Big Picture Science

Latest Episodes:

This Land Is Island Nov 24, 2014

Show notes

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

Sounds Abound Nov 03, 2014

Show notes

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

Skeptic Check: Friends Like These Oct 27, 2014

Show notes

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

What's the Difference? Oct 06, 2014

Show notes

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:

David Page – Biologist and geneticist, at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stephen Stearns – Evolutionary biologist, Yale University
John Dovidio – Social psychologist at Yale University
Steven M. Wise – Lawyer, Nonhuman Rights Project

Descripción en español

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

As You Were Sep 22, 2014

Show notes

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:

Michael S. Malone – Professor of professional writing at Santa Clara University and the author of The Guardian of All Things: The Epic Story of Human Memory
Oliver Ryder – Director of genetics, San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research
Michael E. Smith – Chemist, Arkema, Inc
Sean Carroll – Theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, 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
Pico Iyer – Writer, author of The Man Within My Head and the New York Times article, “The Joy of Quiet”

Descripción en español

First released October 29, 2012.

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

Skeptic Check: Is It True? Sep 15, 2014

Show notes

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:

Lynn Rothschild – Evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center
Will Storr – Journalist, author of The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science
Steven Novella – Assistant professor, Yale University School of Medicine, host of the “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” podcast
David Morrison – Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute

Descripción en español

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

A Sudden Change in Planets Sep 08, 2014

Show notes

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:

Alan Stern – Planetary scientist, Southwest Research Institute, Principal Investigator of the New Horizons mission
Marc Rayman – DAWN Mission chief engineer and mission director
David Stevenson – Professor of planetary science at CalTech
Rebekah Dawson – Astronomer, postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley
David Eicher – Editor-in-chief, Astronomy Magazine

Descripción en español

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

Welcome to Our Labor-atory Sep 01, 2014

Show notes

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:

Barry Trimmer – Professor of biology, neuroscience, and biomedical engineering at Tufts University, and editor-in-chief, Soft Robotics
Red Whittaker – Roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University
Ernest Freeberg – Historian, University of Tennessee, and author of The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America
Rob Chandhok – Computer scientist, president of Qualcomm Interactive Platforms
Andre Bormanis – Television writer, producer, screenwriter and science advisor to Star Trek and Cosmos

Descripción en español

First released August 26, 2013.

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

ZZZZZs Please Aug 25, 2014

Show notes

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:

Emmanuel Mignot – Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and director of the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, Stanford University
Kyle Taylor – Molecular biologist at Glowing Plant
Jerry Siegel – Neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry, the University of California, Los Angeles
Jack Gallant – Professor of psychology and neuroscience, University of California, Berkeley

Descripción en español

First released May 27, 2013.

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

De-Extinction Show Aug 11, 2014

Show notes

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:

Beth Shapiro – Associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Ben Novak – Biologist, Revive and Restore project at the Long Now Foundation, visiting biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Hank Greely – Lawyer working in bioethics, director of the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University
Melanie Challenger – Poet, writer, author of On Extinction: How We Became Estranged from Nature
Nick Bostrom – Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University

Descripción en español

First released April 29, 2013.

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

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected