Big Picture Science

Latest Episodes:

Skeptic Check: Asteroid Mining Mar 18, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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Feet Don't Fail Me Mar 11, 2024

Show notes

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:

Daniel Lieberman – Professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University.
Jeremy DeSilva – Professor in the departments of anthropology and biological sciences, Dartmouth College, and author of “First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human.”
Madhusudhan Venkadesan – Professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, Yale University School of Engineering.
David Bustos – Chief of Resources at White Sands, National Park, New Mexico.
Sally Reynolds – Paleontologist at Bournemouth University, U.K.

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lady Parts** Mar 04, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tomb with a View* Feb 26, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lithium Valley Feb 19, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alien Says What? Feb 12, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Wrong Stuff Feb 05, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Skeptic Check: Hypnosis* Jan 29, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inside Planets Jan 22, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tech in Check Jan 15, 2024

Show notes

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 advertising@airwavemedia.com 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

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