Science, Spoken

Latest Episodes:

Bees, Please: Stop Dying in Your Martian Simulator Nov 04, 2019

Show notes

Before astronauts head to the International Space Station, they spend years getting ready: They float in pools to practice for spacewalks, learn how to run different types of science experiments, and even practice how to poop. For future missions to the moon and Mars, scientists first try living and working in space-analog environments on volcanoes, deep inside caves, at the South Pole, and even underwater.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scientists Now Know How Sleep Cleans Toxins From the Brain Nov 01, 2019

Show notes

Laura Lewis and her team of researchers have been putting in late nights in their Boston University lab. Lewis ran tests until around three in the morning, then ended up sleeping in the next day. It was like she had jet lag, she says, without changing time zones. It’s not that Lewis doesn’t appreciate the merits of a good night’s sleep. She does. But when you’re trying to map what’s happening in a slumbering human’s brain, you end up making some sacrifices.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NASA is Getting Serious About an Interstellar Mission Nov 01, 2019

Show notes

Interstellar space exploration has long been the stuff of science fiction, a technological challenge that many engineers believe humans just aren’t up to yet. But an ongoing study by a group of NASA-affiliated researchers is challenging this assumption. The researchers have a vision for a mission that could be built with existing technology. Indeed, the group says that if their mission is selected by NASA it could fly as soon as 2030.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scientists Take Baby Steps Toward Extraterrestrial Babies Oct 31, 2019

Show notes

In February, the Spanish pilot Daniel González climbed into a small aerobatic plane at the Sabadell Airport outside Barcelona and fired up its single prop engine. Once he was in the air, González began a steep climb for about six seconds before entering a nosedive. The plane’s rapid descent created a microgravity environment in the cockpit and for a few seconds, González felt what it was like to be an astronaut.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Technology Will Keep Us From Running Out of Stuff Oct 31, 2019

Show notes

Thirty years from now, we’ll need to feed, clothe, shelter, and otherwise provide for 2 billion more people. Human-caused global warming is going to make these tasks challenging as it produces more deserts, droughts, heatwaves, and other stresses. Even so, I believe we’ll easily meet our challenges and take better care of the people who inhabit the world of the future, without experiencing sustained shortages of food or other important resources.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

California’s Wildfires Are the Doom of Our Own Making Oct 30, 2019

Show notes

Every generation claims an event that defines it more than any other—winning a World War, or landing humans on the moon, or tearing down the Berlin Wall. But at this very moment, we have the dubious honor of living through an event whose impact will span generations: climate change. Never before has our kind faced such omnipresent peril, from supercharged storms to rising seas to drought to crop failure to biodiversity crises.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We Should Just Build Giant Telescopes ... in Space Oct 30, 2019

Show notes

In 2021, a rocket is scheduled to lift off from French Guiana carrying the largest space telescope ever made. Known as the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers will use this beast of an observatory to study everything from habitable exoplanets to the formation of the first galaxies. JWST is the first mega-telescope of its kind to ever launch into space—and it may also be the last. The next behemoth might instead get assembled in space with the help of robots.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A Secret Space Plane Just Landed After a Record Stay in Orbit Oct 29, 2019

Show notes

The old space shuttle landing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center received an unusual visitor early Sunday morning when the Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane autonomously returned from orbit after a record-breaking mission. For the last 780 days, the Air Force Research Laboratory used the space plane as an orbital platform for classified experiments.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ocean Cleanup’s New Plastic-Catcher … Kinda Already Exists? Oct 29, 2019

Show notes

A little over a year ago, a group called The Ocean Cleanup launched an unprecedented campaign to rid the seas of plastic, complete with an unprecedented device: a 600-meter-long, U-shaped tube that was meant to passively gather debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for a ship to come along and scoop up and take back to land.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kincade Fire: The Age of Flames Is Consuming California Oct 28, 2019

Show notes

Right on cue, Northern California has plunged back into wildfire hell. This time two years ago, the Tubbs Fire was ripping through Santa Rosa and other communities north of San Francisco, killing 22 and destroying 5,000 homes. And last year on November 8, the Camp Fire virtually obliterated the town of Paradise, killing 86 and burning an astonishing 20,000 structures to the ground.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected