Big Picture Science

Latest Episodes:

Whodunit, Who'll Do It? Feb 18, 2013

Show notes

The tools of forensics have moved way beyond fingerprint kits. These days, a prosecutor is as likely to wave a fMRI brain scan as a smoking gun as “Exhibit A.” Discover what happens when neuroscience has its day in court.

Meanwhile, research into the gold standard of identification, DNA, marches on. One day we may determine a suspect’s eye color from a drop of blood.

Plus, why much of forensic science – from fingerprinting to the polygraph – is more like reading tea leaves than science. And will future crime victims be robots?

Guests:

• Owen Jones – Professor of law, Professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee

• Manfred Kayser – Forensic molecular biologist, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

• Marc Goodman – Founder, The Future Crimes Institute

• David Faigman – Law professor, University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco

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Say La Vie Feb 11, 2013

Show notes

Researchers have discovered life in a buried Antarctic lake. But we’re not surprised. Life is amazingly adaptive. Expose it to any environment – heat, ice, acid or even jet fuel – and it thrives. But this discovery of life under the ice may have exciting implications for finding biology beyond Earth.

Scientists share their discovery, and how they drilled down through a half-mile of ice.

Also, plunge into another watery alien world with director James Cameron, and the first solo dive to the deepest, darkest part of the ocean.

Plus, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist tries to create life in his lab to learn more about biology’s origins, and martian fossils abound in Robert J. Sawyer’s latest sci-fi novel.

Guests:

• Helen Amanda Fricker – Glaciologist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego

• Jill Mikucki – Microbiologist at the University of Tennessee

• Chris McKay – Planetary scientist, NASA Ames Research Center

• Jack Szostak – Nobel Prize winning chemist, Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital

• James Cameron – film director and explorer-in-residence for National Geographic

• Robert J. Sawyer – Hugo Award-winning author; most recently: Red Planet Blues

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Skeptic Check: Science Blunders Jan 28, 2013

Show notes

We’ve all had an “oops” moment. Scientists are no exception. Sometimes science stumbles in the steady march of progress. Find out why cold fusion is a premier example why you shouldn’t hold a press conference before publishing your results. Also, how to separate fumbles from faux-science from fraud.

Plus, why ignorance is what really drives the scientific method.

And our Hollywood skeptic poses as a psychic for Dr. Phil, while our Dr. Phil (Plait) investigates the authenticity of a life-bearing meteorite.

Guests:

• Phil Plait – Skeptic and author of Slate Magazine’s blog Bad Astronomy

• Michael Gordin – Historian of science at Princeton University, author of The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe

• David Goodstein – Physicist, California Institute of Technology

• Stuart Firestein – Neuroscientist, chair of the biology department, Columbia University, and author of Ignorance: How It Drives Science

• Jim Underdown – Executive Director, Center for Inquiry, Los Angeles

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Whither the Weather? Jan 14, 2013

Show notes

We all talk about the weather. And now scientists are doing something about it: providing more accurate warnings before big storms hit. Discover how smart technology – with an eye on the sky – is taking monster weather events by storm.

Plus, why severe weather events caused by a warming planet may trigger social and economic chaos.

Also, meet the storm chaser who runs toward tornadoes as everyone else flees… and why your cell phone goes haywire when the sun kicks up a storm of its own.

Guests:

• Michael Smith – Meteorologist, founder of WeatherData and author of Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather

• George Kourounis – Explorer and storm chaser

• Jeffrey Scargle – Research astrophyscisit in the Astrobiology and Space Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center

• Ken Caldeira – Climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Deparment of Global Ecology

• Christian Pareti – Contributing editor of The Nation, visiting scholar at the City Univeristy of New York, and author of Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence

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Ultimate Hook Up Jan 07, 2013

Show notes

Imagine moving things with your mind. Not with telekinesis, but with the future tools of brain science. Meet a pioneer in the field of computer-to-brain connection and discover the blurry boundary where the mind ends and the machine begins.

Plus, how new technology is sharpening the “real” in virtual reality. And, whether our devotion to digital devices is changing what it means to be human.

Guests:

• Miguel Nicolelis – Director for the Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University, and author of Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines and How it Will Change our Lives

• Jeremy Bailenson – Director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University and co-author of Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution

• Jim Blascovich – Psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-author of Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution

• Sherry Turkle – Professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other

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Skeptic Check: They're Baack! Dec 31, 2012

Show notes

Could you have had a past life? Is it possible that some part of you is the reincarnation of a person – or maybe an animal – that lived long ago?

We’ll hear the story of a young boy who started having nightmares about a plane crash. His parents thought he was the reincarnation of a downed, World War II fighter pilot. But his story might not fly.

Also … is there any biological basis for reincarnation? Animals that indulge in the big sleep.

Suspended animation is Hollywood’s favorite device for interstellar travel … But could we really put a dimmer switch on human metabolism? Learn how techniques for hitting the hold button for humans might be just around the corner.

Guests:

• Cynthia Meyersburg – Research psychologist at Harvard University

• Tori Hoehler – Astrobiologist at the NASA Ames Research Center

• André Bormanis – Screenwriter, producer and former science consultant for “Star Trek”

• Matt Andrews – Biologist at the University of Minnesota, Duluth

• Phil Plait – Astronomer, and author of the Bad Astronomy blog at Discover Magazine

• Mark Roth – Biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle

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Remembers Only Dec 24, 2012

Show notes

You must remember this… wait, wait... I had it… on the tip of my tongue… (Memory is a tricky thing and most of us would like to improve it)… oh, yes: Discover the secrets of stupefying, knock-your-socks-off recall by a U.S. Memory Champion.

Also, almost everything we know about memory comes from the life of one man born in 1926 and known as H.M., the world’s “most unforgettable amnesiac.”

Plus, the sum total of the global data storage capacity in hard drives, thumb drives, the Internet, you name it… guess how many exabytes it comes to?

Guests:

• Larry Squire – Professor of psychiatry and neurosciences and psychology at the University of California, San Diego and a scientist at the VA Medical Center in San Diego

• Jacopo Annese – Neuroanatomist and Director of the Brain Observatory at the University of California, San Diego

• Joshua Foer – Author of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

• Martin Hilbert – Economist and social scientist, University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

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Before the Big Bang Dec 17, 2012

Show notes

It’s one of the biggest questions you can ask: has the universe existed forever? The Big Bang is supposedly the moment it all began. But now scientists wonder if there isn’t an earlier chapter to our origin story. And maybe chapters before that! What happened before the Big Bang? It’s the ultimate prequel.

Plus – the Big Bang as scientific story: nail biter or snoozer?

Guests

• Roger Penrose – Cosmologist, Oxford University

• Sean Carroll – Theoretical physicist, Caltech, 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

• Simon Steele – Astronomer, Tufts University

• Andrei Linde – Physicist, Stanford University

• Jonathan Gottschall – Writer, author of The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

• Marcus Chown – Science writer and cosmology consultant for New Scientist magazine

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Doomsday Live, Part 2 Dec 03, 2012

Show notes

If there is only one show you hear about the end of the world, let it be this one. Recorded before a live audience at the Computer History Museum on October 27th, 2012, this two-part special broadcast of Big Picture Science separates fact from fiction in doomsday prediction.

In this second episode: a global viral pandemic … climate change … and the threat of assimilation by super-intelligent machines.

Presented as part of the Bay Area Science Festival.

Find out more about our guests and their work.

Guests:

• Kirsten Gilardi – Wildlife veterinarian at the University of California, Davis. leader of the Gorilla Doctors program, and team leader for the US-AID Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT program

• Ken Caldeira – Climate scientist, Carnegie Intuition for Science at Stanford University

• Luke Muehlhauser – Executive Director of the Singularity Institute

• Bradley Voytek – Neuroscience researcher at the University of California, San Francisco

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Doomsday Live, Part I Nov 26, 2012

Show notes

Presented as part of the Bay Area Science Festival.

Find out more about our guests and their work.

Guests: