting and even profiting. Will the moon become an important place to make money?
Plus, the moon landing was a great step for “a man,” and “men not machines” make space history. But what about women? More than a dozen were qualified for space flight in the early 1960s. Hear from one of these original “Mercury 13,” and find out why NASA grounded them.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There are few enduring truths, but one is that no one gets out of life alive. What’s less certain is what comes next. Does everything stop with death, or are we transported to another plane of existence? First-hand accounts of people who claim to have visited heaven are offered as proof of an afterlife. Now the author of one bestseller admits that his story was fabricated.
We’ll look at the genre of “heaven tourism” to see if it has anything to say about the possible existence of the hereafter, and why the idea of an afterlife seriously influences how we live our lives on Earth.
Also, a neurologist describes what is going on in the brain during near-death and other out-of-body experiences.
It’s Skeptic Check, our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
• Ben Radford – Paranormal investigator, research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and deputy editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, and author of the Discovery News article, “Why People Believed Boy’s ‘Visit to Heaven’ Story”
• Greg Garrett – Professor of English at Baylor University, writer on books, culture and religion for the Huffington Post, and author of Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination
• Steven Novella – Professor of neurology at Yale University School of Medicine and host of the “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” podcast
Originally Aired May 24, 2015
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all try to fight it: the inexorable march of time. The fountain of youth doesn’t exist, and all those wrinkle creams can’t help. But modern science is giving us new weapons in the fight against aging. So how far are we willing to go?
Hear when aging begins, a summary of the latest biotech research, and how a lab full of youthful worms might help humans stay healthy.
Also, a geneticist who takes a radical approach: collect the DNA that codes for longevity and restructure our genome. He finds inspiration – and perhaps genes as well – in the bi-centenarian bowhead whale.
But what if age really is mind over matter? A psychologist’s extraordinary thought experiment with septuagenarian men turns back the clock 20 years. Will it work on diseases such as cancer as well?
Guests:
First released April 6, 2015.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You are what you eat. Whether you dine on kimchi, carnitas, or corn dogs determines which microbes live in your stomach. And gut microbes make up only part of your total micro biome.
Find out how your microbes are the brains-without-brains that affect your health and even your mood. Also, why you and your cohorts are closer than you thought: new research suggests that you swap and adopt bugs from your social set.
Plus, the philosophical questions that are arise when we realize that we have more microbial DNA than human DNA.
And a woman who skipped soap and shampoo for a month to see what would grow on her.
Guests:
First released
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Don’t believe everything you see on TV or the movies. Science fiction is just a guide to how our future might unfold. It can be misleading, as anyone who yearns for a flying car can tell you. And yet, sometimes fantasy becomes fact. Think of the prototype cellphones in Star Trek.
We take a look at science that seems inspired by filmic sci-fi, for example scientists manipulating memory as in Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And despite his famous film meltdown, Charleton Heston hasn’t stopped the Soylent company from producing what it calls the food of the future.
Plus, why eco-disaster films have the science wrong, but not in the way you might think. And, what if our brains are simply wired to accept film as fact?
Guests:
First released December 22, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Wondering whether to vaccinate your children? The decision can feel like a shot in the dark if you don’t know how to evaluate risk. Find out why all of us succumb to the reasoning pitfalls of cognitive and omission bias, whether we’re saying no to vaccines or getting a tan on the beach.
Plus, an infectious disease expert on why it may take a dangerous resurgence of preventable diseases – measles, whooping cough, polio – to remind us that vaccines save lives.
Also, a quaint but real vaccine fear: that the 18th century smallpox vaccine, made from cowpox, could turn you into a cow!
It’s our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The world is hot, and getting hotter. But higher temperatures aren’t the only impact our species is having on mother Earth. Urbanization, deforestation, and dumping millions of tons of plastic into the oceans … these are all ways in which humans are leaving their mark.
So are we still in the Holocene, the geological epoch that started a mere 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age? Some say we’ve moved on to the age of man – the Anthropocene.
It’s the dawn of an era, but can we survive this new phase in the history of our planet?
Guests:
Originally aired February 23, 2015.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"Dear E.T. …” So far, so good. But now what? Writing is never easy, but what if your task was to craft a message to aliens living elsewhere in the universe, and your prose would represent all humankind? Got writer’s block yet?
What to say to the aliens was the focus of a recent conference in which participants shifted their attentions away from listening for extraterrestrial signals to transmitting some. In this show, we report on the “Communicating Across the Cosmos” conference held at the SETI Institute in December 2014.
Find out what scientists think we should say. Also, how archeology could help us craft messages to an unfamiliar culture. Plus, why journalists might be well-suited to writing the message. And, a response to Stephen Hawking’s warning that attempting to contact aliens is too dangerous.
Guests:
First released January 12, 2015.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Electricity is so 19th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not the opinion of the Nobel committee that awarded its 2014 physics prize to scientists who invented the blue LED.
Find out why this LED hue of blue was worthy of our most prestigious science prize … how some bacteria actually breathe rust … and a plan to cure disease by zapping our nervous system with electric pulses.
Guests:
First released December 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s the most dramatic technical development of recent times: Teams of people working for decades to produce a slow-motion revolution we call computing. As these devices become increasingly powerful, we recall that a pioneer from the nineteenth century – Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and Lord Byron’s daughter – said they would never surpass human ability. Was she right?
We consider the near-term future of computing as the Internet of Things is poised to link everything together, and biologists adopt the techniques of information science to program living cells.
Plus: What’s your favorite sci-fi computer?
Guests:
First released December 7, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You think your life is fast-paced, but have you ever seen a bacterium swim across your countertop? You’d be surprised how fast they can move.
Find out why modeling the swirl of hurricanes takes a roomful of mathematicians and supercomputers, and how galaxies can move away from us faster than the speed of light.
Also, what happens when we try to stop the dance of atoms, cooling things down to the rock bottom temperature known as absolute zero.
And why your watch doesn’t keep the same time when you’re in a jet as when you’re at the airport. It’s all due to the fact that motion is relative, says Al Einstein.
Guests:
First released August 18, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the century and a half since Charles Darwin wrote his seminal On the Origin of the Species, our understanding of evolution has changed quite a bit. For one, we have not only identified the inheritance molecule DNA, but have determined its sequence in many animals and plants.
Evolution has evolved, and we take a look at some of the recent developments.
A biologist describes the escalating horn-to-horn and tusk-to-tusk arms race between animals, and a paleoanthropologist explains why the lineage from chimp to human is no longer thought to be a straight line but, instead, a bush. Also, New York Times science writer Carl Zimmer on the diversity of bacteria living on you, and which evolutionary concepts he finds the trickiest to explain to the public.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all have at least some musical talent. But very few of us can play the piano like Vladimir Horowitz. His talent was rarefied, and at the tail end of the bell curve of musical ability – that tiny sliver of the distribution where you find the true outliers. Outliers also exist with natural events: hurricane Katrina, for example, or the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Such events are rare, but they often have outsized effects.
In this hour we imagine the unimaginable – including the unexpected events labeled “black swans” – and how we weigh the risk for any of them. Also, how a supervolcano explosion at Yellowstone National Park could obliterate the western U.S. but shouldn’t stop you from putting the park on your vacation itinerary.
Guests:
First released October 19, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A single ant isn’t very brainy. But a group of ants can do remarkable things. Biological swarm behavior is one model for the next generation of tiny robots. Of course, biology can get hijacked: a fungus can seize control of an ant’s brain, for example. So will humans always remain the boss of super-smart, swarming machines?
We discuss the biology of zombie ants and how to build robots that self-assemble and work together. Also, how to guarantee the moral behavior of future ‘bots.
And, do you crave cupcakes? Research suggests that gut bacteria control what we eat and how we feel.
Guests:
First released October 13, 2014
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hang on to your globe. One day it’ll be a collector’s item. The arrangement of continents you see today is not what it once was, nor what it will be tomorrow. Thank plate tectonics.
Now evidence suggests that the crowding together of all major land masses into one supercontinent – Pangaea, as it’s called – is a phenomenon that’s happened over and over during Earth’s history. And it will happen again. Meet our future supercontinent home, Amasia, and learn what it will look like.
Meanwhile, as California waits for the Big One, geologists discover that major earthquakes come in clusters. Also, our planet is not the only solar system body with tectonic activity. Icy Europa is a mover and shaker too.
And why is land in the western part of the U.S. literally rising up? Mystery solved!
Guests:
First released September 29, 2014
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Germs can make us sick, but we didn’t know about these puny pathogens prior to the end of the 19th century. Just the suggestion that a tiny bug could spread disease made eyes roll. Then came germ theory, sterilization, and antibiotics. It was a revolution in medicine. Now we’re on the cusp of another one. This time we may cure what ails us by replacing what ails us.
Bioengineers use advancements in stem cell therapy to grow red and white cells for human blood. Meanwhile, a breakthrough in 3D printing: scientists print blood vessels and say that human organs may be next.
Plus, implanting electronic grids to repair neural pathways. Future prosthetics wired to the brain may allow paralyzed limbs to move.
We begin with the story of the scientist who discovered the bacteria that caused tuberculosis, and the famous author who revealed that his cure for TB was a sham.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you move with the times, you might stick around long enough to pass on your genes. And that is adaptation and evolution, in a nutshell.
But humans are changing their environment faster than their genes can keep pace. This has led to a slew of diseases – from backache to diabetes – according to one evolutionary biologist. And our technology may not get us out of the climate mess we’ve created. So just how good are we at adapting to the world around us?
Find out as you also discover why you should run barefoot … the history of rising tides … why one dedicated environmentalist has thrown in the towel … and an answer to the mystery of why Hawaiian crickets suddenly stopped chirping.
Guests:
First aired June 11, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The stars are out tonight. And they do more than just twinkle. These boiling balls of hot plasma can tell us something about other celestial phenomena. They betray the hiding places of black holes, for one. But they can also fool us. Find out why one of the most intriguing discoveries in astrobiology – that of the potentially habitable exoplanet Gliese 581g – may have been just a mirage.
Plus, the highest levels of ultraviolet light ever mentioned on Earth’s surface puzzles scientists: is it a fluke of nature, or something manmade?
And a physicist suggests that stars could be used by advanced aliens to send hailing signals deep into space.
Guests:
First aired July 23, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sure you have a big brain; it’s the hallmark of Homo sapiens. But that doesn’t mean that you’ve cornered the market on intelligence. Admittedly, it’s difficult to say, since the very definition of the term is elusive. Depending on what we mean by intelligence, a certain aquatic mammal is not as smart as we thought (hint: rhymes with “caulpin”) … and your rhododendron may be a photosynthesizing Einstein.
And what I.Q. means for A.I. We may be building our brilliant successors.
Guests:
• Laurance Doyle – Senior researcher, SETI Institute
• Justin Gregg – Animal behaviorist, The Dolphin Communication Project, author of Are Dolphins Really Smart?: The mammal behind the myth
• Michael Pollan – Journalist, author of Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. His article, “The Intelligent Plant,” appeared in the December 23rd issue of The New Yorker
• Luke Muehlhauser – Executive Director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute
First aired March 19, 2014
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We may be connected, but some say we’re not communicating. The consequences could be dire. A U.S. Army major says that social media are breaking up our “band of brothers,” and that soldiers who tweet rather than talk have less cohesion in combat.
What’s the solution? Maybe more connectivity to jump start conversation? The makers of Hello Barbie say its sophisticated speech recognition system will engage children in conversation. But an alternative strategy is to go cold turkey: sign up for a device-free camp (for adults) or stuff a NoPhone in your pocket, and wean yourself from the real thing.
But MIT’s Sherry Turkle says there’s only one solution: more face-to-face time. Without it, we are in danger of losing our empathy.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do you feel happy today? How about happily disgusted? Maybe sadly surprised, or sadly disgusted? Human emotions are complex. But at least they’re the common language that unites us all – except when they don’t. A tribe in Namibia might interpret our expression of fear as one of wonderment. And people with autism don’t feel the emotions that others do.
So if you’re now delightfully but curiously perplexed, tune in and discover the evolutionary reason for laughter … how a computer can diagnose emotional disorders that doctors miss … and why the world’s most famous autistic animal behaviorist has insight into the emotional needs of cattle.
Guests:
First released April 21, 2014
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Paris climate talks are scheduled to go ahead despite the terrorist attacks, and attendees hope to sign an international agreement on climate change. A BBC reporter covering the meetings tells us what we can expect from the conference.
Also, it’s unclear whether Pope Francis himself will travel to the City of Light, but his encyclical may have already influenced the talks there. A historian considers whether the Church’s acceptance of climate change represents a departure from its historical positions on science. Galileo, anyone?
Plus, Hollywood may have stretched the science facts to maximum effect in its cli-sci thriller, The Day After Tomorrow, but find out why the film may not be pure fiction.
And why the developing world may take most of the hit as the planet warms.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s for dinner? Meat, acorns, tubers, and fruit. Followers of the Paleo diet say we should eat what our ancestors ate 10,000 years ago, when our genes were perfectly in synch with the environment.
We investigate the reasoning behind going paleo with the movement’s pioneer, as well as with an evolutionary biologist. Is it true that our genes haven’t changed much since our hunter-gatherer days?
Plus, a surprising dental discovery is nothing for cavemen to smile about.
And another fad diet that has a historical root: the monastic tradition of 5:2 – five days of eating and two days of fasting.
It’s our monthly look at critical thinking, Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it.
Guests:
First released February 19, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
One day, coffee is good for you; the next, it’s not. And it seems that everything you eat is linked to cancer, according to research. But scientific studies are not always accurate. Insufficient data, biased measurements, or a faulty analysis can trip them up. And that’s why scientists are always skeptical.
Hear one academic say that more than half of all published results are wrong, but that science still remains the best tool we have for learning about nature.
Also, a cosmologist points to reasons why science can never give us all the answers.
And why the heck are scientists so keen to put a damper on spontaneous combustion?
Studies discussed in this episode:
Chocolate and red wine aren’t good for you after all
The Moon is younger than we thought
Guests:
First released June 16, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For many, the word virus is a synonym for disease – diseases of humans, plants, and even computers. Ebola is an example: a virus with a big and terrifying reputation. And yet the vast majority of viruses are not only friendly, they are essential for life.
Find out how viruses make plant life in Yellowstone’s hottest environments possible, and fear your spinach salad no longer: a scientist recruits viruses to defeat E. coli bacteria.
Plus, a new study presents the disconcerting facts of just how far a sneeze travels, and viruses in another kind of culture: but is ours benevolent? Find out from the man who coined the term, “viral media.”
Guests:
First released May 12, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is space the place for you? With a hefty amount of moolah, a trip there and back can be all yours. But when the price comes down, traffic into space may make the L.A. freeway look like a back-country lane.
Space is more accessible than it once was, from the development of private commercial flights … to a radical new telescope that makes everyone an astronomer … to mining asteroids for their metals and water to keep humanity humming for a long time.
Plus, move over Russia and America: Why the next words you hear from space may be in Mandarin.
Guests:
First released March 3, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s the starkly beautiful setting for the new film “The Martian,” and – just in time – NASA has announced that the Red Planet is more than a little damp, with liquid water occasionally oozing over its surface. But Mars remains hostile terrain. Mark Watney, the astronaut portrayed by Matt Damon, struggles to survive there. If he has a hard time, what chance does anyone else have?
Find out how long you could last just eating Martian potatoes. Also, author Andy Weir describes how he prevailed upon his readers to turn his serialized blog posts into a technically accurate thriller that inspired the film. Plus, the NASA advisor to “The Martian” sorts the science from the fiction.
And, how the discovery of water on Mars might change NASA’s game plan.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all have worries. But as trained observers, scientists learn things that can affect us all. So what troubles them should also trouble us. From viral pandemics to the limits of empirical knowledge, find out what science scenarios give researchers insomnia.
But also, we discover which scary scenarios that preoccupy the public don’t worry the scientists at all. Despite the rumors, you needn’t fear that the Large Hadron Collider will produce black holes that could swallow the Earth.
It’s Skeptic Check, our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Inspiration for this episode comes from the book, What Should We Be Worried About?: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night edited by John Brockman.
First released May 5, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine not knowing where you are – and no one else knowing either. Today, that’s pretty unlikely. Digital devices pinpoint our location within a few feet, so it’s hard to get lost anymore. But we can still get stranded.
A reporter onboard an Antarctic ship that was stuck for weeks in sea ice describes his experience, and contrasts that with a stranding a hundred years prior in which explorers ate their dogs to survive.
Plus, the Plan B that keeps astronauts from floating away forever … how animals and plants hitch rides on open sea to populate new lands … and the rise of the mapping technology that has made hiding a thing of the past.
Guests:
First released February 3, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Picture a cockroach skittering across your kitchen. Eeww! Now imagine it served as an entrée at your local restaurant. There’s good reason these diminutive arthropods give us the willies – but they may also be the key to protein-rich meals of the future. Get ready for cricket casserole, as our relationship to bugs is about to change.
Also, share in one man’s panic attack when he is swarmed by grasshoppers. And the evolutionary reason insects revolt us, but also why the cicada’s buzz and the beetle’s click may have inspired humans to make music.
Plus, the history of urban pests: why roaches love to hide out between your floorboards. And Molly adopts a boxful of mealworms.
Guests:
First released January 27, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ever gone bungee jumping on Venus? Of course not. No one has. However your great-great-great grandchildren might find themselves packing for the cloudy planet … or for another locale in our cosmic backyard. That’s what we picture as we accelerate our imagination to escape velocity and beyond – and tour vacation spots that are out of this world.
An enormous mountain and an impressive canyon await you on Mars. If the outer solar system is more your thing, consider making a ten minute free-fall on Miranda, a moon of Uranus, or step up to the challenge of playing catch on an asteroid.
Also, just opened up: Pluto. A member of the New Horizons science team describes why the dwarf planet could be a holiday haven. Bring your crampons for ice climbing!
Guests:
• Andrew Fraknoi – Chair of the astronomy department, Foothill College
• Lori Fenton - Planetary scientist, SETI Institute
• David Grinspoon – Astrobiologist, author of Venus Express
• Mark Showalter – Planetary scientist, SETI institute, and member of the New Horizons team
• Michael Busch – Planetary scientist, SETI Institute
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nuclear fission powers the Sun. Or is it fusion? At any rate, helium is burned in the process, of that you are certain. After all, you read that article on astronomy last week*.
You know what you know. But you probably don’t know what you don’t know. Few of us do. Scientists say we’re spectacularly incompetent at recognizing our own incompetency, and that sometimes leads to trouble.
Find out why wrongness is the by-product of big brains and why even scientists – gasp! – are not immune. Plus, a peek into the trash bin of history: the biggest scientific blunders and the brighter-than-bright brains that made them. Including Einstein.
*Oh, and the Sun burns hydrogen to produce helium. But then, you knew that.
Guests:
• David Dunning – Psychologist, Cornell University. His cover story, “We Are All Confidence Idiots,” appeared in the November/December issue of The Pacific Standard.
• Robert Burton – Neurologist, author, On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not and A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves
• Brendan Nyhan – Political scientist, Dartmouth College
• Mario Livio – Astrophysicist, Space Telescope Science Institute, author, Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein – Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe
First released November 10, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You must not remember this. Indeed, it may be key to having a healthy brain. Our gray matter evolved to forget things; otherwise we’d have the images of every face we saw on the subway rattling around our head all day long. Yet we’re building computers with the capacity to remember everything. Everything! And we might one day hook these devices to our brains.
Find out what’s it’s like – and whether it’s desirable – to live in a world of total recall. Plus, the quest for cognitive computers, and how to shake that catchy – but annoying – jingle that plays in your head over and over and over and …
Guests:
• Ramamoorthy Ramesh – Materials physicist, deputy director of science and technology, Oakridge National Lab
• Michael Anderson – Neuroscientist, Memory Control Lab, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge in the U.K.
• Ira Hyman – Psychologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington
• James McGaugh – Neurobiologist, University of California, Irvine
• Larry Smarr – Professor of computer science, University of California, San Diego; director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2)
First released January 20, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Pluto is ready for its close up – but the near encounter during this historic flyby will last less than three minutes. Be ready for the action with our special New Horizons episode!
Hear from researchers who are Pluto rock stars: the astronomer who discovered two of Pluto’s five moons, the planetary scientist who coined the term “dwarf planet,” and the man who claims to have “killed Pluto.”
Find out how the New Horizons spacecraft will dodge rocks and other dangers as it approaches the planet and what we might learn about planet formation once we arrive. And why the battle over Pluto’s nomenclature continues.
Plus, Neil deGrasse Tyson reads his hate mail – from 3rd graders.
Guests:
• Neil deGrasse Tyson – Astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, New York City
• Alan Stern – Planetary scientist, Principal Investigator, New Horizons mission
• Mark Showalter – Senior research scientist, SETI Institute, New Horizons team member
• Mike Brown – Astronomer, California Institute of Technology
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A computer virus that bombards you with pop-up ads is one thing. A computer virus that shuts down a city’s electric grid is another. Welcome to the new generation of cybercrime. Discover what it will take to protect our power, communication and transportation systems as scientists try to stay ahead of hackers in an ever-escalating game of cat and mouse.
The expert who helped decipher the centrifuge-destroying Stuxnet virus tells us what he thinks is next. Also convenience vs. vulnerability as we connect to the Internet of Everything. And, the journalist who wrote that Google was “making us stupid,” says automation is extracting an even higher toll: we’re losing basic skills. Such as how to fly airplanes.
Guests:
• Ray Sims – Computer Technician, Computer Courage, Berkeley, California
• Eric Chien – Technical Director of Security Technology and Response, Symantec
• Paul Jacobs – Chairman and CEO of Qualcomm
• Shankar Sastry – Dean of the College of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, director of TRUST
• Nicholas Carr – Author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains and the forthcoming “The Glass Cage”. His article, “The Great Forgetting,” is in the November 2013 issue of The Atlantic.
First released November 11, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s hard to imagine the twists and turns of evolution that gave rise to Homo Sapiens. After all, it required geologic time, and the existence of many long-gone species that were once close relatives. That may be one reason why – according to a recent poll – one-third of all Americans reject the theory of evolution. They prefer to believe that humans and other living organisms have existed in their current form since the beginning of time.
But if you’ve ever been sick, you’ve been the victim of evolution on a very observable time scale. Nasty viruses and bacteria take full advantage of evolutionary forces to adapt to new hosts. And they can do it quickly.
Discover how comparing the deadly 1918 flu virus with variants today may help us prevent the next pandemic. Also, while antibiotic resistance is threatening to become a major health crisis, better understanding of how bacteria evolve their defenses against our drugs may help us out.
And the geneticist who sequenced the Neanderthal genome says yes, our hirsute neighbors co-mingled with humans.
It’s Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
• Svante Pääbo – Evolutionary geneticist, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, author of Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes
• Ann Reid – – Molecular biologist, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, Oakland, California
• Martin Blaser – Microbiologist, New York University School of Medicine, member of the National Academy of Sciences, author of Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues
• Gautam Dantas – Pathologist, immunologist, Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University, Saint Louis
First released March 31, 2014.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A century ago, Albert Einstein rewrote our understanding of physics with his Theory of General Relativity. Our intuitive ideas about space, time, mass, and gravity turned out to be wrong.
Find out how this masterwork changed our understanding of how the universe works and why you can thank Einstein whenever you turn on your GPS.
Also, high-profile experiments looking for gravitational waves and for black holes will put the theories of the German genius to the test – will they pass?
And why the story of a box, a Geiger counter, and a zombie cat made Einstein and his friend Erwin Schrödinger uneasy about the quantum physics revolution.
Guests:
• Jeffrey Bennett – Astronomer, author of What Is Relativity?: An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein’s Ideas, and Why They Matter
• Beverly Berger – Theoretical physicist and the Secretary for the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation
• Hiawatha Bray – Technology reporter, Boston Globe, author of You Are Here: From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves
• Paul Halpern – Physicist at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, author of Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat: How Two Great Minds Battled Quantum Randomness to Create a Unified Theory of Physics
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine a world without algebra. We can hear the sound of school children applauding. What practical use are parametric equations and polynomials, anyway? Even some scholars argue that algebra is the Latin of today, and should be dropped from the mandatory curriculum.
But why stop there? Maybe we should do away with math classes altogether.
An astronomer says he’d be out of work: we can all forget about understanding the origins of the universe, the cycles of the moon and how to communicate with alien life. Also, no math = no cybersecurity + hackers (who have taken math) will have the upper hand.
Also, without mathematics, you’ll laugh < you do now. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening has peppered his animated show with hidden math jokes.
And why mathematics = love.
Guests:
• Andrew Hacker – Professor of political science and mathematics at Queens College, City University of New York. His article, “Is Algebra Necessary?”, appeared in The New York Times in 2012.
• Bob Berman – Astronomy editor of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, the author of The Sun’s Heartbeat: And Other Stories from the Life of the Star That Powers Our Planet, and columnist for Astronomy Magazine. His article, “How Math Drives the Universe” is the cover story in the December 2013 issue.
• Simon Singh – Science writer, author of The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets
• Rob Manning – Flight system chief engineer at the Jet Propulsion Lab, responsible for NASA’s Curiosity rover
• Edward Frenkel – Professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, author of Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality. His article, “The Perils of Hacking Math,” is found on the online magazine, Slate.
First released December 2, 2015.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You can’t see it, but it’s there, whether an atom, a gravity wave, or the bottom of the ocean … but we have technology that allows us to detect what eludes our sight. When we do, whole worlds open up.
Without telescopes, asteroids become visible only three seconds before they slam into the Earth. Find out how we track them long before that happens. Also, could pulsars help us detect the gravity waves that Einstein’s theory predicts?
Plus, why string theory and parallel universes may remain just interesting ideas … the story of the woman who mapped the ocean floor … and why the disappearance of honeybees may change what you eat.
Guests:
• David Morrison – NASA space scientist and Director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute
• May Berenbaum – Entomologist, University of Illinois
• Scott Ransom – Astronomer, National Radio Astronomy Observatory
• Lee Smolin – Theoretical physicist, Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics, Canada, author of Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe
• Hali Felt – Author of Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor
First released September 23, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Discovering bacteria on Mars would be big news. But nothing would scratch our alien itch like making contact with intelligent life. Hear why one man is impatient for the discovery, and also about the new tools that may speed up the “eureka” moment. One novel telescope may help us find E.T. at home, by detecting the heat of his cities.
Also, the father of modern SETI research and how decoding the squeals of dolphins could teach us how to communicate with aliens.
Guests:
• Lee Billings – Journalist and author of Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars
• Oliver Guyon – Optical physicist, astronomer, University of Arizona and Suburu telescope; 2012 McArthur Genius award winner
• Jeff Kuhn – Physicist, Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu, Colossus Telescope
• Frank Drake – Astronomer, SETI Institute
• Denise Herzing – Behavioral biologist and research director of the Wild Dolphin Project
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Monsters don’t exist. Except when they do. And extinction is forever, except when it isn’t. So, which animals are mythical and which are in hiding?
Bigfoot sightings are plentiful, but real evidence for the hirsute creature is a big zilch. Yet, the coelacanth, a predatory fish thought extinct, actually lives. Today, its genome is offering clues as to how and when our fishy ancestors first flopped onto land.
Meanwhile, the ivory-billed woodpecker assumes mythic status as it flutters between existence and extinction. And, from passenger pigeons to the wooly mammoth, hi-tech genetics may imitate Jurassic Park, and bring back vanished animals.
Guests:
• Donald Prothero – Paleontologist, geologist, former professor at Occidental College, co-author of Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids
• Chris Amemiya – Biologist and geneticist at the University of Washington and the Benaroya Research Institute, Seattle
• John Fitzpatrick – Ornithologist and director, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University
• Ben Novak – Visiting biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, lead coordinating scientist of “The Great Comeback” at the Revive and Restore project, Long Now Foundation
First released December 9, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Let there be light! Well, it’s easy to do: just flip a switch. But it took more than the invention of the light bulb to make that possible. It required new technology for the distribution of electricity. And that came, not so much from Thomas Edison, but from a Serbian genius named Nikola Tesla.
Hear his story plus ideas on what might be the breakthrough energy innovations of the future. Perhaps hydrogen-fueled cars, nuclear fusion electrical generators or even orbiting solar cells?
Plus, a reminder of cutting-edge technology back in Napoleon’s day: lighthouses.
Guests:
• W. Bernard Carlson – Professor of science, technology and society, University of Virginia, and author of Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age
• Michael Dunne – Physicist, program director for laser fusion energy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• R. Tom Baker – Chemist, director of the Center for Catalysis Research and Innovation, University of Ottawa
• Paul Young – Radio engineer, director of Powersat Ltd.
• Theresa Levitt – Historian, University of Mississippi, and author of A Short Bright Flash: Augustin Fresnel and the Birth of the Modern Lighthouse
First released September 30, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You love to travel. But would you if doing so meant never coming home? The private company Mars One says it will land humans on the Red Planet by 2026, but is only offering passengers one-way tickets. Hundreds of thousands of people volunteered to go.
Meet a young woman who made the short list, and hear why she’s ready to be Mars-bound. Also, why microbes could be hiding in water trapped in the planet’s rocks. And, how a wetter, better Mars lost its atmosphere and became a dry and forbidding place.
Plus, why Kim Stanley Robinson, author of a famous trilogy about colonizing and terraforming Mars, thinks that the current timeline for going to the planet is unrealistic.
Guests:
• Laurel Kaye – A senior in the physics department at Duke University
• Alfonso Davila – Senior scientist at the SETI Institute
• Stephen Brecht – Physicist and president of the Bay Area Research Group
• Kim Stanley Robinson – Hugo Award-winning science Fiction author of the Mars trilogy: Red Mars (Mars Trilogy), Green Mars (Mars Trilogy), Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today, scientists are familiar to us, but they weren’t always. Even the word “scientist” is relatively modern, dating from the Victorian Era.
And it is to that era we turn as we travel to the University of Notre Dame to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its College of Science with a show recorded in front of a live audience.
Find out how the modern hunt for planets around other stars compares to our knowledge of the cosmos a century and a half ago. Also how faster computers have ushered in the realm of Big Data.
And a science historian describes us what major science frontiers were being crossed during the era of Charles Darwin and germ theory.
It’s then versus now on Sesquicentennial Science!
Recorded at the Eck Center at the University of Notre Dame, February 4th, 2015
Guests:
• Justin Crepp – Professor of physics, University of Notre Dame
• Nitesh Chawla – Professor of computer science and engineering and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Sciences and Applications at Notre Dame
• John Durant – Historian of science, director of the MIT Museum
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s past is prologue. For centuries, researchers have studied buried evidence – bones, teeth, or artifacts – to learn about murky human history, or even to investigate vanished species. But today’s hi-tech forensics allow us to analyze samples dug from the ground faster and at a far more sophisticated level.
First, the discovery of an unknown species of dinosaur that changes our understanding of the bizarre beasts that once roamed North America.
And then some history that’s more recent: two projects that use the tools of modern chemistry and anthropology to deepen our understanding of the slave trade.
Plus, an anthropologist on an evolutionary habit that is strange to some, but nonetheless common all over the world: the urge to eat dirt.
Guests:
• Scott Sampson – Paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and author of Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life
• Fatimah Jackson – Biologist, anthropologist, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, director of the Cobb Lab at Howard University, and advisor to EUROTAST
• Joseph Jones – Biological anthropologist, visiting assistant professor at the College of William and Mary, researcher on the African Burial Ground Project
• Sera Young – Research scientist, division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, and author of Craving Earth: Understanding Pica—the Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice, and Chalk
First released August 12, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Shh …mummy’s the word! We don’t want to provoke the curse of King Tut. Except that there are many curses associated with this fossilized pharaoh – from evil spirits to alien malevolence. So it’s hard to know which one we’d face.
