Big Picture Science

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You've Been Slimed! Mar 01, 2010

Show notes

Hollywood horror flicks have captivated us with alien blobs, but the slime slithering on our own planet is as beguiling. From microscopic machines to life on ocean floors, new research reveals how essential slime is to life on Earth, and possibly other worlds.

Discover the new materials made from hagfish slime… the social life of a slime mold… and the threat posed by the gray goo of self-replicating nanobots.

Plus, it’s been 50 years since it first oozed across the screen: why there’s no escape from The Blob!

Guests:

Tori Hoeler - Astrobiologist, NASA Ames Research Center
Douglas Fudge - Biologist, University of Guelph, Canada
John Tyler Bonner - Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, and author of The Social Amoebae: The Biology of Cellular Slime Molds
Chris Phoenix - Director of Research, Center for Responsible Technology
Andre Bormanis - Television Writer and Producer

Descripción en español

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Space Race 2.0 Feb 22, 2010

Show notes

It’s goodnight moon from President Obama, as he calls for canceling the program that would return astronauts to the moon by 2020. We’ll hear from the private sector, which might win in this deal, and consider whether we should really replace human explorers with robots.

Plus, if we can’t fly you to the moon, would you settle for a few acres and a deed? Meet the man who claims to have property on the moon – but will it hold up in court?

Wernher von Braun was one of America’s premier rocket engineers and, a new book contends, an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazi party. Find out what the U.S. space program was willing to ignore for the prize of beating the Russians to the moon.

Guests:

Burt Rutan - Aerospace engineer, founder of Scaled Composites and designer of SpaecShipOne and SpaceShipTwo
Steven Weinberg - Nobel Prize-winning physicist at University of Texas at Austin and author of Lake Views: This World and the Universe
Phil Chapman - First Australian-born astronaut and Apollo 14 Mission Scientist, now a consultant on energy and astronautics
Steven Durst - Editor of Space Age Publishing
Frans von der Dunk - Professor of space law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Wayne Biddle - Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Dark Side of the Moon: Wernher von Braun, the Third Reich, and the Space Race

Descripción en español

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Pave New Worlds Feb 08, 2010

Show notes

The extra-solar planet count is more than 400 and rising. Before long we may find an Earth-like planet around another star. If we do, and can visit, what next? Stake out our claim on an alien world or tread lightly and preserve it?

We’ll look at what our record on Earth says about our planet stewardship. Also, whether a massive technological fix can get us out of our climate mess. Plus, what we can learn about extreme climate from our neighbors in the solar system, Venus and Mars.

Guests:

Ken Caldeira - Climate scientist from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University
Keith Cowing - Biologist, and editor of NASAwatch.com
Kathryn Denning - Anthropologist at York University in Canada
Gary Davis - Director of the Joint Astronomy Center in Hilo, Hawaii
David Grinspoon - Curator of the Denver Museum of Science and Nature

Descripción en español

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It's the Science, Cupid! Feb 01, 2010

Show notes

Love makes us feel warm and mushy, but the sweet sting of Cupid's arrow makes a compelling chemistry lesson, too. Research into animal mating and human courtship provides clues to an eternal mystery: what's the purpose of love?

Learn lessons from the family values of field mice, and affectionate same-sex penguin pairs. Plus: Darwin's take on speed dating, and the science of smooching.

Guests

Helen Fisher - Anthropologist, Rutgers University
Sarah Woodley - Biologist, Duquesne University
Skyler Place - Doctoral Student, Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Larry Young - Neurobiologist, Emory University
Marlene Zuk - Biologist, University of California, Riverside

Descripción en español

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Time's Mysteries Part II: Warping Time Jan 04, 2010

Show notes

Ever since Einstein, we've known that time doesn't barrel willy-nilly into the future. Moving clocks tick at a different rates, and by riding a fast rocket, we can slow time to a crawl. Such tricks may give you a way to see the distant future, but can you go back in time?

Discover one man's quest to build a time machine. Also learn how to put the brakes on aging by getting near a black hole.

