Big Picture Science

Latest Episodes:

Winging It Apr 03, 2017

Show notes

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:

Merlin Tuttle – Ecologist and founder of Bat Conservation International. Executive director of Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation and author of The Secret Life of Bats: My Adventures with the World’s Most Misunderstood Animals. Join his effort and browse his stunning photography at http://www.merlintuttle.com/
David Alexander - Ecologist, evolutionary biologist, the University of Kansas, author of On the Wing: Insects, Pterosaurs, Birds, Bats and the Evolution of Animal Flight
Duncan Wass - Professor of chemistry, University of Bristol, U.K.
Sanjiv Singh - Research professor, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

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Cosmic Conundra Mar 06, 2017

Show notes

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:

Mike Rampino - Professor of biology and environmental studies at New York University
Mark Showalter - Senior research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California
Ranga-Ram Chary - Astronomer, U.S. Planck Data Center, California Institute of Technology

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Skeptic Check: Not So Sweet Feb 27, 2017

Show notes

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:

Gary Taubes– Investigative reporter and the author of The Case Against Sugar.
Cristin Kearns– Postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.
Naomi Oreskes– Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, and the co-author of Merchants of Doubt.

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Thinking About Thinking Feb 20, 2017

Show notes

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:

John Marzluff – Professor of wildlife science, University of Washington and the author of In the Company of Crows and Ravens
Idan Segev – Professor of computation and neuroscience, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Jeff Welser – Vice president and Lab Director, IBM Almaden Research Center
Anil Ananthaswamy – Science journalist, correspondent for “New Scientist,” and author of The Man Who Wasn't There: Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self

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Going All to Species Feb 13, 2017

Show notes

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:

Marina Elliott – Paleoanthropologist, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
Carl Ward – Biological anthropologist, University of Missouri
John Hawks- Anthropologist, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Tim White - Anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley

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Skeptic Check: Amelia Earhart Jan 23, 2017

Show notes

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:

Andrew McKenna– Researcher with TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery)
Claire Maldarelli– Editor at Popular Science Magazine
Andrew Maynard– Director of the Risk Innovation Lab, Arizona State University
John Norberg– Journalist and former writer on air and space for Purdue University

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No Face to Hide Jan 09, 2017

Show notes

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

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The Light Stuff Jan 02, 2017

Show notes

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

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The Fix is In Dec 26, 2016

Show notes

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

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Skeptic Check: Fear Itself Dec 19, 2016

Show notes

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: