|
Last 20 Shows Pave New Worlds
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 a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Skeptic Check: Waking the Dead
The undead, those mindless shambling specters from the grave, are enjoying a cultural (if not literal) resurgence, in films, books, and through strange, urban “zombie crawls.”
Discover the unearthly appeal of these reanimated beings and why playing dead may mirror the real social alienation of our digital lives. Also, how mathematicians use “zombie attacks” to model real disease epidemics, such as swine flu.
Plus – another case of life in suspension: the promise and ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Aloha Astronomy
From Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the view of the cosmos is spectacular. Giant black holes, distant galaxies, and extrasolar planets have all been uncovered by the massive telescopes that perch on this volcanic cone.
Join the astronomers who use the Keck Telescopes to peer at objects so far away, their light started out before Earth was born.
Also discover how the new Thirty Meter Telescope will dwarf even the massive glass eyes now in place, and why some of the world’s most important ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Say What?
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… an ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Extreme Geology
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:
Robert Nadeau – Geologist, University of California, ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Seth's Storage Locker
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:
Steve Brusatte – Vertebrate paleontologist ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Skeptic Check: Mind Your Body
Popping a pill may help when you’re sick… but maybe not for the reasons you think. Sugar pills – placebos – cure illness better than prescription pills in as many as half of all cases in clinical trials … and the placebo effect is getting stronger.
Plus, the safety – or otherwise – of electromagnetic waves, and the “electro-sensitive” refugees who have built a camp to protect themselves from waves they say are causing pain. Is it all in their minds? ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Do Computers Byte?
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 wi ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Skeptic Check: Doomsday at the Movies
Hollywood has a few ideas of how the world will end: killer asteroids … lethal pandemics … deadly ice-ages. These themes have all played out on the big screen. But, hey, they’re only movies, right?
We’ll separate the science from the fiction in doomsday movies. From the 2012 prophesy of the Mayans … to colliding worlds … to abrupt climate change, find out which among this crowd of cinematic scares are for real, and which aren’t worth the price of popcorn.
Gu ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
SETI: Now What?
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 crit ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Carbon Your Enthusiasm
Bond it to oxygen and it’s the scourge of climate change. But earthly life wouldn’t be possible without carbon, and maybe that’s true for alien life, too.
And carbon has other exciting forms: tiny diamonds may be evidence of a catastrophic comet impact 13,000 years ago. And, chalky carbonates may point to a once-habitable Mars.
So get cozy with carbon. Find out if you could swap it for silicon in DNA. Plus, the conundrum of calculating a carbon footprint.
... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Skeptic Check: Vaccines: Give 'Em Your Best Shot
As the anti-vax campaign rages, parents are just saying “no” to vaccines. But now the incidence of childhood diseases such as whooping cough are on the rise.
A number of studies have refuted the link between vaccines, autism and other chronic conditions, yet the anti-vaccine movement continues. Find out why. Also, how the media have irresponsibility framed the debate.
Plus, we panic over plague, sweat about swine flu, but don’t think twice about jumping in a car and roarin ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Feather Knows Best
Can animals think? Merely asking the question was once thought ridiculous. But studies that range from chimps to birds to sea creatures have prompted scientists to reassess the cognitive capabilities of our animal friends. These results challenge not only our idea of intelligence, but man’s unequivocal perch at the top.
Learn the secret communication between camouflaging cuttlefish… how the smarts of Alex the parrot turned “birdbrain” into a compliment… and why ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
A Man, A Planet, A Tenal: Panama!
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 poss ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Journey to a Black Hole
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 c ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Time's Mysteries Part I: Marking Time
ENCORE 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:
Chris Turney – Geologist at the University of Wollongong, A ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Time's Mysteries Part II: Warping Time
ENCORE 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 ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Eureka!
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 ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Skeptic Check: Swimming in Denial
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 t ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Who's on First?
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 ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
|
|
