Science, Spoken

Latest Episodes:

Physicists Condemn Sexism Through ‘Particles for Justice’ Oct 10, 2018

Show notes

This week, of all weeks, should have been triumphant for women in physics. For her work on lasers, Canadian physicist Donna Strickland became the first female Nobel Laureate for the field after 55 years. She finally joined a short list consisting of just two other women, Marie Curie and Maria Goeppert-Mayer. But Seyda Ipek barely had time to celebrate. The University of California, Irvine physicist was preoccupied: a dumpster fire had just erupted in a neighboring corner of physics culture.

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Bionic Limbs 'Learn' to Open a Beer Oct 10, 2018

Show notes

Andrew Rubin sits with a Surface tablet, watching a white skeletal hand open and close on its screen. Rubin’s right hand was amputated a year ago, but he follows these motions with a special device fitted to his upper arm. Electrodes on his arm connect to a box that records the patterns of nerve signals firing, allowing Rubin to train a prosthetic limb to act like a real hand. “When I think of closing a hand, it’s going to contract certain muscles in my forearm,” he says.

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What One Devastated Community Can Teach the World About Mental Health Oct 09, 2018

Show notes

A year ago, while on a tourist visit to Latvia, Sharon Bard was awoken at 4 am by a buzzing alert from her phone. It was an email from a friend who’d been checking on her home in Santa Rosa, California. Given the alarming news, the email's phrasing was rather gentle: A fire had broken out in the area, officials had ordered evacuations, and Bard’s country house at the end of a road might be affected. Then came the deluge.

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SpaceX Sticks Its Landing after a Showy California Launch Oct 09, 2018

Show notes

“The Falcon has landed.” As SpaceX declared victory on its live webcast, cheers erupted on a southern California hilltop, where a group of watchers had gathered to witness the company’s latest rocket launch (and landing). SpaceX had just achieved another first: touching down a rocket on California soil. Until now, the company’s West Coast landings had all taken place on the deck of the company’s drone ship, Just Read the Instructions.

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STEM Candidates Try to Ride a Pro-Science Wave to Congress Oct 08, 2018

Show notes

When Kim Schrier campaigns in central Washington farm towns, she talks about protecting health care, reforming immigration laws, and the harmful effects of new White House tariffs on the region’s hay, cherry, and apple growers. But she says she also brings up climate change and what it means for local businesses. “Our farmers have a lot of evidence that the climate is changing,” says Schrier, the Democratic candidate for Washington’s eighth congressional district.

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The Insane Physics of Airbags Oct 08, 2018

Show notes

I can imagine the meeting: A dozen engineers are gathered around a conference table to discuss automobile safety. How can we protect people during a car crash? We have already added seat belts and crumple zones to cars. Is there anything else we can include? One attendee reluctantly raises their hand with a suggestion: "How about we add an explosive in the steering wheel?" Brilliant. That's exactly what we will do. We will put a bomb in the car and it will save lives. They were right.

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A Mushroom Extract Might Save Bees from a Killer Virus Oct 05, 2018

Show notes

The bees, as you've probably heard, are dying, in massive numbers. Termed Colony Collapse Disorder, the die-off counts among its causes a parasite aptly named Varroa destructor. A flat, button-shaped, eight-legged critter no more than 2 millimeters long, Varroa mites invade honeybee hives around the world in droves, latch onto their inhabitants, and feed on their tissues, transmitting devastating RNA viruses in the process.

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A Brain-Eating Amoeba Just Claimed Another Victim Oct 05, 2018

Show notes

The temperature in Waco, Texas was approaching 83 degrees last Thursday when Mia Mattioli arrived in search of Naegleria fowleri, a brain-eating, warm-water-loving amoeba that kills almost every person it infects. An environmental engineer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mattioli spent the day at BSR Surf Resort, a local water park, filling fifty-liter jugs with samples from the facility's various attractions.

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Swarms of Super-Sized Mosquitoes Besiege North Carolina Oct 04, 2018

Show notes

Two weeks ago, Hurricane Florence slammed into the Carolinas, unleashing six months of rain in a matter of hours. In inland Cumberland County, the Cape Fear River rose 40 inches, inundating Fayetteville with the worst flooding the city has seen since 1945. But as the waters receded and citizens returned to their ruined homes, a new plague was just beginning to descend.

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Physicists Win Nobel Prize for Lasers That Stretch, Bend and Blow Up Molecules Oct 04, 2018

Show notes

The laser is a tool of many talents, as the Nobel committee well knows. On Tuesday morning in Stockholm, its members announced the year’s physics prize and rattled off a short list of the technologies it has made possible: barcodes, eye surgery, cancer treatment, welding, cutting materials more precisely than a scalpel. They failed to acknowledge the whimsy it has brought cat owners, although one committee member did mention laser light shows. The laser’s resume keeps growing.

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