Plus, does your entire life really pass before your eyes if you jump off the Brooklyn Bridge? Our perception of time.

Guests:

Roy Gould - Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Ronald Mallett - Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut, and author of The Time Traveller
Simon Steel - Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
David Eagleman - Neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, and Director of the Laboratory for Perception and Action

Descripción en español

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Time's Mysteries Part I: Marking Time Dec 28, 2009

Show notes

Time's a mystery, yet we've invented clever ways to capture it. From sundials to atomic clocks, trace the history of time-keeping. Also, discover the surprising accuracy of nature's dating schemes - from the decay of carbon to laying down tree rings.

Plus, why the "New York minute" stretches to hours in Rio de Janeiro: cultural differences in the perception of time.

Guests:

Chris Turney - Geologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia and the author of Bones, Rocks and Stars: The Science of When Things Happened
Demetrios Matsakis - Head of the U.S. Naval Observatory's Time Service
Steven Jefferts - Physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado
Robert Levine - Psychologist at California State University in Fresno and the author of A Geography of Time: The Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist, or How Every Culture Keeps Time Just a Little Bit Differently
Norman Mohr - Owner, Mohr Clocks, Mountain View, California

Descripción en español

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Journey to a Black Hole Dec 21, 2009

Show notes

A massive black hole lies at the center of our galaxy, a monster hunkered down in the Milky Way’s innermost sanctum. Here, the bizarre laws of General Relativity take over, as the physics we know break down. And our spaceship is headed straight for it.

Join us on a special dramatized 26,000 light-year adventure to the Galaxy’s hulking heart of darkness. We explore a cosmos held together by gravity – discover why it’s not really a force – and try to avoid getting too close to a black hole, the ultimate expression of gravity.

This program is part of the traveling exhibit: “Black Holes, Space Warps and Time Twists,” a production of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Find out more at: http://web-bh.cfa.harvard.edu/

Voices:

Roland Pease, Lilia Roman, Roe DeVasto, Doug Vakoch, Patrick Porter, Gary Niederhoff

Descripción en español

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A Man, A Planet, A Tenal: Panama! Dec 14, 2009

Show notes

While the Kepler spacecraft hunts for habitable planets beyond the solar system, we’ve let one of our own planets slip away! Find out why Pluto’s demotion to dwarf status created a public uproar as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson reads us his hate mail. From third-graders!

Also, how we might find Earth-like planets… the possibility of life on Saturn’s moon Titan… and TED Prize winner Jill Tarter’s vision for finding E.T.

And, the man who made it all possible: 400 years of Galileo and the telescope. Part of our series for the International Year of Astronomy.

Guests

Neil deGrasse Tyson - Astrophysicist, Head of the Hayden Planetarium, and author of The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet
Alan Stern - Planetary Scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, lead investigator on NASA’s New Horizons Mission
Jeffrey Van Cleve - Astronomer at the Kepler Mission Science Office
Carolyn Porco - Planetary scientist and Lead for NASA’s Cassini Mission
Jill Tarter - Director of SETI Research at the SETI Institute
Andy Fraknoi - Astronomer at Foothill College and author of Voyages Through the Universe (with CD-ROM, Virtual Astronomy Labs, and InfoTrac )

Descripción en español

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Skeptic Check: Bigfoot Press Conference Aug 25, 2008

Show notes

Finally, Bigfoot meets habeus corpus: three men claim they have the body of the elusive hirsute creature on ice, and throw a big press conference to prove it. Lots of journalists show up, as do the Bigfoot baggers. Days later the purported historic discovery turned out to be - gasp! - a hairy hoax. How did these men perpetuate the con - and why did the media, including Are We Alone?, bother to cover it?

Join us front row and center at this peculiar press event and for the post-mortem (sans body) of the latest chapter in the ongoing mythology that is Bigfoot.

Guests:

Lori Marino - Behavioral Biologist at Emory University
Jeff Meldrum - Professor of Anatomy at Boise State University, and author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science
Jerry Parrino - Owner of costume maker thehorrordome.com
James Underdown - Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry West in Los Angeles

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