Science for the People

Latest Episodes:

#573 Penis. That's It. That's the title. Sep 13, 2020

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This episode is about penises. That was your content warning. Penises. Where they came from. Why they're useful. And the many, many wild things that animals do with them. Come for the world's oldest penis, stay for the creature that ejaculates 80 percent of its bodyweight. Host Bethany Brookshire talks with Emily Willingham about her new book, "Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis".

#572 The Alchemy of Us Sep 07, 2020

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We live in a material world. Each piece of that stuff has a story behind it – from the inconspicuous glass and steel that fashions our built environments to the transistors in the tech that siphons up all our attention. In this week's conversation, host Carolyn Wilke speaks with scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez, author of "The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another", to pull back the curtain on the materials that have shaped society and the seemingly unlikely people behind them.

#571 The Address Book Aug 24, 2020

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We don't really notice street addresses, but they're integral to how modern society works. They've become integral to our identity in ways we don't really notice... until we don't have one. But where did street addresses come from? Who decides what names or words can be addresses? And how does a government's approach to addresses impact its people? This week host Rachelle Saunders speaks with lawyer and writer Deirdre Mask about her new book "The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power".

#570 Sea Ice Aug 16, 2020

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This week, host Marion Kilgour discusses the effects of climate change on Arctic sea ice, and the Inuit communities that rely on the ice for wood, food, and roads. SmartICE is a social enterprise developing a near real-time sea-ice monitoring and information sharing system that blends Inuit traditional knowledge with state-of-the-art technology. Rex Holwell explains how climate change has affected sea ice in his lifetime, and how SmartICE sensors are used to keep communities safe. And Dr. Trevor Bell joins us to discuss how SmartICE formed and why it's so important to ensure that the communities out on the sea ice are the ones deciding where to collect data.

Related links:

SmartICE reports are available through SIKU

#569 Facing Fear Aug 10, 2020

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What do you fear? I mean really fear? Well, ok, maybe right now that's tough. We're living in a new age and definition of fear. But what do we do about it? Eva Holland has faced her fears, including trauma and phobia. She lived to tell the tale and write a book: "Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear".

#568 Poker Face Psychology Jul 27, 2020

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Anyone who's seen pop culture depictions of poker might think statistics and math is the only way to get ahead. But no, there's psychology too. Author Maria Konnikova took her Ph.D. in psychology to the poker table, and turned out to be good. So good, she went pro in poker, and learned all about her own biases on the way. We're talking about her new book "The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win".

#567 Because Internet Jul 20, 2020

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This week we dig into the grammar, idiosyncracies, and patterns of mondern writing the internet has made not just possible, but necessary: the writing you and I do all the time via email, text and Tweet. Join host Rachelle Saunders and guest Gretchen McCulloch, blogger, Wired columnist, podcaster, and author of the book "Because Internet: Understand the New Rules of Language", as they pick apart the language of the internet era from the history and use of emojis to the ethics of using Twitter as a data resource to better understand language.

Related links:

Center for Celiac Research and Treatment website their YouTube channel, their Facebook page, and their Twitter feed.

#565 The Great Wide Indoors Jun 28, 2020

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We're all spending a bit more time indoors this summer than we probably figured. But did you ever stop to think about why the places we live and work as designed the way they are? And how they could be designed better? We're talking with Emily Anthes about her new book "The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of how Buildings Shape our Behavior, Health and Happiness".

#564 Frances Glessner Lee and the Nutshell Studies Jun 21, 2020

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Around the end of the second world war, a set of tiny miniature dioramas depicting a variety of deaths were created to help teach investigators how to approach a crime scene. You may have heard of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death and their maker, Frances Glessner Lee... but you probably didn't know how Lee became interested in forensics, that she used her inheritance to establish a department of legal medicine at Harvard Medical School to accellerate the field, or that she used her political savvy to push the adoption of the medical examiner system in more jurisdictions. We talk to Bruce Goldfarb, Nutshell Studies curator and author of the new book "18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics", about the woman behind the famous Nutshell Studies considered to be one of the early pioneers of modern forensics.

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