Big Picture Science

Latest Episodes:

Brain Dust Apr 09, 2018

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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:

David Eagleman–Neuroscientist, Stanford University, author of The Brain: the Story of You.
Michel Maharbiz – Electrical engineer, University of California, Berkeley.

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Skeptic Check: Your Inner Lab Coat Mar 26, 2018

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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:

Louis Liebenberg - Co-founder and Executive Director of Cybertracker Conservation, associate of human evolutionary biology, Harvard University
Maria Konnikova - Psychologist, journalist and author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. Her weekly blog on psychology is at com.
Chad Orzel - Physicist and astronomer at Union College, and author of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog and Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist
And newly-minted scientists Michael Kemp, Toni Lyn Morelli, Ilona Kotlewska, and Yonatan Lipsitz

First released February 9, 2015.

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Quantum: Why We Want 'Em Feb 19, 2018

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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:

Seth Lloyd – Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Johnjoe McFadden – Lecturer at the University of Surrey, and co-author of Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
Michael Raymer – Professor of physics at the University of Oregon, and author of Quantum Physics: What Everyone Needs to Know.

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Skeptic Check: New UFO Evidence Jan 29, 2018

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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:

James Oberg - Space journalist, historian and former NASA employee
James McGaha - Retired Air Force pilot, astronomer and director of the Grasslands Observatory
Ben Radford - Deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine and a Research Fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

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DIY Spaceflight Jan 22, 2018

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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:

Margot Lee Shetterly – Author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race.
Simon “Pete” Worden – Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and former Center Director of NASA Ames Research Center
Julian Guthrie – Journalist and author of How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight
Eddie Allison–Head of Aviation Services, Orbital Access
Sean League – Cofounder and Spacecraft Engineering Director, SpaceFab.US
John Gruener – Planetary Scientist, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston
Takanori Shibata– Chief Senior Research Scientist and Professor, National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

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Geology is Destiny Jan 15, 2018

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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:

Walter Alvarez – Professor of Geology, University of California, Berkeley, and author of A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves
David Grinspoon –Senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, and author of Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet’s Future
Eugenia Gold – Instructor, Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University

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Are Animals Really That Smart? Jan 08, 2018

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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:

Alex Liu– Paleontologist, University of Cambridge, U.K.
Abigail Tucker – Author of The Lion in the Living Room: How Housecats Tamed Us and Took Over the World
Frans de Waal – Primatologist, psychologist, Emory University, and author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

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Weather Vain Jan 01, 2018

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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:

Cliff Mass–Professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.
Peter Moore– Author of “The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future.”
Steven Miller – Meteorologist, Colorado State University Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere.
Alan Robock – Meteorologist and climatologist, Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University, IPCC lead author.

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DIY Diagnosis Dec 25, 2017

Show notes

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:

Jennifer Anne - Recent graduate, University of Manchester, studies injuries and diseases in dinosaurs.
Carl Zimmer - Science writer, author. National correspondent for STAT, an online magazine that reports on the frontiers of science and medicine. His weekly column “Matter,” appears in the New York Times.
Peter Simpson-Young - A graduate student at the University of Sydney studying neuroscience.
Anna Wexler - Neuroethicist and PhD candidate in the History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society program at MIT.

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With All Our Mites Dec 11, 2017

Show notes

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: