Big Picture Science

Latest Episodes:

Katrina and the River Nov 03, 2025

Show notes

“The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise,” said Mark Twain. In this, our final episode marking the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we consider how efforts to control the Mighty Mississippi – a river engineered from its Minnesota headwaters to its Gulf Coast outlet – have responded to the devastating storm, and how New Orleans’ relationship to the river has changed. Can the city keep up with the pressure that climate change is putting on this engineered system, or is retreat the only viable response?

Plus, a wetland recovery project that aims to bolster protection from hurricanes and flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Guests:

Boyce Upholt – Journalist and author of “The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi River”

Nathaniel Rich – Author of “Second Nature: Scenes From a World Remade” and the New York Times Op-Ed, “New Orleans’ Striking Advantage in the Age of Climate Change”

Harriet Swift – New Orleans resident

Andrew Horowitz – Historian, University of Connecticut, author of "Katrina: A History, 1915-2015"

Rashida Ferdinand – Founder and Executive Director of Sankofa Community Development Corporation, overseeing the Sankofa Wetland Park and Nature Trail in New Orleans

Jason Day – Biologist, wetland Scientist, Comite Resources in Louisiana

Descripción en español

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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The Decomposers Oct 27, 2025

Show notes

What happens to us after we die is as much a question for anthropology and ecology as it is for theology. Death and decay are not comfortable subjects, but some scientists study them unflinchingly, knowing that doing so yields valuable scientific insights about decomposition. We hear about The Body Farm at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where forensic anthropologists dissect how variables, such as weather and insects, affect the rate of decomposition, and why a cadaver island has its own ecology. Plus, how a mystery about Neanderthal diets was solved by studying maggots, and why a chemical element discovered by alchemists, and recycled at death in your garden, is essential for life.

Guests:

Giovanna Vidoli – Forensic anthropologist and director of the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Dawnie Steadman – anthropologist and former director of the Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Melanie Beasley – Biological anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology at Purdue University

Jack Lohmann – author of “White Light: The Elemental Role of Phosphorus in Our Cells, in Our Food, and in Our World”

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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Shipwrecks Oct 20, 2025

Show notes

Shipwrecks are scenes of tragedy, but they are also bits of history frozen in time that can provide insights into events and ideas from long ago. That is, if we can find them. From an 11th century Viking sailing ship to a WW II era British cargo ship with a mailbag of letters onboard amazingly preserved, an underwater archeologist takes us on a deep dive into history.

Guest:

David Gibbins - underwater archeologist, novelist, and the author of nonfiction, including his latest book, “The History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks”.

Descripción en español

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired September 9, 2024

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.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!

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Mad About Mars Oct 13, 2025

Show notes

Long before Orson Welles provoked a panic with his 1938 radio broadcast of a Martian invasion in War of the Worlds, we were fascinated with the possibility of life on the Red Planet. We may be a step closer to finding it after the Perseverance rover turned up tantalizing evidence of possible ancient life in the form of mineral deposits in a Martian rock. But to be sure, we need to test that rock sample in a lab here on Earth, and the NASA Mars Sample Return Mission has been suspended. Still, our passion for our favorite inhabited world has not diminished. From the latest possible biosignature, to the supposed canals on Mars, to how the early 20th century Martian craze influenced vaudeville, we consider the many ways we are Mad About Mars.

Guests:

Janice Bishop – Senior research scientist at the SETI Institute.

Adam Frank – Astrophysicist at the University of Rochester

David Baron – Author of “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn of the Century America”

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: Health Fads Oct 06, 2025

Show notes

The tiny bean-shaped structures in your cells – mitochondria – are little powerhouses. Recent research suggests they may unlock overall good health, or, when they fail, cause diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s. How strong is the science for these claims and what, if anything, should we be doing to improve our mitochondrial health? Should we take a cue from influencers who suggest drinking an industrial dye called methylene blue? Meanwhile, there have been beefed up calls for adding protein to our diets by eating high protein ice cream, energy bars and huge slabs of meat. Protein builds muscles, but is the muscle of science behind these claims? This week, we consider recent health trends on Skeptic Check.

Guests:

Martin Picard – Professor of behavioral medicine and mitochondrial psychobiology at Columbia University, where he runs the Mitochondrial Psychobiology Group.

Howard LeWine – General internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Chief Medical Editor at Harvard Health Publishing, and editor in chief of Harvard Men’s Health Watch.

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

Not Just a Phage Sep 29, 2025

Show notes

We’re hurtling towards a post-antibiotic world, as the overuse of antibiotics has given rise to dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. Can we fight back using viruses as weapons? An obscure medical therapy uses certain viruses called bacteriophages to treat infection. For a century attempts to turn phage-therapy into a life-saving treatment have faltered, but today there’s renewed interest in this approach. Can we use phages to forestall the antibiotic crisis?

Guests:

Claas Kirchhelle – Medical historian at the University College, Dublin

Tom Ireland – Journalist, editor of The Biologist and author of “The Good Virus: The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage”

Steffanie Strathdee – Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences at the University of California San Diego

Tom Patterson– Professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego

Descripción en español

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired August 12, 2024

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

Spare (Body) Parts Sep 22, 2025

Show notes

Strapped-on brass noses, frog skin grafts, human organs grown in pigs: The world of replaceable body parts is both amazing and a bit unsettling. But who better give us a tour of the past and present of what medical engineering considers Plan B, than the inimitable science writer Mary Roach.

Guest:

Mary Roach– Science writer and author of “Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy”

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

Some Chemicals are Forever Sep 15, 2025

Show notes

As their name suggests, “forever chemicals” have extraordinary staying power. When these nearly indestructible compounds find their way into our soil and water, they don’t break down for hundreds or thousands of years. PFAS – the name for these synthetic chemicals – isn’t just in our natural environment. Scientists have found it everywhere, including in the blood of nearly every living being.

In this episode, we talk to the reporter who broke open the story about a decades-long corporate coverup regarding forever chemicals, look at what we know about their health effects, and consider how a kneecapping of the EPA’s regulatory power may weaken the best tool we have for protecting ourselves from PFAS contamination.

Guests:

Nathaniel Rich – Author of “Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade,” and the New York Times Magazine article, “The Lawyer Who Became Dupont’s Worst Nightmare”

Rachel Frazin – Energy and Environment Policy reporter for The Hill, co-author of “Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America”

Janet McCabe – visiting professor at the Robert McKinney School of Law at Indiana University, former deputy administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency

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

Animal Alphabets Sep 08, 2025

Show notes

Have scientists discovered an alphabet in whale calls? As researchers try to decipher the series of clicks made by sperm whales, we ask whether these cetaceans might have language, and if it follows that whales are thinking animals too. Could we one day get a peek into the thoughts of a humpback whale? Meanwhile, somewhere along the long path of evolution, one species emerged with an impressive gift for gab. Are speech and language unique human superpowers?

Guests:

Carl Zimmer – Columnist, The New York Times, including the article, “Scientists Find an ‘Alphabet’ in Whale Songs”.

Ev Fedorenko – Cognitive neuroscientist, director of the EV Lab, MIT

Tecumseh Fitch – Evolutionary biologist at the University of Vienna

Descripción en español

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired July 29, 2024

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

Aliens Now Sep 01, 2025

Show notes

We are closer than ever to finding aliens according to astrophysicist Adam Frank. He isn’t alone in his optimism. Over the last two decades, the tools used to search for extraterrestrials have been advancing mightily. Where we were once only monitoring with radio telescopes, we are now actively looking for bio and technosignatures on exoplanets. Find out why scientists think new technology may be a game changer in the hunt for life off Earth.

Guest:

Adam Frank – Astrophysicist and author of a new book “The Little Book of Aliens”

Descripción en español.

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired July 1, 2024

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

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