We’ll unravel secrets about the famous young pharaoh, including the bizarre events that transpired after the discovery of his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, and learn what modern imaging reveals about life 3,000 years ago.
Plus, we dispel myths about how to make a mummy, while learning the origin of that notorious mummy curse. Also, discover why superstitions have survival value.
Guests:
• Jo Marchant – Author of The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut’s Mummy
• Andrew Wade – Physical anthropologist, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
• Salim Ikram – Professor of Egyptology, American University, Cairo
• Stuart Vyse – Professor of psychology, Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut, author of Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition
• F. DeWolfe Miller – Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa
First released June 24, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Here are questions that give a cosmologist – and maybe even you – insomnia: What happened after the Big Bang? What is dark matter? Will dark energy tear the universe apart?
Let us help you catch those zzzzs. We’re going to provide answers to the biggest cosmic puzzlers of our time. Somewhat. Each question is the focus of new experiments that are either underway or in the queue.
Hear the latest results in the search for gravitational waves that would be evidence for cosmic inflation, as well as the hunt for dark matter and dark energy. And because these questions are bigger than big, we’ve enlisted cosmologist Sean Carroll as our guide to what these experiments might reveal and what it all means.
Guests:
• Sean Carroll – Cosmologist, California Institute of Technology
• Jamie Bock – Experimental cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a member of the BICEP team
• Brendan Crill – Cosmologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and member of the Planck collaboration
• Jeff Filippini – Post-doctoral Fellow, California Institute of Technology, assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois and member of the Spider team
• Neil Gehrels – Astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, project scientist for WFIRST
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There’s no one like you. At least, not yet. But in some visions of the future, androids can do just about everything, computers will hook directly into your brain, and genetic human-hybrids with exotic traits will be walking the streets. So could humans become an endangered species?
Be prepared to meet the new-and-improved you. But how much human would actually remain in the humanoids of the future?
Plus, tips for preventing our own extinction in the face of inevitable natural catastrophes.
Guests:
• Robin Hanson – Associate professor of economics, George Mason University
• Luke Muehlhauser – Executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute
• Stuart Newman – Professor of cell biology and anatomy, New York Medical College
• Annalee Newitz – Editor of io9.com, and author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction
First released July 1, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The sweet stuff is getting sour press. Some researchers say sugar is toxic. A new study seems to support that idea: mice fed the human equivalent of an extra three sodas a day become infertile or die. But should cupcakes be regulated like alcohol?
Hear both sides of the debate. Another researcher says that animal studies are misleading, and that, for good health, you should count calories, not candy and carbs.
Plus, an investigative reporter exposes the tricks that giant food companies employ to keep you hooked on sugar, salt, and fat.
It’s Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
• Robert Lustig – University of California, San Francisco, author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease
• James Ruff – Biologist post-doc at The University of Utah
• John Sievenpiper – Knowledge Synthesis Lead of the Toronto 3D Knowledge Synthesis and Clinical Trials Unit, St. Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada
• Michael Moss – Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at The New York Times, and author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
First released August 19, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Electricity is so 19th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not the opinion of the Nobel committee that awarded its 2014 physics prize to scientists who invented the blue LED.
Find out why this LED hue of blue was worthy of our most prestigious science prize … how some bacteria actually breathe rust … and a plan to cure disease by zapping our nervous system with electric pulses.
Guests:
• Siddha Pimputkar – Postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Department of the Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center under Shuji Nakamura, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Jeff Gralnick – Associate professor of microbiology at the University of Minnesota
• Kevin Tracey – Neurosurgeon and president of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Here’s to a long life – which, on average, is longer today than it was a century ago. How much farther can we extend that ultimate finish line? Scientists are in hot pursuit of the secret to longer life.
The latest in aging studies and why there’s a silver lining for the silver-haired set: older people are happier. Also, what longevity means if you’re a tree. Plus, why civilizations need to stick around if we’re to make contact with E.T.
And, how our perception of time shifts as we age, and other tricks that clocks play on the mind.
Guests:
• Ted Anton – Professor of English, DePaul University, Chicago, author of The Longevity Seekers: Science, Business, and the Fountain of Youth
• Laura Carstensen – Psychologist, Stanford University, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity
• Peter Crane – Botanist, dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental studies, Yale University, and author of Ginkgo: The Tree That Time Forgot
• Frank Drake – Astronomer, SETI Institute
• Claudia Hammond – BBC broadcaster and author of Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There are many kinds of islands. There’s your iconic sandy speck of land topped with a palm tree, but there’s also our home planet – an island in the vast seas of space. You might think of yourself as a biological island … until you tally the number of microbes living outside – and inside – your body.
We go island hopping, and consider the Scottish definition of an island – one man, one sheep – as well as the swelling threat of high water to island nations. Also, how species populate islands … and tricks for communicating with extraterrestrial islanders hanging out elsewhere in the cosmos.
Guests:
• Edward Chamberlin – Professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at the University of Toronto; fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; author of Island: How Islands Transform the World
• Bill McKibben – Writer, activist and professor of environmental studies, Middlebury College, founder of 350.org
• Justin Sonnenburg – Microbiologist, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University
• Guy Consolmagno – Astronomer, Vatican Observatory
• Margaret Race – Ecologist, SETI Institute
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The world is a noisy place. But now we have a better idea what the fuss is about. Not only can we record sound, but our computers allow us to analyze it.
Bird sonograms reveal that our feathery friends give each other nicknames and share details about their emotional state. Meanwhile, hydrophones capture the sounds of dying icebergs, and let scientists separate natural sound from man-made in the briny deep.
Plus, native Ohio speakers help decipher what Neil Armstrong really said on that famous day. And, think your collection of 45 rpm records is impressive? Try feasting your ears on sound recorded before the Civil War.
Guests:
• Bob Dziak – Oceanographer, Hatfield Marine Science Center, Oregon State University, Program Manager, Acoustics Program, NOAA
• Michael Porter – Senior scientist of H.L.S. Research, La Jolla, California
• Patrick Feaster – Sound media historian at Indiana University
• Laura Dilley – Assistant professor in the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University
• Jenny Papka – Co-director of Native Bird Connections
• Michael Webster – Professor of neurobiology and behavior, director of the Macaulay Library, Cornell University
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We love our family and friends, but sometimes their ideas about how the world works seem a little wacky. We asked BiPiSci listeners to share examples of what they can’t believe their loved-ones believe, no matter how much they hear rational explanations to the contrary. Then we asked some scientists about those beliefs, to get their take.
Discover whether newspaper ink causes cancer … if King Tut really did add a curse to his sarcophagus … the efficacy of examining your irises – iridology – to diagnose disease … and more!
Oh, and what about string theory? Is it falsifiable?
Guests:
• Steven Novella – Physician at Yale University, host of the podcast, “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe”
• Matthew Hutson – Author of The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane
• Brian Greene – Physicist, Columbia University, author of The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos and The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
• Guy Harrison – Author of 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True and, most recently, 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We make split second decisions about others – someone is male or female, black or white, us or them. But sometimes the degrees of separation are incredibly few. A mere handful of genes determine skin color, for example.
Find out why race is almost non-existent from a biological perspective, and how the snippet of DNA that is the Y chromosome came to separate male from female.
Plus, why we’re wired to categorize. And, a groundbreaking court case proposes to erase the dividing line between species: lawyers argue to grant personhood status to our chimpanzee cousins.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all want to turn back time. But until we build a time machine, we’ll have to rely on a few creative approaches to capturing things as they were – and preserving them for posterity. One is upping memory storage capacity itself. Discover just how much of the past we can cram into our future archives, and whether going digital has made it all vulnerable to erasure.
Plus – scratch it and tear it – then watch this eerily-smart material revert to its undamaged self. And, what was life like pre-digital technology? We can’t remember, but one writer knows; he’s living life circa 1993 (hint: no cell phone).
Also, using stem cells to save the white rhino and other endangered species. And, the arrow of time itself – could it possibly run backwards in another universe?
Guests:
First released October 29, 2012.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We often hear fantastic scientific claims that would change everything if true. Such as the report that algae is growing on the outside of the International Space Station or that engineers have built a rocket that requires no propellant to accelerate. We examine news stories that seem too sensational to be valid, yet just might be – including whether a killer asteroid has Earth’s name on it.
Plus, a journalist investigates why people hold on to their beliefs even when the evidence is stacked hard against them – from skepticism about climate change to Holocaust denial. And, why professional skeptics are just as enamored with their beliefs as anyone else.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A planet is a planet is a planet. Unless it’s Pluto – then it’s a dwarf planet. But even then it’s a planet, according to experts. So what was behind the unpopular re-classification of Pluto by astronomers, and were they justified?
As the New Horizons spacecraft closes in on this small body, one planetary scientist says that this dwarf planet could be more typical of planets than Mars, Mercury, and Saturn. And that our solar system has not 8 or even 9 planets, but 900.
Also, meet a type of planet that’s surprisingly commonplace, although we don’t have one in our solar system: super Earths. Could they harbor life?
And the DAWN mission continues its visit to the two most massive residents of the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. Discover what these proto-planets may reveal to us about the early solar system.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hi ho, hi ho … it’s out with work we go! As you relax this holiday weekend, step into our labor-atory and imagine a world with no work allowed. Soft robots help us with tasks at home and at the office, while driverless cars allow us to catch ZZZZs in the front seat.
Plus, the Internet of Everything interconnects all your devices, from your toaster to your roaster to … you. So there’s no need to ever get off the couch. But is a machine-ruled world a true utopia?
And, the invention that got us into our 24/7 rat race: Edison’s electric light.
Guests:
First released August 26, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We’ve all hit the snooze button when the alarm goes off, but why do we crave sleep in the first place? We explore the evolutionary origins of sleep … the study of narcolepsy in dogs … and could novel drugs and technologies cut down on our need for those zzzzs.
Plus, ditch your dream journal: a brain scanner may let you record – and play back – your dreams.
And, branch out with the latest development in artificial light: bioluminescent trees. How gene tinkering may make your houseplants both grow and glow.
Guests:
First released May 27, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Maybe goodbye isn’t forever. Get ready to mingle with mammoths and gaze upon a ground sloth. Scientists want to give some animals a round-trip ticket back from oblivion. Learn how we might go from scraps of extinct DNA to creating live previously-extinct animals, and the man who claims it’s his mission to repopulate the skies with passenger pigeons.
But even if we have the tools to bring vanished animals back, should we?
Plus, the extinction of our own species: are we engineering the end of humans via our technology?
Guests:
First released April 29, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Who’s watching you? Could be anyone, really. Social media sites, webcams, CCTV cameras and smartphones have made keeping tabs on you as easy as tapping “refresh” on a tablet. And who knows what your cell phone records are telling the NSA?
Surveillance technology has privacy on the run, as we navigate between big data benefits and Big Brother intrusion.
Find out why wearing Google Glass could make everything you see the property of its creator, and which Orwellian technologies are with us today. But just how worried should we be? A cyber security expert weighs in.
Also, the benefits of an eye in the sky. A startup company claims that their suite of microsatellites will help protect Earth’s fragile environment.
And Gary catches a cat burglar!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Face it – humans are pattern-seeking animals. We identify eyes, nose and mouth where there are none. Martian rock takes on a visage and the silhouette of Elvis appears in our burrito. Discover the roots of our face-tracking tendency – pareidolia – and why it sometimes leads us astray.
Plus, why some brains can’t recognize faces at all … how computer programs exhibit their own pareidolia … and why it’s so difficult to replicate human vision in a machine
Guests:
First released February 25, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Think back, way back. Beyond last week or last year … to what was happening on Earth 100,000 years ago. Or 100 million years ago. It’s hard to fathom such enormous stretches of time, yet to understand the evolution of the cosmos – and our place in it – your mind needs to grasp the deep meaning of eons. Discover techniques for thinking in units of billions of years, and how the events that unfold over such intervals have left their mark on you.
Plus: the slow-churning processes that turned four-footed creatures into the largest marine animals that ever graced the planet and using a new telescope to travel in time to the birth of the galaxies.
Guests:
First released April 22, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s hard to get lost these days. GPS pinpoints your location to within a few feet. Discover how our need to get from A to B holds clues about what makes us human, and what we lose now that every digital map puts us at the center.
Plus, stories of animal navigation: how a cat found her way home across Florida, and the magnetic navigation systems used by salmon and sea turtles.
Also, why you’ll soon be riding in driverless cars. And, how to map our universe.
Guests:
First released March 18, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You are surrounded by products. Most of them, factory-made. Yet there was a time when building things by hand was commonplace, and if something stopped working, well, you jumped into the garage and fixed it, rather than tossing it into the circular file.
Participants at the Maker Faire are bringing back the age of tinkering, one soldering iron and circuit board at a time. Meet the 12-year old who built a robot to solve his Rubik’s Cube, and learn how to print shoes at home. Yes, “print.”
Plus, the woman who started Science Hack Day … the creation of a beard-slash-cosmic-ray detector … the history of the transistor … and new materials that come with nervous systems: get ready for self-healing concrete.
(Photo is a model of the first transistor built in 1947 at the Bell Telephone Labs in New Jersey that led to a Nobel Prize. Today’s computers contain many million transistors … but they’re a lot smaller than this one, which is about the size of a quarter. Credit: Seth Shostak.)
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Alien life. A flurry of recent discoveries has shifted the odds of finding it. Scientists use the Kepler telescope to spot a planet the same size and temperature as Earth … and announce that there could be tens of billions of similar worlds, just in our galaxy!
Plus, new gravity data suggests a mammoth reservoir of water beneath the icy skin of Saturn’s moon Enceladus … and engineers are already in a race to design drills that can access the subsurface ocean of another moon, Jupiter’s Europa.
Meanwhile, Congress holds hearings to assess the value of looking for life in space. Seth Shostak goes to Washington to testify. Hear what he said and whether the exciting discoveries in astrobiology have stimulated equal enthusiasm among those who hold the purse strings.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What goes up must come down. But it’s human nature to want to put things back together again. It can even be a matter of survival in the wake of some natural or manmade disasters.
First, a portrait of disaster: the eruption of Tambora in 1815 is the biggest volcanic explosion in 5,000 years. It changed the course of history, although few people have heard of it.
Then, stories of reconstruction: assembling, disassembling, moving and reassembling one of the nation’s largest T. Rex skeletons, and what we learn about dinos in the process.
Also, the reanimation of Gorongosa National Park in Africa, after years of civil war destroyed nearly all the wildlife.
And a handbook for rebuilding civilization itself from scratch.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine biting into a rich chocolate donut and not tasting it. That’s what happened to one woman when she lost her sense of smell. Discover what scientists have learned about how the brain experiences flavor, and the evolutionary intertwining of odor and taste.
Plus a chef who tricks tongues into tasting something they’re not. It’s chemical camouflage that can make crabgrass taste like basil and turn bitter crops into delicious dishes – something that could improve nutrition world-wide.
Meanwhile, are we a tasty treat for aliens? Discover whether we might be attractive snacks for E.T. And, out-of-this-world recipes from a “gAstronomy” cookbook!
Guests:
First released March 11, 2013
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all crave power: to run laptops, charge cell phones, and play Angry Birds. But if generating energy is easy, storing it is not. Remember when your computer conked out during that cross-country flight? Why can’t someone build a better battery?
Discover why battery design is stuck in the 1800s, and why updating it is key to future green transportation (not to mention more juice for your smartphone). Also, how to build a new type of solar cell that can turn sunlight directly into fuel at the pump.
Plus, force fields, fat cells and other storage systems. And: Shock lobster! Energy from crustaceans?
Guests:
First released February 4, 2103.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Happy Birthday, World Wide Web! The 25-year-old Web, along with the Internet and the personal computer, are among mankind’s greatest inventions. But back then, who knew?
A techno-writer reminisces about the early days of the WWW and says he didn’t think it would ever catch on.
Also, meet an inventor who claims his innovation will leave your laptop in the dust. Has quantum computing finally arrived?
Plus, why these inventions are not as transformative as other creative biggies of history: The plow. The printing press. And… the knot?
And, why scientific discoveries may beat out technology as the most revolutionary developments of all. A new result about the Big Bang may prove as important as germ theory and the double helix.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
One plus one is two. But what’s the square root of 64, divided by 6 over 12?* Wait, don’t run for the hills! Math isn’t scary. It helps us describe and design our world, and can be easier to grasp than the straight edge of a protractor.
Discover how to walk through the city and number-crunch simultaneously using easy tips for estimating the number of bricks in a building or squirrels in the park. Plus, why our brains are wired for finger-counting … whether aliens would have calculators … and history’s most famous mathematical equations (after e=mc2).
*The answer is 16
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The machines are coming! Meet the prototypes of your future robot buddies and discover how you may come to love a hunk of hardware. From telerobots that are your mechanical avatars … to automated systems for the disabled … and artificial hands that can diffuse bombs.
Plus, the ethics of advanced robotics: should life-or-death decisions be automated?
And, a biologist uses robo-fish to understand evolution.
Guests:
First released January 21, 2013
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s one of the biggest questions you can ask: has the universe existed forever? The Big Bang is supposedly the moment it all began. But now scientists wonder if there isn’t an earlier chapter to our origin story. And maybe chapters before that! What happened before the Big Bang? It’s the ultimate prequel.
Plus – the Big Bang as scientific story: nail biter or snoozer?
Guests:
First released December 17, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Computers and DNA have a few things in common. Both use digital codes and are prone to viruses. And, it seems, both can be hacked. From restoring the flavor of tomatoes to hacking into the president’s DNA, discover the promise and peril of gene tinkering.
Plus, computer hacking. Just how easy is it to break into your neighbor’s email account? What about the CIA’s?
Also, one man’s concern that radio telescopes might pick up an alien computer virus.
Guests:
First released December 10, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Zombies are making a killing in popular culture. But where did the idea behind these mythical, cerebrum-supping nasties come from? Discover why they may be a hard-wired inheritance from our Pleistocene past.
Also, how a whimsical mathematical model of a Zombie apocalypse can help us withstand earthquakes and disease outbreaks, and how the rabies virus contributed to zombie mythology.
Plus, new ideas for how doctors should respond when humans are in a limbo state between life and death: no pulse, but their brains continue to hum.
Meet the songwriter who has zombies on the brain …. and we chase spaced-out animated corpses in the annual Run-For-Your-Lives foot race.
Guests:
First released November 12, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You can get your point across in many ways: email, texts, or even face-to-face conversation (does anyone do that anymore?). But ants use chemical messages when organizing their ant buddies for an attack on your kitchen. Meanwhile, your human brain sends messages to other brains without you uttering a word.
Hear these communication stories … how language evolved in the first place… why our brains love a good tale …and how Facebook is keeping native languages from going extinct.
Guests:
First released June 11, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mooooove over, make way for the cows, the chickens … and other animals! Humans can learn a lot from our hairy, feathered, four-legged friends. We may wear suits and play Sudoku, but Homo sapiens are primates just the same. We’ve met the animal, and it is us.
Discover the surprising similarity between our diseases and those that afflict other animals, including pigs that develop eating disorders. Plus, what the octopus can teach us about national security … how monkeying around evolved into human speech … and the origins of moral behavior in humans.
Guests:
First released July 9, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If two is company and three a crowd, what’s the ideal number to write a play or invent a new operating system? Some say you need groups to be creative. Others disagree: breakthroughs come only in solitude.
Hear both sides, and find out why you always have company even when alone: meet the “parliament of selves” that drive your brain’s decision-making.
Plus, how ideas of societies lead them to thrive or fall, and why educated conservatives have lost trust in science.
Guests:
First released April 30, 2012.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all may prefer the goldilocks zone – not too hot, not too cold. But most of the universe is bitterly cold. We can learn a lot about it if we’re willing to brave a temperature drop.
A chilly Arctic island is the closest thing to Mars-on-Earth for scientists who want to go to the Red Planet. Meanwhile, the ice sheet at the South Pole is ideal for catching neutrinos – ghostly particles that may reveal secrets about the nature of the universe.
Comet ISON is comet ice-off after its passage close to the Sun, but it’s still giving us the word on solar system’s earliest years.
Also, scientists discover the coldest spot on Earth. A champion chill, but positively balmy compared to absolute zero. Why reaching a temperature of absolute zero is impossible, although we’ve gotten very, very close.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine a world without algebra. We can hear the sound of school children applauding. What practical use are parametric equations and polynomials, anyway? Even some scholars argue that algebra is the Latin of today, and should be dropped from the mandatory curriculum.
But why stop there? Maybe we should do away with math classes altogether.
An astronomer says he’d be out of work: we can all forget about understanding the origins of the universe, the cycles of the moon and how to communicate with alien life. Also, no math = no cybersecurity + hackers (who have taken math) will have the upper hand.
Also, without mathematics, you’ll laugh < you do now. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening has peppered his animated show with hidden math jokes.
And why mathematics = love.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We’ve all had an “oops” moment. Scientists are no exception. Sometimes science stumbles in the steady march of progress. Find out why cold fusion is a premier example why you shouldn’t hold a press conference before publishing your results. Also, how to separate fumbles from faux-science from fraud.
Plus, why ignorance is what really drives the scientific method.
And our Hollywood skeptic poses as a psychic for Dr. Phil, while our Dr. Phil (Plait) investigates the authenticity of a life-bearing meteorite.
Guests:
First released January 28, 2013.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After the winds and water of Typhoon Haiyan abated, grief and hunger swept though the Philippines, along with the outbreak of disease. Are monster storms the new normal in a warmer world? Some scientists say yes, and if so, climate change is already producing real effects on human life and health.
A hotter planet will serve up casualties from natural disasters, but also higher rates of asthma, allergies and an increase in mosquito-borne diseases. It is, according to one researcher, the greatest challenge of our time, straining health care efforts worldwide. But could a “medical Marshall Plan” save us?
Also, why the conservative estimates from the U.N.‘s climate change group don’t help people prepare for worst-case scenarios. And, a controversial approach to saving our overburdened planet: a serious limit on population growth.
Guests:
• Jeff Masters – Meteorologist, Wunderground
• Linda Marsa – Investigative journalist, contributing editor at Discover, author of Fevered: Why a Hotter Planet Will Hurt Our Health — and how we can save ourselves
• Fred Pearce – Freelance author and journalist, environment consultant for New Scientist. His article, “Has the U.N. Climate Panel Outlived It’s Usefulness?” appeared on the website Yale Environment 360
• Alan Weisman – Author, Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Time keeps on ticking, ticking … and as it does, evolution operates to produce remarkable changes in species. Wings may appear, tails disappear. Sea creatures drag themselves onto the shore and become landlubbers. But it’s not easy to grasp the expansive time scales involved in these transformative feats.
Travel through millennia, back through mega and giga years, for a sense of what can occur over deep time, from the Cambrian Explosion to the age of the dinosaurs to the rise of Homo sapiens.
Guests:
First released April 2, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Sorry, closed for business.” That sign hung on doors of national laboratories when the US government shut down. What that meant for one Antarctic researcher: her critically important work was left out in the cold.
So just what do we lose when public funds for science fade? The tools for answering big questions about our universe for one, says a NASA scientist … while one of this year’s Nobel Prize winners fears that it is driving our young researchers to pursue their work overseas.
Yet one scientist says public funding isn’t even necessary; privatizing science would be more productive.
Plus, an award-winning public-private research project changes the way we use GPS … and a BBC reporter on the fate of international projects when Americans hang up their lab coats.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It was the most famous invasion that never happened. But Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” broadcast sure sounded convincing as it used news bulletins and eyewitness accounts to describe an existential Martian attack. The public panicked. Or did it? New research says that claims of mass hysteria were overblown.
On the 75th anniversary of the broadcast: How the media manufactured descriptions of a fearful public and why – with our continued fondness for conspiracies – we could be hoodwinked again.
Plus, journalism ethics in the age of social media. Can we tweet “Mars is attacking!” with impunity?
And why we’re obsessed with the Red Planet.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your brain is made up of cells. Each one does its own, cell thing. But remarkable behavior emerges when lots of them join up in the grey matter club. You are a conscious being – a single neuron isn’t.
Find out about the counter-intuitive process known as emergence – when simple stuff develops complex forms and complex behavior – and all without a blueprint.
Plus self-organization in the natural world, and how Darwinian evolution can be speeded up.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine: Your pint-sized pup is descended from a line of predatory wolves. We have purposefully bred a new species – dogs – to live in harmony with us. But interactions between species, known as co-evolution, happen all the time, even without deliberate intervention. And it’s frequently a boon to survival: Without the symbiotic relationship we have with bugs in our gut, one that’s evolved with time, we wouldn’t exist.
Discover the Bogart-and-Bacall-like relationships between bacteria and humans, and what we learn by seeing genes mutate in the lab, real time. Also, the dog-eat-dog debate about when canines were first domesticated, and how agriculture, hip-hop music, and technology can alter our DNA (eventually).
Plus, why some of the fastest humans in history have hailed from one small area of a small Caribbean island. Is there a gene for that?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Day After. 2001. Prometheus. There are sci-fi films a’plenty … but how much science is in the fiction? We take the fact checkers to Hollywood to investigate the science behind everything from space travel to human cloning.
Plus, guess what sci-fi film is the most scientifically accurate (hint: we’ve already mentioned it). Also, why messing with medical facts on film can be dangerous … and the inside scoop from a writer of one of television’s most successful sci-fi franchises.
And, a robot who surpasses even Tinseltown’s lively imagination: a humanoid that may become a surrogate you.
Guests:
First released July 30, 2012.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Let there be light. Otherwise we couldn’t watch a sunset or YouTube. Yet what your eye sees is but a narrow band in the electromagnetic spectrum. Shorten those light waves and you get invisible gamma radiation. Lengthen them and tune into a radio broadcast.
Discover what’s revealed about our universe as you travel along the electromagnetic spectrum. There’s the long of it: an ambitious goal to construct the world’s largest radio telescope array … and the short: a telescope that images high-energy gamma rays from black holes.
Also, the structure of the universe as seen through X-ray eyes and a physicist sings the praises of infrared light. Literally.
And, while gravity waves are not in the electromagnetic club, these ripples in spacetime could explain some of the biggest mysteries of the cosmos. But first, we have to catch them!
Guests:
First released March 19, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Follow the water” is the mantra of those who search for life beyond Earth. Where there’s water, there may be life. Join us on a tour of watery solar system bodies that hold promise for biology. Dig beneath the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa, and plunge into the jets of Enceladus, Saturn’s satellite.
And let’s not forget the Red Planet. Mars is rusty and dusty, but it wasn’t always a world of dry dunes. Did life once thrive here? Also, the promise of life in the exotic hydrocarbon lakes of Titan.
Science-fiction author Robert J. Sawyer joins us, and relates how these exotic outposts have prompted imaginative stories of alien life.
Guests:
First released February 27, 2012.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I need my space… but oh, how to get there? Whether it’s a mission to Mars or an ascent to an asteroid, we explore the hows of human spaceflight. Also, the whys, as in, why send humans to the final frontier if robots are cheaper? Neil deGrasse Tyson weighs in.
Plus, the astronaut who lived on the ocean floor training for a visit to an asteroid. Also, the 100YSS – the 100 Year Starship project – and interstellar travel.
And, as private rockets nip at NASA’s heels, meet one of the first tourists to purchase a (pricey) ticket-to-ride into space.
Guests:
First released February 6, 2012.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s the world made of? Here’s a concrete answer: a lot of it is built from a dense, knee-scraping substance that is the most common man-made material. But while concrete may be here to stay, plenty of new materials will come our way in the 21st century.
Discover the better, faster, stronger (okay, not faster) materials of the future, and Thomas Edison’s ill-conceived plan to turn concrete into furniture.
Plus, printing objects in 3D… the development of artificial skin… and unearthing the scientific contributions of African-American women chemists.
Guests:
First released January 30, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You may be unique, but is your home planet? NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has uncovered thousands of planetary candidates, far far beyond our solar system. Some may be habitable and possibly even Earth-like. But now a failure in its steering apparatus may bring an abrupt end to this pioneering telescope’s search for new worlds.
But Kepler has a massive legacy of data still to be studied. Many new worlds will undoubtedly be found in these data. Hear why the astronomer who has discovered the greatest number of exoplanets is hopeful about the hunt for alien life, and meet the next generation of planet-hunting instruments.
Also, “Weird worlds? That was our idea!” Sci-fi writers lay claim to the first musings on exotic planetary locales. And a biographer of Magellan and Columbus describes the dangerous hunt for new worlds five centuries ago.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s all about you. And you, and you, and you and you… that is, if we live in parallel universes. Imagine you doing exactly what you’re doing now, but in an infinite number of universes.
Discover the multiverse theory and why repeats aren’t limited to summer television.
Plus, the physics of riding on a light beam, and the creative analogies a New York Times science writer uses to avoid using the word “weird” to describe dark energy and other weird physics.
Also, people who concoct their own theories (some would say fringe) of the universe: is all matter made up of tiny coiled springs?
Guests:
First released January 9, 2012.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s a record we didn’t want to break. The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere hits the 400 parts-per-million mark, a level which some scientists say is a point of no return for stopping climate change. A few days later, a leading newspaper prints an op-ed essay that claims CO2 is getting a bad rap: it’s actually good for the planet. The more the better.
Skeptic Phil Plait rebuts the CO2-is-awesome idea while a paleontologist paints a picture of what Earth was like when the notorious gas last ruled the planet. Note: humans weren’t around.
Plus, our skit says NO to O2 … and a claim that climate change skeptics have borrowed from the Creationists’ playbook in challenging the teaching of established science in schools.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Not all conversation is appropriate for the dinner table – and that includes, strangely enough, the subject of eating. Yet what happens during the time that food enters our mouth and its grand exit is a model of efficiency and adaptation.
Author Mary Roach takes us on a tour of the alimentary canal, while a researcher describes his invention of an artificial stomach. Plus, a psychologist on why we find certain foods and smells disgusting. And, you don’t eat them but they could wiggle their way within nonetheless: surgical snakebots.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Just remember this: memory is like Swiss cheese. Even our recollection of dramatic events that seem to sear their images directly onto our brain turn out to be riddled with errors. Discover the reliability of these emotional “flashbulb” memories.
Also, a judge questions the utility of eyewitness testimony in court. And, don’t blame Google for destroying your powers of recall! Socrates thought the same thing about the written word.
Plus, Brains on Vacation!
Guests:
First released May 7, 2012
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There are always surprises when we sort through Seth’s wine cellar – who knows what we’ll find!
In this cramped cavern, tucked between boxes of old fuses and a priceless bottle of 1961 Chateau Palmer Margaux, we discover the next generation of atomic clock … the key to how solar storms disrupt your cell phone … nano-gold particles that could make gasoline obsolete … and what NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has learned about how our solar system stacks up to others.
Tune in, find out and, help us lift these boxes, will you?
Guests:
• Chris Sorensen – Physicist, Kansas State University
• Anne Curtis – Senior research scientist, National Physical Laboratory, U.K.
• Jonathan Eisen – Evolutionary biologist, University of California, Davis
• Karel Schrijver – Solar physicist, Lockheed Martin, Advanced Technology Center
• Jonathan Fortney – Astronomer, University of California, Santa Cruz
• Sanjoy Som – Astrobiologist, NASA Ames Research Center
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s in a name? “Holocene” defines the geologic epoch we’re in. Or were in? Goodbye to “Holocene” and hello “Anthropocene!” Yes, scientists may actually re-name our geologic era as the “Age of Man” due to the profound impact we’ve had on the planet.
