Science, Spoken

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AI Just Learned How to Boost the Brain's Memory Feb 07, 2018

Show notes

When it comes to black boxes, there is none more black than the human brain. Our gray matter is so complex, scientists lament, that it can’t quite understand itself. But if we can’t grok our own brains, maybe the machines can do it for us.

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The WIRED Guide to Climate Change Feb 06, 2018

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The world is busted. For decades, scientists have carefully accumulated data that confirms what we hoped wasn’t true: The greenhouse gas emissions that have steadily spewed from cars and planes and factories, the technologies that powered a massive period of economic growth, came at an enormous cost to the planet’s health. Today, we know that absent any change in our behavior, the average global temperature will rise as much as 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

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The Physics of One of the Craziest Big Air Snowboard Tricks Ever Feb 06, 2018

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Behold the stomach-clenching spectacle of the quad cork 1800. The dizzying snowboarding trick—first landed by British Olympian Billy Morgan, above—involves catapulting off a ramp into four off-axis flips (called corks) and five full spins. Only four people have ever completed the 1,800-degree stunt.

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Could a Vaccine Protect Football Players From Concussions? Feb 05, 2018

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It’s been a turbulent year for the NFL. Ratings plummeted 12 percent in the regular season, even more during the playoffs. It’s hard to know what hurt the league more, its public feuding with the White House over players protesting police brutality during the national anthem or the fact that people don’t watch TV anymore.

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SpaceX Gears Up to Finally, Actually Launch the Falcon Heavy Feb 05, 2018

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After nearly seven years of varying concepts, redesigns, and delays, SpaceX is poised to launch the Falcon Heavy rocket next week on its maiden flight. Last week, SpaceX performed a hold-down firing of the massive rocket’s 27 engines, creating a towering exhaust plume and jolting the space coast with over 5 million pounds of thrust.

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The Squishy Ethics of Sex With Robots Feb 02, 2018

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Sarah Jamie Lewis was thinking about an internet-connected cock ring. As a computer scientist, she could understand the nominal use case. It was studded with accelerometers and other sensors. People with penises were supposed to put it on before having penetrative sex and record things like thrust length, speed, overall time of session … the things that sex experts tell people not to worry about but people with penises worry about anyway.

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The Shrinking Building in Ant-Man and the Wasp Would Cause Massive Problems Feb 02, 2018

Show notes

Maybe you are one of those humans that avoids all trailers because they spoil the movie too much. I am not one of those humans. Which is why I immediately watched a trailer that came out this week for the upcoming Marvel movie Ant-Man and the Wasp. Although I was a huge comic book fan growing up, I never really got into Ant-Man. But the first Ant-Man movie was better than expected—and now I'm looking forward to this sequel. If you don't know about Ant-Man, I'll give you a quick overview.

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A Family’s Race to Cure a Daughter’s Genetic Disease Feb 01, 2018

Show notes

One July afternoon last summer, Matt Wilsey distributed small plastic tubes to 60 people gathered in a Palo Alto, California, hotel. Most of them had traveled thousands of miles to be here; now, each popped the top off a barcoded tube, spat in about half a teaspoon of saliva, and closed the tube. Some massaged their cheeks to produce enough spit to fill the tubes.

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What Good Is Crispr If It Can't Get Where It Needs to Go? Feb 01, 2018

Show notes

Your DNA is your body’s most closely guarded asset. To reach it, any would-be-invaders have to get under your skin, travel through your bloodstream undetected by immune system sentries, somehow cross a cell membrane, and finally find their way into the nucleus. Most of the time, that’s a really good thing. These biological barriers prevent nasty viruses from turning your cells into disease-making factories.

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How Long Beach Is Trying to Cool Down Jan 31, 2018

Show notes

This storyoriginally appeared on CityLaband is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. In a coastal city, it’s easy to assume the greatest climate threat comes from the rising ocean. But in Long Beach, California, the biggest danger is not the sea, but the sun. “We have to deal with sea-level rise,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said. “But it’s not our biggest challenge. The increase in temperature is the real concern right now.

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