Science, Spoken

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Meet the Pro-Vaxxers Helping to Stave Off the Next Pandemic Apr 30, 2019

Show notes

Ken Haller is 64, but he vividly remembers having measles when he was 7. And mumps when he was 10. And chickenpox when he was 11, which required him to keep socks on his hands so he wouldn’t gouge his skin from scratching. He still has a faint scar on his nose from one pustule he scratched too intensely. Haller is also a pediatrician who has treated babies who developed meningitis from Haemophilus influenzae (now vaccine-preventable) and became blind—or died.

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Fighting Measles, LA Pulls a Classic Move: Quarantine Apr 30, 2019

Show notes

Hardly anyone actually has measles in Los Angeles (so far; thank goodness). Just five people who passed through the airports, and five residents of the county. Four of those residents are “linked cases,” meaning three got it from one. The problem is, one of those people infected with measles spent some time on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. Another one spent an afternoon in a library at Cal State LA.

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The Plan to Grab the World's Carbon With Supercharged Plants Apr 29, 2019

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In humanity’s battle against man-made climate change, the earth itself provides one of the most important weapons, a natural system that breathes in earth-warming CO2 and exhales oxygen. Yes, I’m talking about plants, engineered by nature itself over the course of millennia to harness the Earth’s natural conditions to turn sunlight and CO2 into oxygen and organic matter. Plants are the key to many climate change-fighting tactics.

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The Meteoric Rise of Family Tree Forensics to Fight Crimes Apr 26, 2019

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Three hundred and sixty six days ago, CeCe Moore woke up to the headline that would change her world: “Suspected Golden State Killer, East Area Rapist arrested after eluding authorities for decades.

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The Machine That Reads Your Mind (Kinda) and Talks (Sorta) Apr 25, 2019

Show notes

Edward Chang keeps a cybernetic implant at his desk, which seems almost calculatedly cool. Chang is a lean, low-voiced neurosurgeon at UC San Francisco. The cybernetic implant—more properly a Brain-Computer Interface—is a floppy, translucent plastic square about the size of my hand, embedded with a 16-by-16 array of titanium dots, each about the size of a cupcake sprinkle. This part sits on top of a brain.

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What’s Known About the SpaceX Crew Dragon Accident Apr 25, 2019

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During a series of engine tests of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft this past Saturday, the vehicle experienced what the company has characterized as an "anomaly." Based upon an unauthorized leaked video of the accident, the company was counting down toward a firing of the Dragon's SuperDraco thrusters when the vehicle exploded. SpaceX has not validated the video, but it is consistent with verbal accounts of the failure that have been shared with Ars.

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In Automation, the Last Motion Will Come Before the Last Mile Apr 24, 2019

Show notes

We talk a lot these days about using robots to manage the problem of the "last mile." Say, getting a package to a doorstep from a local delivery center.Or picking up garbage from a backyard.Or delivering pizza. WIRED OPINION ABOUT Matt Beane is an Assistant Professor of Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara and a Research Affiliate at MIT's Institute for the Digital Economy.

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Offshore Wind Farms Are Spinning Up in the US—At Last Apr 24, 2019

Show notes

On June 1, the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts will shut down, a victim of rising costs and a technology that is struggling to remain economically viable in the United States. But the electricity generated by the aging nuclear station soon will be replaced by another carbon-free source: a fleet of 84 offshore wind turbines rising nearly 650 feet above the ocean's surface.

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Ancestry.com’s Racist Ad Tumbles Into a Cultural Minefield Apr 23, 2019

Show notes

On Thursday, the world’s largest DNA testing company, Ancestry.com, pulled a video advertisement amid a cascade of criticism on social media. The ad, titled, “Inseparable” and cinematically shot to portray a gauzy, gothic moment on the streets of the Antebellum South, depicted a white man offering a black woman a ring and imploring her to “escape to the north” with him. In the captions, they are referred to as “lovers.

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AI Could Predict Death. But What If the Algorithm Is Biased? Apr 23, 2019

Show notes

Earlier this month the University of Nottingham published a study in PloSOne about a new artificial intelligence model that uses machine learning to predict the risk of premature death, using banked health data (on age and lifestyle factors) from Brits aged 40 to 69.

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