Science, Spoken

Latest Episodes:

How Cannabis Tech Can Help Build a Better Cup of Coffee Mar 28, 2018

Show notes

In the hills near Santa Barbara, something funky is growing. No, it’s not the newest strain of bubba kush. It’s coffee, sprouting farther north than it should be. Coffee belongs in the tropics—it doesn't like cold snaps. But here at Frinj Coffee, a special variety called geisha flourishes. And it’s about to get a whole lot more special—thanks, actually, to cannabis.

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How Kids Can Use 'Screen Time' to Their Advantage Mar 27, 2018

Show notes

I don’t think I’m the only parent who frets about their kids’ screen time. The Phineas and Ferb binges. Saturday nights playing Uncharted. It’s all turning their brains to sausage, right? Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik wants us to take a deep breath—and focus less on how much kids use tech and more on how kids can use tech to their advantage.

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Ski Resorts Fight Climate Change With Snow Blowers and Buses Mar 27, 2018

Show notes

After a wimpy winter, spring break has arrived, and skiers and snowboarders from Maine to Mammoth Lakes are stoked. More than 18 feet of snow has dropped at Squaw Valley, Calif., in March; Utah’s famed powder resorts have finally broken the 100-inch mark; and New England has been pummeled by four big storms pushing closing dates to late April. At the same time, there are warning signs about the future of the sport.

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In Search of God’s Mathematical Perfect Proofs Mar 26, 2018

Show notes

Paul ErdÅ‘s, the famously eccentric, peripatetic and prolific 20th-century mathematician, was fond of the idea that God has a celestial volume containing the perfect proof of every mathematical theorem. “This one is from The Book,” he would declare when he wanted to bestow his highest praise on a beautiful proof. Never mind that ErdÅ‘s doubted God’s very existence.

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Will Cutting Calories Make You Live Longer? Mar 26, 2018

Show notes

More than a decade ago, researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge began recruiting young, healthy Louisianans to voluntarily go hungry for two years. In addition to cutting their daily calories by 25 percent, the dozens who enrolled also agreed to a weekly battery of tests; blood draws, bone scans, swallowing a pill that measures internal body temperature.

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See Everything Bad About Climate Change in a Single California Town Mar 23, 2018

Show notes

Montecito is coming back to life this morning. The 9,000 person town to the east of Santa Barbara has been empty since Tuesday, when mandatory evacuations forced residents out of their homes for the fifth time in four months. This week it was a channel of tropical moisture called the Pineapple Express, dumping bands of intense rain and triggering flash floods throughout Southern California.

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In the Courtroom, Climate Science Needs Substance—and Style Mar 23, 2018

Show notes

Chevron would like you to know that it believes in climate change. It also believes people cause it by burning carbon-based fuel—the kind Chevron extracts from the ground, refines, and sells. In fact, Chevron believes all this so hard that today its lawyer said so, in a federal court in San Francisco. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Yup. They’re right. That’s not as up-is-down as it might sound; Chevron representatives have said as much before.

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Robot Microscopes Demystify Plankton, the Sea's Most Vital Residents Mar 23, 2018

Show notes

Do you like a planet that hasn’t yet melted? Do you like sushi? How about breathing? Then you’re secretly in love with plankton, tiny marine organisms that float around at the mercy of currents. They sequester carbon dioxide and provide two thirds of the oxygen in our atmosphere and sacrifice themselves as baby food for the young fish that eventually end up on your plate. Yet science knows little about the complex dynamics of plankton on ocean-wide scales.

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Med Students Are Getting Terrible Training in Robotic Surgery Mar 22, 2018

Show notes

If you think your on-the-job training was tough, imagine what life is like for newbie surgeons. Under the supervision of a veteran doctor, known as an attending, trainees help operate on a real live human, who might have a spouse and kids—and, if something goes awry, a very angry lawyer. Now add to the mix the da Vinci robotic surgery system, which operators control from across the room, precisely guiding instruments from a specially-designed console.

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Google's Quantum Computing Party Is as Fancy as Physics Gets Mar 21, 2018

Show notes

“Want to come to a quantum computing party?” I wasn’t expecting the question. My brain was hurting: I’d just finished an hour-long interview with Jarrod McClean, a Google quantum computing scientist, and I was mentally planning to write up my notes. His talk had caught my attention the day before: McClean spoke animatedly, bobbing a magnificent head of shoulder-length ringlets, as he pointed at equations and diagrams on a PowerPoint presentation.

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