Point of Discovery

Latest Episodes:

The Next 50 Years: Your Perfect Meal and Exercise Plan Feb 13, 2020

Show notes

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to be able to follow a specific diet or exercise plan and others fail? The answer might have to do with factors unique to each person, like their microbiomes and genetics. Geneticist Molly Bray is working toward a future where each person gets a diet and exercise plan optimized just for them. She shares her vision for how this would work in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years.

Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years

Learn about the ongoing TIGER Study, which explores how genes may alter a person’s response to exercise and diet interventions: http://tigerstudy.org/

Read about a 2015 summary report on the genetics of weight loss by some of the leading experts in this field, including Molly Bray: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/weight-loss-programs-tailored-to-a-person-s-genome-may-be-coming-soon

Music for today’s show was produced by:
Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/
Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen

Have you heard our other news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

About Point of Discovery

Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

The Next 50 Years: A Global Census of Life Jan 08, 2020

Show notes

We know absolutely nothing about roughly 80 percent of the different types of life on Earth. Biologist David Hillis aims to discover all those missing species—by some estimates 5 to 10 million—possibly in the next few decades. Sound impossible? He shares his vision for how this would work in this first episode of our new miniseries, The Next 50 Years.

Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years

Hillis, along with colleagues Derrick Zwickl and Robin Gutell, published a stunning new tree of life in 2003 based not just on the physical traits but also the genetics of 3,000 species from across all known groups of life. The unique circular layout which first appeared in the journal Science has come to be known as a Hillis plot.

To download a printable version of the Hillis plot and see tattoos and other artistic renderings, visit: http://www.zo.utexas.edu/faculty/antisense/DownloadfilesToL.html

Learn about the computational approaches that enabled this new type of tree of life: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/300/5626/1692.full and https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tree-of-life

Music for today’s show was produced by:
Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/
Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen

Have you heard our other news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

About Point of Discovery

Coming Soon: A New Podcast Miniseries Dec 18, 2019

Show notes

If you've been listening to our podcast for a while, you probably have noticed that we haven't had a new episode for a few months. We’ve taken that time to step back and reflect on our show, both what has changed over the last few years (we’re now in our fifth year of production – yay!) and where we're going in the future. In this month’s episode, producer and host Marc Airhart chats with senior editor Christine Sinatra about the podcast. We also share some exciting news: we’re kicking off a new miniseries called The Next 50 Years. The first episode drops in January 2020. Stay tuned!

Music for today’s show was produced by:
Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/

Have you heard our other news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

About Point of Discovery

Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery .

Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

About Point of Discovery

You Belong Here: What It Takes for Success in College Sep 20, 2019

Show notes

Why do so many first-year students struggle in college? Who is most likely to fail? And what can professors and staff do to help them get over the hump?

“I didn't know what was going on. And I just felt out of place as a whole,” said Ivonne Martinez, a first-year student at UT Austin who was in danger of failing Freshman Calculus. “I was like, What am I doing? And that kind of made me panic.”

In today’s show, math professor Uri Treisman and chemistry professor David Laude describe ways they support students through this difficult time, and psychologist David Yeager explains why these tactics work. We’ll also talk about the University of Texas at Austin’s ambitious goal to boost the number of students graduating within four years from 52 percent several years ago to 70 percent, and how they did it. (Read more: https://news.utexas.edu/2018/09/27/ut-austin-records-its-highest-four-year-graduation-rate/ )

By the way, all of the people in today’s show are featured in a great new book by author Paul Tough. It’s called “The Years that Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us.” For a deeper dive, be sure and check it out: https://www.paultough.com/books/years-that-matter-most/

Music for today’s show was produced by:
Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/
Finn’s Fandango

Have you heard the news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

About Point of Discovery

Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery .

Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

About Point of Discovery

Confronting RSV, a Shape-Shifting Killer Aug 01, 2019

Show notes

Virtually everyone contracts RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) as a child, but few people have even heard of it. It’s actually one of the leading causes of infectious disease deaths in infants. Now a team of researchers, including molecular biologist Jason McLellan, are using a radically new way to develop a potential vaccine against RSV. This method, called structure-based vaccine design, is already changing the way many vaccines are now being developed.

To see a cool image of the shape-shifting protein that holds the key to the new RSV vaccine, see the full story on our website at http://pointofdiscovery.org/

Read more about how this new vaccine’s design is revolutionizing vaccine design itself: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6158/546.1

Music for today’s show was produced by:
Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/

Have you heard the news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

About Point of Discovery

Better AI Vision to Help Save Lives Jun 17, 2019

Show notes

Kristen Grauman, professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, and her team have taught an artificial intelligence agent how to do something that usually only humans can do—take a few quick glimpses around and infer its whole environment. That will be a critical skill for search and rescue robots that can enter a dangerous situation—like a burning building—and relay information back to firefighters or other personnel.

To see an animation of how the new AI agent creates a full view of the world from just a few glimpses, go to our press release at: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/new-ai-sees-like-a-human-filling-in-the-blanks

Music for today’s show was produced by:
Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/

Have you heard the news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

About Point of Discovery

Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery .

Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

About Point of Discovery

A Machine That Understands Language Like a Human Apr 26, 2019

Show notes

One thing that sets humans apart from even the smartest of artificially intelligent machines is the ability to understand, not just the definitions of words and phrases, but the deepest meanings in human speech.

Alex Huth, a neuroscientist and computer scientist, is trying to build an intelligent computer system that can predict the patterns of brain activity in a human listening to someone speaking. If a computer could begin to extract the same kinds of meaning from a set of words as a human does, that might help explain how the human brain itself makes sense of language – and even pave the way for a speech aid for people who can’t speak.

Experience an interactive 3D map of the human brain showing which areas respond to hearing different words: https://gallantlab.org/huth2016/

Music for today’s show was produced by:
Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/

Have you heard the news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

About Point of Discovery

Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery .

Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

About Point of Discovery

A Love Letter from Texas Scientists to the Periodic Table Mar 06, 2019

Show notes

We’re celebrating the 150th anniversary of the periodic table. Join us as we tour the cosmos, from the microscopic to the telescopic, with four scientists studying the role of four elements—zinc, oxygen, palladium and gold—in life, the universe and everything.

Emily Que is a chemist who helped capture, for the first time on video, zinc fireworks that burst from an egg when it’s fertilized by sperm. Astronomer Michael Endl is searching for chemical signs of life in the atmospheres of exoplanets. Kate Biberdorf (a.k.a. Kate the Chemist) found new ways to speed up chemical reactions using palladium. And physicist Aaron Zimmerman explains why the gold in your jewelry was probably forged in an ultraviolent explosion billions of years ago.

Watch zinc-spark fireworks: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/when-sperm-meets-egg-zinc-fireworks-on-display

Listen to our interview with Kate the Chemist on a previous Point of Discovery podcast: https://soundcloud.com/point-of-discovery/fun-with-chemistry

See a periodic table showing how each element was created: http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~jaj/nucleo/

Watch Kate the Chemist blow things up in honor of National Periodic Table Day: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=294826561181390

Hear more about the first neutron star collision captured by a gravitational-wave detector: https://soundcloud.com/point-of-discovery/cosmic-car-wreck

Music for today’s show was produced by:
Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/
Chris Zabriskie - https://soundcloud.com/chriszabriskie
Dresden the Flamingo - https://soundcloud.com/dresdentheflamingo

Photo by Vivian Abagiu.

About Point of Discovery

Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery .

Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

About Point of Discovery

All in the (Scientific) Family Feb 25, 2019

Show notes

Scientists often talk about the people who mentored them, and the students and postdocs they supervise, in ways that sound like a family. Today, in the second of a two-part conversation, we listen in on two members of a well-known scientific lineage: Bill Press, a professor of computer science and integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin and his former doctoral adviser, Kip Thorne, one of the recipients of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of gravitational waves.

Missed the first part of the conversation? Thorne and Press talked about what it’s like to be a scientist advising on a major Hollywood movie such as Interstellar (which just so happens to star UT Austin alum Matthew McConaughey)? Check it out here: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/bringing-real-science-to-the-big-screen

Special thanks to the family of Bryce DeWitt and Cécile DeWitt-Morette for their involvement in bringing Dr. Thorne to Austin for the inaugural Cécile Dewitt-Morette Memorial lecture in 2018. Watch a video of that lecture: https://youtu.be/0ypzGfHXHlw

Music for today’s show was produced by Mike Arnoult, Adrian Walther, Finn’s Fandango, and Sounds Like Sander.

Photo: Kip Thorne surrounded by students and other members of his lab at Caltech—his scientific family—circa 1972. At bottom left is Bill Press, Thorne’s former PhD student and now professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Other notable scientists include David Lee (bottom right), founder of Global Crossing Ltd. and current Board Chair of Caltech, and Alan Lightman (behind and to the right of Thorne), a physics professor at MIT, essayist and novelist. Photo courtesy of Bill Press.

About Point of Discovery

Bringing Real Science to the Big Screen Jan 22, 2019

Show notes

What’s it like for a scientist to work as an advisor on a major Hollywood film? In this first of a two-part conversation, Kip Thorne talks with his former graduate student Bill Press about the impact that a film like Interstellar can have on the public, balancing scientific accuracy and entertainment and what winning the Nobel Prize really says about a scientists’ worth. (BTW, Interstellar star Matthew McConaughey is also a UT Austin alum)

Stay tuned for part two of this conversation, when we’ll learn more about the rather famous scientific family tree that both Press and Thorne belong to, as well as what gravitational waves mean for the future of astronomical research.

Music for today’s show was produced by Podington Bear and used via a Creative Commons license.

About Point of Discovery

Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery .

Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

About Point of Discovery

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