We’ll examine why we’ve earned this new moniker and who votes on such a thing. Plus, discover the strongest evidence for human-caused climate change.
Also, why cities should be celebrated, not reviled… a musing over the possible fate of alien civilizations … and waste not: what an unearthed latrine – and its contents – reveal about ancient Roman habit and diet.
Guests:
• William Steffen – Climate scientist and the Executive Director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University, Canberra
• Simon Donner – Geographer at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver
• Edward Glaeser – Economist, Harvard University, author of Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
• Douglas Vakoch – Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute
• Mark Robinson – Director of Environmental Archaeology at the University of Oxford
• Erica Rowan – Doctoral student, University of Oxford
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Calling all pessimists! Your brain is wired for optimism! Yes, deep down, we’re all Pollyannas. So wipe that scowl off your face and discover the evolutionary advantage of thinking positive. Also, enjoy other smile-inducing research suggesting that if you crave happiness, you should do the opposite of what your brain tells you to do.
Plus, why a “well-being index” may replace Dow Jones as a metric for success … a Twitter study that predicts your next good mood … and whether our furry and finned animal friends can experience joy.
Guests:
• Frank Drake – Trustee at the SETI Institute and author of the Drake Equation
• Tali Sharot – Cognitive neuroscientist at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at the University College London and the author of The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain
• Michael Macy – Sociologist at Cornell University His team’s Twitter study: http://timeu.se/
• Carol Graham – Economist at the Brookings Institution and author of The Pursuit of Happiness: An Economy of Well-Being
• David DiSalvo – Science and technology writer, author of What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite
• Robin Ince – U.K.-based comedian
• Jonathan Balcome – Animal behavior scientist and author of The Exultant Ark: A Pictorial Tour of Animal Pleasure
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The tools of forensics have moved way beyond fingerprint kits. These days, a prosecutor is as likely to wave a fMRI brain scan as a smoking gun as “Exhibit A.” Discover what happens when neuroscience has its day in court.
Meanwhile, research into the gold standard of identification, DNA, marches on. One day we may determine a suspect’s eye color from a drop of blood.
Plus, why much of forensic science – from fingerprinting to the polygraph – is more like reading tea leaves than science. And will future crime victims be robots?
Guests:
• Owen Jones – Professor of law, Professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee
• Manfred Kayser – Forensic molecular biologist, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• Marc Goodman – Founder, The Future Crimes Institute
• David Faigman – Law professor, University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Researchers have discovered life in a buried Antarctic lake. But we’re not surprised. Life is amazingly adaptive. Expose it to any environment – heat, ice, acid or even jet fuel – and it thrives. But this discovery of life under the ice may have exciting implications for finding biology beyond Earth.
Scientists share their discovery, and how they drilled down through a half-mile of ice.
Also, plunge into another watery alien world with director James Cameron, and the first solo dive to the deepest, darkest part of the ocean.
Plus, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist tries to create life in his lab to learn more about biology’s origins, and martian fossils abound in Robert J. Sawyer’s latest sci-fi novel.
Guests:
• Helen Amanda Fricker – Glaciologist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego
• Jill Mikucki – Microbiologist at the University of Tennessee
• Chris McKay – Planetary scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
• Jack Szostak – Nobel Prize winning chemist, Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital
• James Cameron – film director and explorer-in-residence for National Geographic
• Robert J. Sawyer – Hugo Award-winning author; most recently: Red Planet Blues
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We’ve all had an “oops” moment. Scientists are no exception. Sometimes science stumbles in the steady march of progress. Find out why cold fusion is a premier example why you shouldn’t hold a press conference before publishing your results. Also, how to separate fumbles from faux-science from fraud.
Plus, why ignorance is what really drives the scientific method.
And our Hollywood skeptic poses as a psychic for Dr. Phil, while our Dr. Phil (Plait) investigates the authenticity of a life-bearing meteorite.
Guests:
• Phil Plait – Skeptic and author of Slate Magazine’s blog Bad Astronomy
• Michael Gordin – Historian of science at Princeton University, author of The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe
• David Goodstein – Physicist, California Institute of Technology
• Stuart Firestein – Neuroscientist, chair of the biology department, Columbia University, and author of Ignorance: How It Drives Science
• Jim Underdown – Executive Director, Center for Inquiry, Los Angeles
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all talk about the weather. And now scientists are doing something about it: providing more accurate warnings before big storms hit. Discover how smart technology – with an eye on the sky – is taking monster weather events by storm.
Plus, why severe weather events caused by a warming planet may trigger social and economic chaos.
Also, meet the storm chaser who runs toward tornadoes as everyone else flees… and why your cell phone goes haywire when the sun kicks up a storm of its own.
Guests:
• Michael Smith – Meteorologist, founder of WeatherData and author of Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather
• George Kourounis – Explorer and storm chaser
• Jeffrey Scargle – Research astrophyscisit in the Astrobiology and Space Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center
• Ken Caldeira – Climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Deparment of Global Ecology
• Christian Pareti – Contributing editor of The Nation, visiting scholar at the City Univeristy of New York, and author of Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imagine moving things with your mind. Not with telekinesis, but with the future tools of brain science. Meet a pioneer in the field of computer-to-brain connection and discover the blurry boundary where the mind ends and the machine begins.
Plus, how new technology is sharpening the “real” in virtual reality. And, whether our devotion to digital devices is changing what it means to be human.
Guests:
• Miguel Nicolelis – Director for the Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University, and author of Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines and How it Will Change our Lives
• Jeremy Bailenson – Director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University and co-author of Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution
• Jim Blascovich – Psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-author of Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution
• Sherry Turkle – Professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Could you have had a past life? Is it possible that some part of you is the reincarnation of a person – or maybe an animal – that lived long ago?
We’ll hear the story of a young boy who started having nightmares about a plane crash. His parents thought he was the reincarnation of a downed, World War II fighter pilot. But his story might not fly.
Also … is there any biological basis for reincarnation? Animals that indulge in the big sleep.
Suspended animation is Hollywood’s favorite device for interstellar travel … But could we really put a dimmer switch on human metabolism? Learn how techniques for hitting the hold button for humans might be just around the corner.
Guests:
• Cynthia Meyersburg – Research psychologist at Harvard University
• Tori Hoehler – Astrobiologist at the NASA Ames Research Center
• André Bormanis – Screenwriter, producer and former science consultant for “Star Trek”
• Matt Andrews – Biologist at the University of Minnesota, Duluth
• Phil Plait – Astronomer, and author of the Bad Astronomy blog at Discover Magazine
• Mark Roth – Biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You must remember this… wait, wait... I had it… on the tip of my tongue… (Memory is a tricky thing and most of us would like to improve it)… oh, yes: Discover the secrets of stupefying, knock-your-socks-off recall by a U.S. Memory Champion.
Also, almost everything we know about memory comes from the life of one man born in 1926 and known as H.M., the world’s “most unforgettable amnesiac.”
Plus, the sum total of the global data storage capacity in hard drives, thumb drives, the Internet, you name it… guess how many exabytes it comes to?
Guests:
• Larry Squire – Professor of psychiatry and neurosciences and psychology at the University of California, San Diego and a scientist at the VA Medical Center in San Diego
• Jacopo Annese – Neuroanatomist and Director of the Brain Observatory at the University of California, San Diego
• Joshua Foer – Author of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
• Martin Hilbert – Economist and social scientist, University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s one of the biggest questions you can ask: has the universe existed forever? The Big Bang is supposedly the moment it all began. But now scientists wonder if there isn’t an earlier chapter to our origin story. And maybe chapters before that! What happened before the Big Bang? It’s the ultimate prequel.
Plus – the Big Bang as scientific story: nail biter or snoozer?
Guests
• Roger Penrose – Cosmologist, Oxford University
• Sean Carroll – Theoretical physicist, Caltech, author of The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World
• Simon Steele – Astronomer, Tufts University
• Andrei Linde – Physicist, Stanford University
• Jonathan Gottschall – Writer, author of The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
• Marcus Chown – Science writer and cosmology consultant for New Scientist magazine
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If there is only one show you hear about the end of the world, let it be this one. Recorded before a live audience at the Computer History Museum on October 27th, 2012, this two-part special broadcast of Big Picture Science separates fact from fiction in doomsday prediction.
In this second episode: a global viral pandemic … climate change … and the threat of assimilation by super-intelligent machines.
Presented as part of the Bay Area Science Festival.
Find out more about our guests and their work.
Guests:
• Kirsten Gilardi – Wildlife veterinarian at the University of California, Davis. leader of the Gorilla Doctors program, and team leader for the US-AID Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT program
• Ken Caldeira – Climate scientist, Carnegie Intuition for Science at Stanford University
• Luke Muehlhauser – Executive Director of the Singularity Institute
• Bradley Voytek – Neuroscience researcher at the University of California, San Francisco
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If there is only one show you hear about the end of the world, let it be this one. Recorded before a live audience at the Computer History Museum on October 27th, 2012, this two-part special broadcast of Big Picture Science separates fact from fiction in doomsday prediction. In this episode: Maya prophesy for December 21, 2012 … asteroid impact and cosmic threats …. and alien invasion.
Presented as part of the Bay Area Science Festival.
Find out more about our guests and their work.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all have to go sometime, and that final hour is the mother of all deadlines. But scientists are working to file an extension. Discover how far we can push the human expiration date.
Plus, the animal with the shortest lifespan and the chemistry that causes your pot-roast to eventually clothe itself in fuzzy green mold.
Also, a clock that won’t stop ticking (for 10,000 years) and our love-hate relationship with that long-lived hydrocarbon that keeps our snack cakes fresh: plastic!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Internet is not the only globally-uniting phenomenon. Viruses and bacteria can circle the globe as fast as we can, and the effects can be devastating. Discover what it takes for an animal disease to become a human pandemic. Also, was hurricane Sandy a man-made disaster? The future of severe storms and climate change.
Plus, the view of our science from abroad: why Brits have no trouble accepting the theory of evolution but Americans do. And what about a new annex for Silicon Valley – 12 miles out to sea?
Guests:
• Jerry Meehl – Senior scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
• Alok Jha – Science correspondent, The Guardian
• David Quammen – Science journalist and author, most recently of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
• Max Marty – Co-founder and CEO of Blueseed
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Indiana Jones meets Star Trek in the field of space archaeology. Satellites scan ancient ruins so that scientists can map them without disturbing one grain of sand. Discover how some archaeologists forsake their spades and brushes in favor of examining historic sites from hundreds of miles high.
Also, if you were to hunt for alien artifacts – what would you look for? Why ET might choose to send snail mail rather than a radio signal.
Plus, the culture of the hardware we send into space, and roaming the Earth, the moon, and Mars the Google way.
Guests:
• Alice Gorman – Archaeologist at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
• Christopher Rose – Professor of Computer and Intellectual Engineering, Rutgers University, New Jersey
• Robin Hanson – Economist at George Mason University, Virginia
• Tiffany Montague – Engineer, and Intergalactic Federation King Almighty, Commander of the Universe, at Google, Inc.
• Compton Tucker – Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you’re itching it get away from it all, really get away from it all, have we got some exotic destinations for you. Mars … Jupiter’s moon Europa … asteroids . Tour some enticing worlds that are worlds away, but ripe for exploration.
Also, why private spaceships may be just the ticket for getting yourself into space, unless you want to wait for a space elevator.
And, why one science journalist boasts of an infectious, unabashed, and unbridled enthusiasm for space travel.
Guests:
• Cynthia Phillips – Planetary geologist, SETI Institute
• Britney Schmidt – Research scientist, University of Texas, Austin
• Paul Abell – Planetary geologist, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
• Richard Hollingham – Science journalist, producer of Space Boffins podcast, living in the U.K.
• Barry Matsumori – Senior vice president for commercial sales and business development, SpaceX Corporation
• Peter Swan – Space System Engineer and Vice President, International Space Elevator Consortium
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By thinking different, scientists can make extraordinary breakthroughs. Learn about the creative cogitation that led to the discovery of dark matter and the invention of a.c. power grids, disinfectant, and the Greek “death ray.” Also, whether one person’s man of genius is another’s mad scientist.
And, the scientist who claims pi is wrong and biopunks who tinker with DNA – in their kitchens and on the cheap.
Plus, from string theory to the greenhouse effect – how metaphor sheds light on science. Discover why your brain is like a rain forest (that’s a simile!).
Guests:
• Anil Ananthaswamy – Corresponding editor for New Scientist magazine in London and author of The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth’s Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe
• Marcus Wohlsen – Reporter for the Associated Press, and author of Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life
• John Monahan – Author of They Called Me Mad: Genius, Madness, and the Scientists Who Pushed the Outer Limits of Knowledge
• Michael Hartl – Physicist, creator of “Tau Day”
• James Geary – Author of I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Stuttering speech and facial tics are among the strange symptoms that swept through a New York high school. Discover what’s behind the odd outbreak, and why one sociologist sees parallels to Salem, Massachusetts 300 years ago.
Also, an update on the cellphone cancer debate, and why one congressman wants warning labels on all new phones.
Plus, the ultimate cleanse: giving up on food to survive on light and air. We investigate the claims of Breatharians.
It’s Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
• Dennis Kucinich – U.S. Representative, Ohio’s 10th congressional district
• Joshua Muscat – Epidemiologist, professor of public health sciences, Penn State at Hershey College of Medicine
• Michael Wyde – Toxicologist, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
• Robert Bartholomew – Sociologist, Botany College, Auckland, New Zealand, author of Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior
• Gordy Slack – Science writer
• Benjamin Radford – Deputy editor, Skeptical Inquirer magazine
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s all in the numbers. The trick is, finding what you’re looking for. But that’s the name of the game with big data. We have a giga-gigabyte of information, and combing through it will lead to new cures for disease, new discoveries about the cosmos, or clues to our social and economic behavior.
But is big data Big Brother? You leave a little bit of yourself behind with each mouse click. Discover how surveillance and privacy issues bubble out of the mix, as the terabytes keep flowing in.
Plus one man’s quest to know himself through the numbers as he records everything – and we do mean everything – about his body.
Guests:
• Atul Butte – Associate professor, division chief, systems medicine, Stanford University
• Larry Smarr – Professor of computer science, University of California, San Diego, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, (Calit2)
• Karen Nelson – Microbiologist, director of the Rockville Campus of the J. Craig Venter Institute
• Gerry Harp – Physicist, and Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute
• Deirdre Mulligan – Assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information and faculty director of the Berkeley Center of Law and Technology
• Ken Goldberg – Professor of engineering, information and art at the University of California, Berkeley
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"I feel your vibe!” Well, that describes a number of fabled locales that claim to pulse with mysterious energy – perhaps prompting books to fly across the room or airplanes to vanish into thin air. But what’s the science behind it?
We examine spots marked with an X, for “extraordinary” – from a haunted house to the Bermuda Triangle – to sort out natural from supernatural phenomena.
Plus, what causes the aurora borealis… a haywire Russian space probe… and just what the heck is an “energy vortex,” anyway?
Guests:
• Phil Plait – Skeptic and keeper of Discover Magazine’s blog: badastronomy
• Mike Borg – Group Sales Coordinator, Winchester Mystery House
• Jim Underdown – Executive Director, Center for Inquiry, Los Angeles
• Peter Williams – Hydrodynamicist at Agilent Technologies
• Guy P. Harrison – Writer and business owner in Southern California, author of 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True
• Rob Lillis – Space and Planetary Physicist, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Before you chase it with a broom, consider this – without the rat, we might miss critical insights into the nature of stress, cancer … and even love. These furry, red-eyed rodents have a unique role in medical research – and a ubiquitous companion to our urban lives.
Discover the origins of the albino laboratory rat … what rat laughter sounds like, and why these four-legged fur balls don’t fall victim to the pressure of the rat race … but we do.
Guests:
• Kelly Lambert – Behavioral Neuroscientist, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Virginia, author of The Lab Rat Chronicles: A Neuroscientist Reveals Life Lessons from the Planet’s Most Successful Mammals
• Michael Gould – Professor of Oncology and Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Jaak Pankseep – Neuroscientist, Veterinary College, Washington State University, author of The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)
• Pico Iyer – Writer, author of The Man Within My Head and the New York Times article The Joy of Quiet
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
To need air is human. Our lungs thank us for each breath we take. But air is more than a transporter of O2. It shapes our weather, keeps birds aloft and moves spores from here to there. A cubic foot of air is anything but “empty” (hot dog grease particles, anyone?).
The same goes for space (minus the hot dog grease). It’s a happening place. Discover why interstellar space is more than a whole lot o’ nothing; and what happens when the Voyager spacecraft leaves our solar system. Plus, catch a skydiver in action!
Guests:
• Mako Igarashi – Skydiving instructor, Skydive Hollister, Hollister, CA
• Rhett Allain – Physicist at Southeastern Louisiana University, blogger for Wired.com
• William Bryant Logan – Author of Air: The Restless Shaper of the World
• Robert Wagoner – Emeritus professor of physics, Stanford University
• Alex Filippenko – Astronomer, University of California, Berkeley
• Ed Stone – Physicist at CalTech, former Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, project scientist for the Voyager mission
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If Bigfoot walks through a forest and no one sees him, does he exist? It’s the job of paranormal investigator Joe Nickell to find out! Discover whether eyewitness accounts are reliable when it comes to tracking down the hirsute big guy and other monsters.
Also, on the subject of “seeing is believing”: how magic fools the brain.
Plus, in our potpourri show: can music boost brain power? A new study says listening to music makes brains happy. Does this support the dubious “Mozart Effect,” that claims listening to Wolfie’s compositions boosts IQ?
And, skeptic Phil Plait on why the so-called “super moon theory” doesn’t predict devastating earthquakes.
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it.
Guests:
• Joe Nickell – Paranormal investigator and author of Tracking the Man-beasts: Sasquatch, Vampires, Zombies, and More
• Stephen Macknik – Director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurophysiology at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona
• Susana Martinez-Conde – Director of the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona
• Phil Plait – Astronomer, and author of the Bad Astronomy blog at Discover Magazine
• Valorie Salimpoor – Researcher at Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Quebec, Canada
• Penny Glass – Developmental psychologist and associate professor of pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When the IBM computer, Watson, snatched the “Jeopardy” title from its human competition, that raised the question of just how smart are machines? Could artificial intelligence ever beat humans at their own game… of being human?
Hear why an A.I. expert says it’s time to make peace with your P.C.; the machines are coming. Also, why technology is already self-evolving, and presenting its own demands. Find out what technology wants.
And, a man who went head-to-chip with a computer and says machines will never beat the human mind. Plus, we take a voyage into “2012: An Emotional Odyssey.”
Guests:
• Kevin Kelly – Editor-at-large at Wired and author of What Technology Wants
• Henry Lieberman – Research scientist at the M.I.T. Media Laboratory
• Brian Christian – Science writer, poet and author of The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive
• Horst Simon – Deputy Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• Shankar Sastry – Dean of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
• Jean Paul Jacob – Scholar in Residence at U.C. Berkeley and IBM Researcher, Emeritus
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We dig the Red Planet! And so does Curiosity. After a successful landing, and a round of high-fives at NASA, the latest rover to land on Mars is on the move, shovel in mechanical hand.
Discover how the Mars Science Laboratory will hunt for the building blocks of life, and just what the heck a lipid is. Plus, how to distinguish Martians from Earthlings, and the tricks Mars has played on us in the past (canals, anyone?).
Also, want to visit Mars firsthand? We can point you to the sign-up sheet for a manned mission. The catch: the ticket is one-way.
Guests:
• John Grotzinger – Geologist, California Institute of Technology, and project scientist, NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission
• Jennifer Heldmann – Research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center
• David Blake – Principal Investigator of CheMin, a mineralogical instrument that is included in the analytical laboratory of the Mars Science Laboratory mission
• Rachel Harris – Astrobiology student at the NASA Astrobiology Institute
• Stuart Schlisserman – Physician in Palo Alto, California
• Felisa Wolfe-Simon – NASA astrobiology research fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs
• Bas Lansdorp – Founder, Mars One
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You know the joke about the car and the snail. Look at that escargot? Well, snails may be the only thing not powering the automobiles of the future. Trees, grass, algae, even the garbage you toss on the sidewalk has potential for conversion into biofuel. What is America’s next top model fuel? Join us on a tour of the contenders.
Meet a man who’s mad about miscanthus … an astrobiologist’s attraction to algae… and the blueprint for building your own biofuel bugs.
Also, discover whether any of these next-generation fuel sources could take us to the stars. Put that in your rocket and burn it!
Guests:
• Madhu Khanna – Professor of Agriculture and Environmental Economics at the University of Illinois and at the Energy Biosciences Institute
• Stephen Long – Professor of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Michelle Chang – Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley
• Bret Stroegn – Graduate student researcher, Energy Bioscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley
• Jonathan Trent – Bioengineering Research Scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center and founder of Global Research into Energy and the Enviornment (GREEN )
• Richard Obousy – Physicist and co-founder and project leader for Project Icarus
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Let the games begin! The mad dash to the phone … the sudden spring out of bed … the frantic juggling of car keys, grocery bags and a cell phone! Olympic athletes may have remarkable speed and strength, but it’s easy praise the extraordinary. Here’s to the extreme averageness of the rest of us. From beer bellies to aching backs, we’re all winners in the Darwinian Olympics just by virtue of being here.
Identify the one physical trait that you share with all Olympians – your head - and why it’s a remarkable human evolutionary achievement. Plus, the role of genes in putting on the pounds … and what event Spiderman would enter to win the gold.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mooooove over, make way for the cows, the chickens … and other animals! Humans can learn a lot from our hairy, feathered, four-legged friends. We may wear suits and play Sudoku, but Homo sapiens are primates just the same. We’ve met the animal, and it is us.
Discover the surprising similarity between our diseases and those that afflict other animals, including pigs that develop eating disorders. Plus, what the octopus can teach us about national security … how monkeying around evolved into human speech … and the origins of moral behavior in humans.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Think small to solve big problems. That, in a nutshell, is the promise of nanotechnology. In this barely visible world, batteries charge 100 times faster and drugs go straight to their targets in the body. Discover some of these nano breakthroughs and how what you can’t see can help you…
…or hurt you? What if tiny machines turn out to be nothing but trouble? We’ll look at the health and safety risks of nanotech.
Plus, scaling up in science fiction: why a Godzilla-sized insect is fun, but just doesn’t fly.
Guests:
First released February 21 2011
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Expect the unexpected when we go digging in Seth’s storm shelter – who knows what we’ll find! In this cramped never-never land, tucked between piles of dehydrated food packets and old civil defense helmets, we stumble (but don’t step) upon marauding ants … a mission to Pluto…. “evidence” of a spaceship crash … the Apollo astronaut who shot the “Earth Rise” photograph … and Jonah Lehrer meditating on creativity.
Tune in, find out and, help move this box of canned soup, will you?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You are what you eat. But what does that mean if your food is genetically engineered? And the chances are good that it has been engineered if you munch down on corn or soybean. The prospect of eating GM food makes some folks afraid, but is their fear warranted?
Discover what experts say about the safety of genetically engineered foods … whether the technology delivers on the promised increase in yield … and the argument for and against labeling.
Also, why some say the issue is not food safety, but the unethical business practices of multinationals. A filmmaker reports from the fields of India.
Plus, GM crops off this planet: the role of synthetic biology in terraforming Mars.
It’s Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You can get your point across in many ways: email, texts, or even face-to-face conversation (does anyone do that anymore?). But ants use chemical messages when organizing their ant buddies for an attack on your kitchen. Meanwhile, your human brain sends messages to other brains without you uttering a word.
Hear these communication stories … how language evolved in the first place… why our brains love a good tale …and how Facebook is keeping native languages from going extinct.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s the perennial dream: build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. We go to San Jose’s famed Tech Museum to learn what it takes to turn a good idea into a grand success.
Remember the Super Soaker squirt gun? Hear how its inventor is now changing the rules for solar energy.
Where do good ideas come from? A Eureka moment in the bathtub? We’ll find out that it doesn’t happen so quickly – or easily.
And finally, the life cycle of society-changing technologies, from the birth of radio to the future of the Internet.
Inventions, inventors and innovation: all part of the mix on “Better Mousetrap.”
Guests:
Originally released February 7, 2011
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On June 5, our sister planet Venus will slowly slide across the face of the sun. This will be the last transit of Venus until 2117, so there’s no subsequent chance to observe this celestial spectacular for anyone alive today.
Join us for a special episode devoted to this rare event. Two centuries ago, nations were locked in a race to be the first to measure the Venus transit. From the first observation by the “father” of British astronomy to Captain Cook’s Tahitian expedition in the 18th century, meet the pioneers who were trying to nail down the scale of the cosmos
Plus, tips for observing the 2012 transit … how the Kepler spacecraft uses transits to detect Earth-like worlds … and could there be life floating in Venusian clouds?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We are all Martians … or could be, if, billions of years ago, Red Plant microbes fell to Earth and eventually evolved to us. Okay, that one’s a big “if.” But microbes can survive space travel. Meet the NASA officer whose task is to keep Earth, Mars - and the entire solar system –safe from hitchhiking bacteria.
And, even if we’re not Martians (darn!), did life once thrive on the Red Planet ... and does it still today?
Plus, why meteorites may be happy habitats for life.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Random is as random does… makes sense doesn’t even that anyway in tune hear to randomness how lives rules.
Brain chaos the drives, restoration role of help insight ecology may into randomness the, numbers sense of make statistics can’t why we or, ants not seem of erratic behavior why the may but is.
Guests:
First released January 10, 2011
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah.
So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in the city – your vegetables might be grown in downtown, hi-rise greenhouses. Also, a population expert tells us how our planet can cope with billions more people, and the man who invented the term ‘cyberspace’ describes what the future might hold for the techno-savvy.
Darwinian evolution takes a long time to accommodate to new environments. But Homo sapiens can beat that rap by wielding the right technology – and becoming early adapters.
Guests:
First aired December 6, 2010
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You are one-of-a-kind, unique, indispensible… oh, wait, never mind! It seems that computer over there can do what you do … faster and with greater accuracy.
Yes, it’s silicon vs. carbon as intelligent, interactive machines out-perform humans in tasks beyond data-crunching. We’re not only building our successors, we’re developing emotional relationships with them. Find out why humans are hard-wired to be attached to androids.
Also, the handful of areas where humans still rule… as pilots, doctors and journalists. Scratch that! Journalism is automated too – tune in for a news story written solely by a machine.
Guests:
First aired November 22, 2010.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
So you weep at sappy commercials and give drivers the bird. Have no regrets: emotion is what makes us human! Discover the survival value in feeling disgust … why humans are terrible liars … and how despair fuels creativity.
Also, mis-firing emotions and the emotional consequences of facial paralysis. And why E.T. will need to feel fear and joy to survive.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If someone asks where you get off, you can now respond with precision. Satellites and computers spit out coordinates accurate to a few paces. And digital maps stand the Copernican principle on its head – putting you at the center of everything (how does it feel?).
Find out how today’s maps are shuffling our world view. Also, how does a rat navigate a maze without GPS? Hear of the plotting that goes on in that tiny rodent brain.
Plus, mapping the universe and pinpointing just where we are in cosmic time – lucky for us, human evolution is right on schedule.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s always a surprise to sort through Seth's cabinet of wonders – who knows what we’ll find!
In this cramped cupboard, tucked between shelves of worm gears and used clarinet reeds, we discover a forgotten U.S. sea floor laboratory … copies of the new Cosmos TV series … evidence of science fiction’s predictive powers … software that may replace scientists … and tips on surviving a deadly poison (hint: it helps to be a snake).
Tune in, find out and grab a duster, will you?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The future is no mystery … according to psychics who say they have special access to tomorrow’s events. For example, adherents to the Mayan doomsday prophecy warn that when 2012 ends, so will the world.
Discover what’s behind claims of prognostication, and why – if it really works – no one is making a killing in Las Vegas.
Also, could science divine the future? Programmers with the Living Earth Simulator say that with sufficient data, their billion-dollar computer project can predict world events.
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They’re here! About one-third of all Americans believe we’re being visited by extraterrestrial spacecraft. But wait, you want evidence?
UFO sighting are as prevalent as flies at a picnic. But proof of visitation – well, that’s really alien.
Hear why belief in extraterrestrial UFOs persists … and why military sightings that “can’t be explained” don’t warrant rolling out a welcome mat for ET.
Plus, the most fab UFOs in the movies!
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
FIrst aired November 15, 2010.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Humans are pleasure-seekers – from food to sex to fine art. But do we know why we crave what we do? Discover the surprising motivation behind our desires. Also, why our hedonistic cousins, the bonobos, may hold the secret to world peace.
Plus, self-awareness in monkeys: can they really pass the mirror test? Can bacteria, for that matter? Nope! But since you are, cell for cell, more microbe than human, you’ll want to know just how cognitively aware these critters are.
Guests:
First aired November 1, 2010.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A cup of coffee can leave you wired for the day. But a chip in your brain could wire you to a machine forever. Imagine manipulating a mouse without moving a muscle, and doing a Google search with your mind. Welcome to the future of the brain-machine interface.
Don your EEG thinking-cap, and discover a high-tech thought game that may be the harbinger of machine relationships to come.
Plus, the ultimate mapping project: the Human Connectdome Project aims to identify all the neural pathways in the human brain. It may help us understand what makes us human, but could it also point the way to making us smarter?
And, what all this brain research reveals about the mind and free will – who, or what, is really in charge?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What’s it all about? And we mean ALL. What makes up this vast sprawling cosmos? Why does it exist? Why do we exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Ow, my head hurts!
For possible answers, we travel to the moment after the Big Bang and discover all that came into being in those few minutes after the great flash: time, space, matter, and light. Plus, the bizarre stuff that makes up the bulk of the universe: dark energy and dark matter.
Also, what we set in motion with the invention of the light blub. How artificial light lit up our homes, our cities and – inadvertently – our skies.
Guests:
First aired September 6, 2010
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Wait! Before you step outside... is it Friday the 13th? Any black cats prowling around? Broken a mirror lately? Homo sapiens are a superstitious lot. Find out why our brains are wired for irrational belief. Plus, from the 2012-end-of-the-world prophesy to colliding planets - why some people believe the universe is out to get ‘em.
Also, Brains on Vacation takes on a challenge to relativity and our Hollywood skeptic has doubts about exorcism. It’s enough to make your head spin on Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
First aired August 16, 2010
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Have you lost your senses? You’ll find them everywhere you look. Sensors respond to external stimuli – light, sound, temperature and much else – to help us make sense (ha!) of our universe. And more are on their way. “Ubiquitous sensing” is the term that describes a world blanketed by tiny sensors: on bridges, in paint and medicine bottles, and even in our brains!
Discover where you’ll find sensors next. And, has the world’s largest detection device found the elusive particle that will help explain the universe? Where are you, Higgsy-wiggsy?
Also, out-of-this world sensors have detected a possibly Earth-like planet. What’s next for the Kepler planet-hunters?
Plus, DIY sensor kits, and, if computers can do all that, why can’t we send the odor of, say, freshly-baked bread over the Internet? The case for a smell-o-meter.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The term “bird flu” is a misnomer, scientists say, because almost all human influenza originates in our feathered friends. How it lands in you and spreads is another matter …
Hear what it takes for a virus to go global, from a virus hunter who plans to stop epidemics in their tiny DNA tracks with an innovative global surveillance system.
Also, why your genome is littered with fossil viruses of the past … the two largest viruses discovered so far, Mimi and Mega, square off … and, what it takes for ideas to “go viral.”
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mom and apple pie. Computers and silicon. Martians and death rays. Some things just go together naturally. But how about science and politics? Science and religion? Science and fiction? These pairings are often unnatural and contentious … but they don’t have to be.
Discover how science can team up with other endeavors in productive, if surprising, symbiosis.
Meet a particle physicist, turned U.S. Congressman, who calls for more scientists on Capitol Hill. Also, a tour of the Golden Age of Islamic Science.
Plus, scientists named Elmo and Super Grover 2.0 teach small children to conduct experiments with the help of chickens and dancing penguins.
And, it’s not quite science but it’s not entirely fiction either: how sci-fi helps shape our cultural debates about the future.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There’s no harm talking to your houseplant, but will your chatter really help it grow? We look at various biological claims, from whether plants feel pain to the ability of cats to predict earthquakes. Feline forecasters, anyone?
Also, when does understanding biology have important implications for health and policy? The arguments for and against genetically modified foods, and the danger of “pox parties” as a replacement for childhood vaccination.
Plus, the history and current state of scientific literacy in the United States. When did we stop trusting science?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Wish you could ditch computers? There’s no escape button for that. Computers are not only a part of your daily grind, they may soon be a part of you. We’ll hear from the world’s first cyborg about why we should make nice in our arms race with machines.
Also, the secret behind the extraordinary breakthroughs that DARPA scientists are making – from building autonomous cars to wiring robotic surgeons.
Plus, making space for humans… and their bodily functions: the engineering tricks of toiletry. And, a carbon-based astronaut on the view of Earth from orbit.
Guests:
First aired August 23, 2010.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Think small! Microbes are tinier than the dot at the end of this sentence, yet they can make humans sicker than dogs, dogs sicker than humans, jump from animal to human and keep scientists guessing when and where the next disease will appear.
Discover how doctors diagnosed one man’s mysterious infection, the role that animals play as hosts for disease, and why the rate of emerging diseases is increasing worldwide.
Also, why your kitchen is a biosafety hazard, and how the Human Microbiome Project will tally all the microbes on – and in - you.
Plus, the extreme places on Earth where microbes thrive and what it suggests for the existence of alien life. And, how one strain of bacteria helped a farmer grow a pumpkin the weight of a small car!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Making space for everyone” could be NASA’s motto. But as commercial spaceships get ready to blast off, that populist idea is being tested. Space cowboys in the private sector say they’re the ones who can provide unfettered access to space, for tourists and scientists alike.
Meet a scientist who already has a ticket to ride on SpaceShip Two and discover what he hopes to learn about asteroids during his five minutes of weightlessness.
Plus, NASA in motion: it’s back to the moon as the GRAIL mission probes the interior of our lovely lunar satellite. Also, can you dig it? The rover Curiosity can. It’s headed to Mars to hunt for clues to alien life … with a jackhammer.
Also, as the Hubble Space Telescope shuts down, the James Webb Space Telescope revs up. Or does it? The telescope is designed to study the birth of galaxies and hunt for evidence of water on far away worlds. But will Congress pull the plug?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What you can’t see … can make you sick. Humans have been battling viruses and bacteria since the beginning of time. The malaria parasite has been keeping deadly company with us for 500,000 years. King Tut had it and so did Julius Caesar. What’s keeping this bug going today?
Also, how disease almost halted the most ambitious engineering project in the world … how elite disease detectives puzzle out perplexing epidemics … And – could tiny bugs from spaaace, ace, ace be our ancestors?
Guests:
First aired August 2, 2010
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Calling all pessimists! Your brain is wired for optimism! Yes, deep down, we’re all Pollyannas. So wipe that scowl off your face and discover the evolutionary advantage of thinking positive. Also, enjoy other smile-inducing research suggesting that if you crave happiness, you should do the opposite of what your brain tells you to do.
Plus, why a “well-being index” may replace Dow Jones as a metric for success … a Twitter study that predicts your next good mood … and whether our furry and finned animal friends can experience joy.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Zombies, aliens, Bigfoot, oh my!! We've covered - or rather uncovered - them all and more on Skeptic Check, our monthly look of critical thinking. And now we've collected enough strange encounters to assemble a sordid retrospective of sorts.
Sharpen your brain, it's Skeptic Check, Beast Of. But don't take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Shh - can you keep it down? Nope. Not unless you want to do away with civilization. Our buzzing, humming, whirling, machine-driven world is a poster child for technological progress, right? As is hearing loss. It’s driven one man to search the world for silence. We’ll hear what he didn’t hear, and what Einstein predicted we should hear in deep space, where gravitational waves may reveal the hidden sounds of the universe, including the birth of black holes.
Guests:
First aired July 5, 2010
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Anyone who does gardening knows that life is tough. It’s also ancient – the first living things appeared on this planet nearly as soon as our world was habitable. We consider life on real worlds – like Earth and Mars – as well as fictional ones, such as the desert planet from the movie “Dune”. We’ll hear about a new scheme to find Martians, and practical approaches to coping with climate change.
And is Pluto seeking revenge? The unmasking of a fourth moon around this former planet!
We’re making some lively discoveries in Seth’s Tool Shed on Big Picture Science.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
During the great age of exploration men risked their lives to set foot upon unknown lands, whether in the humid jungles of Peru or on the barren ice cap of the South Pole. We'll hear those dramatic tales…
… but also where modern exploration is taking us. Could it be to the deepest, darkest part of the sea?
Or to space? Discover how to build a space suit that will let you move like an athlete on Mars. Also, why some say that the ultimate frontier requires no packing and no travel: voyages into the human brain.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The recipe for being a scientist was easy in the old days… just be born into a rich family, have an interest in nature and plenty of time to indulge yourself. But are the days of gentlemen scientists over? Maybe not.
We go to the Maker Faire and check out how small-scale projects have big-scale ambitions.
Also, how everyday experience often tells us something profound about the universe.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
An ant … can’t … move a rubber tree plant… but the colony can. As a group, ants are an efficient, organized, can-do bunch. And a model for humans trying to manage complex systems.
Find out about the eerie collective intelligence of animals, and how an MIT researcher is hoping to put humans to work collaboratively to solve problems like climate change.
Also … hear how research into flocking behavior helps Hollywood film a herd of stampeding dinosaurs.
Guests:
Originally aired June 21, 2010
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s been ten years since the fall of the Twin Towers, but some still believe that the attack was an inside job. They’re not the only ones to buy into a conspiratorial view of world events. Others deny President Obama’s American birth… link autism with vaccines… and even claim that the fluo
ride in our drinking water is there to control our minds. Is it the truth - or the fringe groups - that are “out there?”
Find out why some tinfoil hat ideas never go away. Also, the roots of rational argument: did our brains evolve to seek the truth… or just win arguments?
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Genes – what are they good for? Absolutely… something. But not everything. Your “genius” genes need to be turned on – and your environment determines that. Find out how to unleash your inner-Einstein, and what scientists learned from studying the famous physicist’s brain.
Also, the bizarre notion that your children inherit not just your genes, but also the consequences of your habits – smoking, stress, diet, and other behaviors that turn the genes on.
Plus Francis Collins on affordable personal genomes, and a man who decoded his own DNA in under a week.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Live forever? Both cancer cells and stem cells can make a claim to immortality. Left unchecked, tumors will grow indefinitely. And stem cells offer the promise of non-stop rejuvenation.
We’ll find out whether the surprising discovery of stem cells in the brain really can keep our thinking organ young. And we’ll hear the remarkable story of Henrietta Lacks, the woman who unwittingly donated tissue to science in 1951, and whose cancer cells are still grown in laboratories around the world today.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Water, water everywhere. But most of it is sea water - you can’t drink it. Discover the most promising technologies for desalination and why solar cells are key. Also, how astronauts filter “water-closet water” to drink it, and how to turn a salt pond back to a wetland.
Plus, from Roman aqueducts to modern-day pumps: a history of quenching human thirst. And, why NASA strives to “follow the water.”
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It’s nearly impossible to fake a laugh. Yet, humans will laugh even if something isn’t funny. Discover the evolutionary function of cracking up and meet the other species that love to giggle (and monkey around).
Also, hilarious science comedy. Yes, science comedy. Plus, teaching machines to write punch lines… and stretching – and splitting – your sides with laughter yoga.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How did life begin? What’s the universe made of, and what’s the nature of consciousness?
These are truly some of the biggest puzzlers in science, but answers are in the offing.
We consider the modern-day hunt for life beyond Earth, as well as a new theory of consciousness: could it be merely an illusion to entertain us and make our lives more worthwhile?
Also, after thousands of years of examining the heavens, are we finally learning the true nature of the cosmos?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They’re heeeere! Yes, aliens are wreaking havoc and destruction throughout the land. But these aliens are Arizona beetles, and the land is in California, where the invasive insects are a serious problem.
And what of space-faring aliens? We have those too: how to find them, and how to protect our planet – and theirs.
From Hollywood to SETI’s hi-tech search for extraterrestrials, aliens are invading Are We Alone?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Physics means getting physical if you’re tackling the biggest, most mysterious questions in the universe. Stoic scientists endure the driest, darkest, coldest spots on the planet to find out how it all began and why there’s something rather than nothing. From the bottom of an old iron mine to the top of the Andes, we’ll hear their stories.
Plus, Steven Weinberg on this weird stuff called dark energy, and Leonard Susskind sees double, no, triple, no, …infinite universes.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Memories are slippery things – some are crystal clear, others more like a muddy pool, and some… well, they seem to vanish completely.
Scientists admit that memory is all very complicated, but one piece of the puzzle lies in how we age – we’ll hear the latest research.
Meanwhile, meet the man who digitally logged his every waking moment - and why maybe the secret to happiness isn’t in remembering but in forgetting.
Plus, the case for deleting data from your hard-drive… and from your brain itself.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The end is nigh. Only, on which nigh should we rely? According to billboards, Judgment Day is in May and the end of the world follows months later. But other authorities claim 2012 as the apocalyptic year, as predicted by the ancient Mayans. It’s a busy time for doomsday prophecy.
Find out what’s driving these pessimistic predictions and whether it’s time to cash in your stock portfolio.
Meanwhile, a survey of the real threats to Earth, and indeed to the universe, from asteroids, exploding stars, or a big cosmic rip. And the lingering menace of atomic weapons... Is nuclear war inevitable or can intelligence and political will forestall atomic Armageddon?
Finally, why everything’s going to be alright! An optimist’s tour of the future.
It’s Skeptic Check, our monthly look at critical thinking on Are We Alone.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The universe is big – really big.* Galaxies, for instance, are often large enough to hold a trillion stars. But how did these heavenly heavyweights come to be? Hear how still-mysterious dark matter is implicated in the birth of galaxies.
Also, gamma ray bursts - explosions more energetic than anything since the Big Bang - take place somewhere in the visible universe every day. What are they, and could they obliterate life on Earth?
And, the biggest cosmic mystery de jour: dark energy. Why new, super-size telescopes may finally reveal just what it is.
We’re living large on “Big, Really Big.”
*appreciative nod to Douglas Adams
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Public distrust of science is higher than at any time since the Enlightenment. New Yorker writer Michael Specter argues how our anti-science bias and our irrationalism about everything from genetically modified foods to climate change to childhood vaccines endangers our future.
And remember when… a look back at scientists who at first pooh-poohed plate tectonics... meteorites, and quantum physics. How the evidence turned them around.
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds do it. Bees do it. But no one sings about how they do it. And frankly, not even Cole Porter can make bedroom behavior that involves decapitating your mate sound romantic. And what rhymes with “cannibalism?” But the animal world abounds with bizarre sexual behavior… and it’s all perfectly normal.
Find out how female spiders lure males to their doom… why dolphins are the friskiest of mammals… whether E.T. would have sex… and why sexual reproduction evolved in the first place.
Also, why the marketing gurus have it all wrong: driving a Hummer or wearing Gucci won’t help you land a mate. Find out what will.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Being first counts in science. Land that coveted spot and you’ll make history, whether it’s with the first steam engine or the discovery of our earliest human ancestor.
But what does “first” mean when technological invention so heavily builds on what’s come before... and evolution represents continuous change?
Find out how “publish or perish” made Darwin famous… why we’ll never find the first human fossil… and how powerful new telescopes are allowing us to see the earliest galaxies.
Plus, the chicken and egg battle it out in line.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From the double-helix to the expansion of the universe, great scientific discoveries reshape our understanding of who we are and how things work. But great discoveries require more than just a great mind. We tour brainy breakthroughs from Archimedes to Darwin, and find out what made their revolutionary insights possible.
Also, why you need more than a stratospheric I.Q. to be a super-achiever. And how the invention of reading re-directed the course of civilization and re-wired our brains in the process.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The weaker the mixture, the stronger the potency. That paradox is a central tenet of homeopathy. More than 200 years old and developed long before germ theory, the practice is the fastest growing form of alternative medicine worldwide.
Proponents say its diluted remedies cure disease. Most scientists maintain there’s nothing in homeopathic solution but water. We’ll hear the arguments, and also the role placebos might be playing in the cure.
Plus, skeptic Phil Plait voyages to the edge of the solar system where a new planet has been discovered … maybe!
And, consider our brains: the product of millions of years of evolution. So why aren’t we more consistent in our reasoning?
It’s Skeptic Check…. but don’t take our word for it.
Guests:
• Iris Bell – Psychiatrist and researcher in alternative medicine at the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine
• Simon Singh – Science writer based in the U.K., author of Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine
• Phil Plait – Astronomer, skeptic, and keeper of the web site badastronomy.com
• Jim Underdown – Executive Director, Center for Inquiry, Los Angeles
• Gordy Slack – Science writer and keeper of the neuroscience web site, "Brainstorm”
• Robert Kurzban – Associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Earth may not be rare after all. New data from NASA’s Kepler mission suggests that the universe is chock-a-block with planets. More than a thousand new possible planets have just been found, and more than fifty of these might be suitable for life. Ready for cosmic company? We discuss the results of the Kepler mission in a roundtable with some of its top scientists.
Meanwhile, the Voyager spacecraft continues to be humanity’s point man in the race to interstellar space. Poised to leave our solar system, we reflect on the mission – including its on-board messages for aliens.
Plus, out-of-this world science. From lab coats to warp speed: does Hollywood get it right? Does it matter?
Guests:
• Jon Jenkins – Co-principal investigator for the Kepler Mission
• Doug Caldwell – Co-investigator and instrument scientist for the Kepler Mission
• Jessie Christiansen – Data scientist working on the Kepler mission
• Ed Stone – Professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology, and former Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jennifer Ouellette – Writer and former director, National Academy of Sciences’ Science and Entertainment Exchange
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You’re right: it’s a show about ESP. And, correct again: we’re excited about the publication of a paper that claims precognition exists. You’ve already divined what our paranormal investigator says about the paper, whether the statistics that it cites are significant, and what the editor-in-chief of a major scientific journal has to say on the tricky matter of publishing such a result at all.
You’re not surprised that Brains on Vacation takes on the matter of Armageddon-by-exploding-star, because, you knew that. You also knew that it will be an excellent show. But, tune in anyway – consider it a repeat.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We all hear about research discoveries, but what about what scientists don’t find? Tune in for a round-up of eureka moments that have yet to come, such as the hunt for the dark energy of the universe and the search for the elusive elementary particle responsible for the mass of objects.
Also, we miss the woolly mammoth so much, scientists plan to clone the hairy beast and bring the extinct animal back.
Plus, why the missing link is no longer missing, what extrasolar planets have now been found, and – NASA money for science: where’d it go?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s the star of our solar system, but much about the Sun is still mysterious. Find out what a new NASA mission to our favorite fireball might discover about its super-hot outer regions.
Also, why the most common stars in the galaxy don’t shine thanks to nuclear energy as our Sun does. And, recreating Sol’s energy source on Earth at the National Ignition Facility.
Plus, an ex-Star Wars animator and photographer on how to film an atomic blast.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Random is as random does… makes sense doesn’t even that anyway in tune hear to randomness how lives rules.
Brain chaos the drives, restoration role of help insight ecology may into randomness the, numbers sense of make statistics can’t why we or, ants not seem of erratic behavior why the may but is.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The march of computer technology continues. But as silicon chips and search engines become faster and more productive – can the same be said for us?
The creator of Wolfram Alpha describes how his new “computational knowledge engine” is changing – and improving - how we process information. Meanwhile, suffering from data and distraction burnout? Find out what extremes some folks take to stop their search engines.
Also, the Singularity sensation of humans merging with machines… and, why for the ancient Greeks all of this is “been there, done that.” A deep sea dive turns up a 2,000 year old computer!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It's always an adventure to go digging in Seth’s storage locker – who knows what we’ll find …
In this imposing pile of paraphernalia, tucked between boxes of socket wrenches and old 45s, we stumble upon the hunt for extrasolar planets, the evidence for water on moons of the solar system, theories of language, a controversial hypothesis for the peopling of the Americas, and a new dinosaur fossil.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Every ten microseconds, someone places a cell phone call. These portable gadgets are ubiquitous, and increasingly a take-for-granted part of everyday life.
But could cell phones be dangerous? Could holding a microwave transmitter up to your head for hours each day substantially increase the risk of cancer?
We investigate some of the latest thinking on the danger of cell phones, and also explain that everyone – even you – is a radio transmitter.
It’s Skeptic Check on Are We Alone. And we’ve got your number.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The language of science is mathematics. As incredible as it seems, the universe seems to run according to laws we can write down on chalkboards.
But it’s not just lab-coated researchers who wield the tool of math: Madison Avenue knows that if they tell you that a shampoo is 32 percent better, you’re likely to buy it.
Also, how scientists of the early twentieth century were forced to invent entirely new mathematical paradigms to describe the cosmos on big scales and small – the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Plus, what about everyday arithmetic? Have pocket calculators and digital cash registers dumbed down the populace?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah.
So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in the city – your vegetables might be grown in downtown, hi-rise greenhouses. Also, a population expert tells us how our planet can cope with billions more people, and the man who invented the term ‘cyberspace’ describes what the future might hold for the techno-savvy.
Darwinian evolution takes a long time to accommodate to new environments. But Homo sapiens can beat that rap by wielding the right technology – and becoming early adapters.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We think of major geologic events as taking place a long time ago – but the Earth is just as active as it ever was. We’re a planet in motion. Discover why earthquakes might be increasing worldwide… descend into daring cave exploration… and take a trip to Hawaii where new volcanoes are gurgling up right now.
Plus – the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park... when might it erupt again?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You are one-of-a-kind, unique, indispensible… oh, wait, never mind! It seems that computer over there can do what you do … faster and with greater accuracy.
Yes, it’s silicon vs. carbon as intelligent, interactive machines out-perform humans in tasks beyond data-crunching. We’re not only building our successors, we’re developing emotional relationships with them. Find out why humans are hard-wired to be attached to androids.
Also, the handful of areas where humans still rule… as pilots, doctors and journalists. Scratch that! Journalism is automated too – tune in for a news story written solely by a machine.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If a tree fell on another planet, would we be able to detect it? Not quite yet – but we might be able to tell if the planet was habitable. A living-planet is the promise of newly-discovered Gliese 581g. But does the planet exist at all?
Discover how we learn a planet’s geology and chemistry from afar. Also, what we learn about a civilization from what it discards, beginning with our own sloppy habits.
Plus, the hunt for derelict alien spaceships… and a man who sketches alien creatures for a living - based on real science.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Humans have not gone unnoticed on this planet. We’ve left our mark with technology, agriculture, architecture, and a growing carbon footprint. But where is this trajectory headed?
In the second of a two-part series: what we’ll lose and what will last in 1000 years or more.
Discover what the planet might look like to geologists of the far-off-future… the stubborn longevity of plastic and radioactive waste... human civilization in space… and postcards from the galactic edge; crafting interstellar messages to E.T.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Humans have not gone unnoticed on this planet. We’ve left our mark with technology, agriculture, architecture, and a growing carbon footprint. But where is this trajectory headed?
In the first of a two-part series: what will be lost and what will still be around 100 years from now? James Lovelock says a hotter planet will prompt mass migrations. And Cary Fowler urges us to save our seeds – the health of future farms may depend on it.
Plus, from antibiotics to sewage systems: why human ingenuity ultimately saves the day.
And, sure, humans will be around in a century, but – with bionic limbs and silicon neurons – would we recognize them?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Watch out, the moon is full… of intrigue. Our lovely satellite is blamed for all sorts of Earth-bound mischief – from robberies to shape-shifting to general nutty behavior. It’s also the setting for more than one loony tale. In this hour, as NASA spacecraft return to the moon, a look at the mythology it inspires.
Discover the true correlation between crime and a full moon… the 1835 reports of unicorns and man-bats living on moon… and, our favorite hair-raising howler: the werewolf! Also, why some still insist the Apollo moon landing is a hoax.
Plus, space travel – boxed and bundled.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Are humans unique or do we just do some things a little better than other species? In the second of our two-part series – how our ability to adapt has shaped our evolution.
Find out how throwing a burger on the grill has transformed our species… the 1% genetic difference that separate us from chimps… why we’re poorly adapted and stressed out … and why human evolution is not only on the move, but picking up the pace.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Are humans unique or do we just do some things a little better than other species? In the first of our two-part series on the nature of humanity: how the influence of others has shaped our evolution.
Find out how baby talk gave root to human language and why social isolation can make us sick. Plus, the joke’s on us – new research says we’re not the only laughing species: meet your giggling gorilla cousins.
And, what a writer’s visit to a chimp retirement center revealed about human discomfort with our animal ancestry.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There’s no escape from the chattering classes – they talk, squawk, squeal and sing all around us. Every animal communicates in some form – it’s essential for survival. They’ve evolved to understand each other … but do we understand them?
Find out what’s coded in humpback whale song and whether human-cetacean dialogue is possible… how information theory reveals communication patterns within the animal kingdom… how plants call out to animals to protect them… and why only humans evolved language.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Medicine’s back.. and this time it’s personal. Get ready to have your genome read… your brain scanned… and undergo a chemical analysis so detailed, it’ll reveal the Twinkie you had for lunch. Everyone’s different, and reading those differences at the level of the gene may provide a more accurate profile of health and how to treat disease. But are you ready to know what’s wrong with you?
Discover the future of personalized medicine with biologist Craig Venter, as well as a man who turned his body over to the new science. Learn what his tests revealed.
Plus, why stem cell research really is a horse race. And, why getting sick is sometimes the best thing.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Aspirin and Old Lace?” Okay, it would take a bottle full of pills in a glass of elderberry wine to really harm you, but aspirin can be deadly. So can too much of anything, including water. Dose is key in toxicology, after all, but there are some poisons that can do deadly work in tiny amounts.
Hear about the chemistry of poisons … why Botox may freeze your emotions as well as your face… which animal is most lethal to humans… and how 19th-century poisoners got away with murder – until the birth of forensic science.
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We could choose not to pay income tax and suffer the consequences. But we can’t avoid death. The biological functions of all organisms eventually cease. But why should this be? Find out why animals die and meet one creature that is biologically immortal.
Plus, a trip to the Body Farm where decaying bodies help science…how we might cheat the Big Sleep with drugs… why Mexican cemeteries look like villages… and a doctor’s fight against one of the world’s deadliest diseases.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A new herbal supplements is on the shelf, and it claims to improve memory. Should you take it? It’s not easy to sort through the firehose of health and nutrition advice that comes at us daily. Find out how to get healthy about health advice, plus hear the story of Bernarr Macfadden, the eccentric who kicked off America’s fitness craze; he believed that eating less was good for you, but he didn’t believe germ theory.
Plus, our Hollywood skeptic spills his guts and other entrails for a phony class for nurses and Phil Plait gives us the latest lapse in critically-thinking brains.
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s always a surprise to go digging in Seth’s garage – who knows what we’ll find! In this impressive heap of paraphernalia, tucked between boxes of old radio tubes and hydraulic jacks, we stumble upon the secrets to our galaxy’s central black hole… witness the dance of the PhD theses… uncover the genome of milk (while moo-ving boxes) and … hey? Who’s that crunching numbers in the corner? It’s astrophysicist Mario Livio addressing the mathematical mysteries of universe.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We should award frequent travel miles to your brain. After all, it’s evolved a long way from the days of guiding brachiation from tree-to-tree to become the three pounds of web-surfing, Sudoku-playing powerhouse it is today. But a suite of technologies may expand human brains further still.
From smart pills to nano-wires: discover the potential – and peril – of neuro-engineering to repair and enhance our cognitive function.
Also, how our brains got so big in the first place: a defense of the modern diet.
Guests
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There are a lot of scientific claims out there – how do you separate the good from the bad and the outright fraudulent? Experts failed to do so for years in the case of a physicist whose published papers claimed the invention of a new bio-based transistor. Plus, other stories of deceit – such as the scientist who stooped to coloring mouse fur with markers.
Also, why climate science is solid, but its scientists need to be more open with the public.
And, from the undersea “bloop” to the Denver airport conspiracy theory. Why urban myths are so popular.
Plus, Phil Plait describes someone’s plans to meditate away the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dr. Robot, I presume? Your appendix may be removed by motor-driven, scalpel-wielding mechanical hands one day. Robots are debuting in the medical field… as well as on battlefields. And they’re increasingly making important decisions – on their own. But can we teach robots right from wrong? Find out why the onslaught of silicon intelligence has prompted a new field of robo-ethics.
Plus, robo-geologists: NASA’s vision for autonomous robots in space.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
With more water than land on this planet, Earth is more aptly-named “Ocean” or “Water.” The oceans have been here for billions of years, and make all life possible. Yet, it’s taken less than a century for humans to deal some serious blows to the watery cradle of our existence. Discover how our oceans are changing and the worrisome increase in their acidity from the maker of the documentary film, A Sea Change
Also, hear how hope is bubbling up for ocean recovery from famed oceanographer Sylvia Earle. Learn about her record-breaking voyages underwater and how her reprimand to a Silicon Valley entrepreneur gave birth to Google Ocean. Plus, farming the seas for new antibiotics.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We place sharks in aquariums and elephants in zoos – to observe and conserve. But what if aliens have done the same to us? We’ll hear from Stephen King on a doomed result of a domed experiment - hatched by off-Earth beings, and why captivity may actually save some species on this planet.
Plus, you’re entering the Habitable Zone: which is the best bet for life elsewhere in the Solar System - Europa, Enceladus or Mars?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s always a surprise to go digging in Seth’s crawl space – who knows what we’ll find! In this cramped never-never land, tucked between piles of spilled cat litter and old clarinet reeds, we stumble upon the language of whales … the future of technology … the secret to plant power … and the answer to whether photographic memory exists. Tune in, find out and, grab a broom, will you?
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Apollo moon landing is a hoax! 9-11 was an inside job! Our government keeps alien bodies racked and stacked in an underground bunker! And as for the evidence … well … put on your tin hats, folks, we’re going deep, deep, deep into conspiracy with journalist David Aaronovitch.
Also – the truth is out there, but it’s ignored. Jonah Lehrer on why scientists can overlook evidence.
Plus, money for meters and your spooks for free: ghost detectors hit the market.
And Hollywood Reality Check and Phil Plait on bogus bomb detectors.
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hello! Is anyone out there? As the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence marks its 50th anniversary, there’s been no contact as yet with alien beings. But SETI researchers maintain that we are not alone. Find out why in a SETI retrospective that looks at the past and future of the search.
We remember the first scientific SETI search… Carl Sagan... how the SETI Institute began… the WOW signal…and the 1993 NASA budget cuts.
We’ll also hear from critics of the search… scientists involved in optical SETI and SETI@home. Plus, international collaborations… and where the search is headed.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Arctic ice is melting, atmospheric temperatures are climbing – yet climate change science is under attack. Detractors claim that researchers are manipulating data and hoodwinking the public. And the public is increasingly skeptical about the science.
Find out what’s behind the surge of climate change skepticism - and what global warming deniers learned from big tobacco about how to spin scientific evidence.
It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hollywood horror flicks have captivated us with alien blobs, but the slime slithering on our own planet is as beguiling. From microscopic machines to life on ocean floors, new research reveals how essential slime is to life on Earth, and possibly other worlds.
Discover the new materials made from hagfish slime… the social life of a slime mold… and the threat posed by the gray goo of self-replicating nanobots.
Plus, it’s been 50 years since it first oozed across the screen: why there’s no escape from The Blob!
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s goodnight moon from President Obama, as he calls for canceling the program that would return astronauts to the moon by 2020. We’ll hear from the private sector, which might win in this deal, and consider whether we should really replace human explorers with robots.
Plus, if we can’t fly you to the moon, would you settle for a few acres and a deed? Meet the man who claims to have property on the moon – but will it hold up in court?
Wernher von Braun was one of America’s premier rocket engineers and, a new book contends, an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazi party. Find out what the U.S. space program was willing to ignore for the prize of beating the Russians to the moon.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The extra-solar planet count is more than 400 and rising. Before long we may find an Earth-like planet around another star. If we do, and can visit, what next? Stake out our claim on an alien world or tread lightly and preserve it?
We’ll look at what our record on Earth says about our planet stewardship. Also, whether a massive technological fix can get us out of our climate mess. Plus, what we can learn about extreme climate from our neighbors in the solar system, Venus and Mars.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Love makes us feel warm and mushy, but the sweet sting of Cupid's arrow makes a compelling chemistry lesson, too. Research into animal mating and human courtship provides clues to an eternal mystery: what's the purpose of love?
Learn lessons from the family values of field mice, and affectionate same-sex penguin pairs. Plus: Darwin's take on speed dating, and the science of smooching.
Guests
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ever since Einstein, we've known that time doesn't barrel willy-nilly into the future. Moving clocks tick at a different rates, and by riding a fast rocket, we can slow time to a crawl. Such tricks may give you a way to see the distant future, but can you go back in time?
Discover one man's quest to build a time machine. Also learn how to put the brakes on aging by getting near a black hole.
Plus, does your entire life really pass before your eyes if you jump off the Brooklyn Bridge? Our perception of time.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Time's a mystery, yet we've invented clever ways to capture it. From sundials to atomic clocks, trace the history of time-keeping. Also, discover the surprising accuracy of nature's dating schemes - from the decay of carbon to laying down tree rings.
Plus, why the "New York minute" stretches to hours in Rio de Janeiro: cultural differences in the perception of time.
Guests:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A massive black hole lies at the center of our galaxy, a monster hunkered down in the Milky Way’s innermost sanctum. Here, the bizarre laws of General Relativity take over, as the physics we know break down. And our spaceship is headed straight for it.
Join us on a special dramatized 26,000 light-year adventure to the Galaxy’s hulking heart of darkness. We explore a cosmos held together by gravity – discover why it’s not really a force – and try to avoid getting too close to a black hole, the ultimate expression of gravity.
This program is part of the traveling exhibit: “Black Holes, Space Warps and Time Twists,” a production of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Find out more at: http://web-bh.cfa.harvard.edu/
Voices:
Roland Pease, Lilia Roman, Roe DeVasto, Doug Vakoch, Patrick Porter, Gary Niederhoff
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
While the Kepler spacecraft hunts for habitable planets beyond the solar system, we’ve let one of our own planets slip away! Find out why Pluto’s demotion to dwarf status created a public uproar as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson reads us his hate mail. From third-graders!
Also, how we might find Earth-like planets… the possibility of life on Saturn’s moon Titan… and TED Prize winner Jill Tarter’s vision for finding E.T.
And, the man who made it all possible: 400 years of Galileo and the telescope. Part of our series for the International Year of Astronomy.
Guests
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.