Science, Spoken

Latest Episodes:

How to Follow New Horizons' Historic Flyby of Ultima Thule Jan 01, 2019

Show notes

For the past 13 years, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has been bolting away from the sun at speeds in excess of 31,000 miles per hour, charting a course for the fringes of our solar system. In 2015, it made a close pass of Pluto, returning the highest resolution images of the erstwhile planet the world has ever seen.

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

The Year in Robots, From Boston Dynamics to (RIP) Baxter Dec 31, 2018

Show notes

Depending on your perspective, 2018 either brought us closer to salvation by way of robots, or closer to doom by way of robots: Where some see the end of meaningless work, others see the end of humanity, also meaningless. (We’re in the former camp, by the way.

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

This Year SpaceX Made Us All Believe in Reusable Rockets Dec 31, 2018

Show notes

At the beginning of 2018, Elon Musk predicted that SpaceX would pull off 30 launches. The goal seemed far-fetched; among other reasons, some of those flights were planned for the Falcon Heavy, which at the time had yet to fly. Indeed, the company didn’t hit that figure. But the 21 launches it did pull off in 2018 still amount to a staggering achievement for the 16-year-old company.

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

NASA's New Horizons Probe Prepares To Make History—Again Dec 28, 2018

Show notes

Way, way out at the cold, dark edges of the solar system—past the rocky inner planets, beyond the gas giants, a billion miles more remote than Pluto—drifts a tiny frozen world so mysterious, scientists still aren't entirely sure if it's one world or two. Astronomers call it Ultima Thule, an old cartography term meaning "beyond the known world.

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

Don't Fear the Robot Overlords—Embrace Them as Coworkers Dec 27, 2018

Show notes

In a chilly warehouse just outside of Boston, the brute toils away. It’s 600 pounds of orange and black metal and whirring motors, a massive robotic arm that picks up car parts and places them on a table. Like its ancestors have done for decades, this industrial robot does the heavy lifting that no human worker could manage, and it does so with extreme speed and precision.

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

The Future of Crime-Fighting Is Family Tree Forensics Dec 26, 2018

Show notes

In April, a citizen scientist named Barbara Rae-Venter used a little-known genealogy website called GEDMatch to help investigators find a man they’d been looking for for nearly 40 years: The Golden State Killer. In the months since, law enforcement agencies across the country have flocked to the technique, arresting a flurry of more than 20 people tied to some of the most notorious cold cases of the last five decades.

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

It's Not a Myth: Quantum Messages Really Can Travel Faster Dec 24, 2018

Show notes

Quantum computers are still a dream, but the era of quantum communication is here. A new experiment out of Paris has demonstrated, for the first time, that quantum communication is superior to classical ways of transmitting information.

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

The DRC's Ebola Outbreak Is an End-of-Year Nightmare Dec 21, 2018

Show notes

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

Confirmed! Scientists Did See Gravitational Waves (Probably) Dec 21, 2018

Show notes

After the historic announcement in February 2016 hailing the discovery of gravitational waves, it didn’t take long for skeptics to emerge. The detection of these feeble undulations in the fabric of space and time by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) was said to have opened a new ear on the cosmos. But the following year, a group of physicists at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen published a paper casting doubt on LIGO’s analysis.

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

We've Got the Screen Time Debate All Wrong. Let's Fix It Dec 20, 2018

Show notes

In 1995, New York City psychiatrist Ivan Goldberg logged onto PsyCom.net, then a popular message board for shrinks, to describe a new disease he called "internet addiction disorder," symptoms of which, he wrote, included giving up important social activities because of internet use and "voluntary or involuntary typing movements of the fingers." It was supposed to be a joke. But to his surprise, many of his colleagues took him seriously.

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

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected