Science, Spoken

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Want Efficient Energy? Try Carbon Dioxide-Powered Turbines May 30, 2017

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Carbon dioxide is one hell of a molecule. Perhaps you only know it as the stuff humans exhaleand plants inhale, or the primary culprit for climate change. But CO is capable of so much more. For instance, some engineers think it could help make the power industry a little greener. Now, you’re probably thinking this is atwist on carbon capture and storage. Nope. It’s about turbine generators—the enormous machines that convert heat into electricity.

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This New Goldilocks Rocket Is Juuust Right for Small Satellites May 29, 2017

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At 4 pm local time on May 25, Rocket Lab’s Electron stood on the company’s private launch pad on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. Perched on the edge of an eroding cliff, pointing toward the sky from the southern tip of the world, the little rocket—just 56 feet tall and 4 feet wide, meant to carry similarly small satellites—looked ready for its first trip to space.

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Cool Spacewalk, Right? Get Ready for More—ISS Will Need Fixin’ May 26, 2017

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When astronaut Peggy Whitson pushed out of the International Space Station’s airlock on Tuesday morning, she was floating into history. Stipulated, Whitson was already a badass. But this extra-vehicular activity—an EVA, NASAspeak for a spacewalk—was Whitson’s 10th. That ties her for the American record. A PhD biochemist before she became an astronaut, Whitson has now spent more time in space outside a spacecraft than all but two other human beings.

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A Physicist Breaks Down One of Roger Moore’s Iconic Bond Stunts May 25, 2017

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Roger Moore died today. Now, you could argue that Moore was not the best James Bond, and I'd be willing to have that discussion at some point, but I think everyone agrees he made significant contributions to the 007 canon. I certainly think so, if only because when I was a kid, Moore was the James Bond I saw in movie theaters. Sean Connery was the James Bond who appeared on television with older, outdated gadgets.

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Medicine Is Going Digital. The FDA Is Racing to Catch Up May 24, 2017

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When Bakul Patel started as a policy advisor in the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008, he could pretty much pinpoint when a product was going to land in frontof the reviewers in his division. Back when medical devices were heavy on the hardware—your pacemakers and your IUDs—it would take manufacturers years to get them ready for regulatory approval. FDA reviewers could keep up pretty well.

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In Defense of the Reality of Time May 23, 2017

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Physicists and philosophers seem to like nothing more than telling us that everything we thought about the world is wrong. They take a peculiar pleasure in exposing common sense as nonsense. But Tim Maudlin thinks our direct impressions of the world are a better guide to reality than we have been led to believe. Not that he thinks they always are.

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How Boring Old Pension Funds Might Curb Global Warming May 22, 2017

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If civilization still exists a centuryfrom now, Earth ought to throw a parade for pension funds. For all their fiscally conservative stodginess, the people tasked with safeguarding your nest egg are forcing the financial world to pay attention to climate change.

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Scientists 3-D Print Mouse Ovaries That Actually Make Babies May 19, 2017

Show notes

Not all girls grow up to be mothers. Sometimes they choose not to be, and sometimes circumstances take those choices away. A superfluity of cancers and genetic diseases can destroy women’s ovaries. Or treatments like radiation—used to save a woman’s life—can render those egg-producing organs useless. Ovaries also mediate female hormones. Without them, young patients might never go through puberty; grown women could enter menopause early.

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Moms: Your Kids Hijacked Your Brain for Life May 18, 2017

Show notes

One day, a woman is spending her Saturdays doing her normal Saturday stuff—blueberry pancake brunch, curling up on the couch with the cat reading a novel, grabbing a beer with friends. By the next, her life is suddenly and completely about keeping a screaming, floppy, red-faced, cone-headed thing alive using fluids secreted from her chest. Happy birthday to that.

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Your Fidget Spinner Is (Maybe) Making You Smarter May 17, 2017

Show notes

Skip Suva is a fidgeter. When he worked at paper-intensive administrative jobs, he’d doodle incessantly; when he started a coding career last year, he took up fiddling with an SD-card reader that made pleasant snick noises. “Popping the SD card out and clicking it back in,” he laughs. His fidgeting can seem like a crazy tic, Suva admits. But it helps him focus.

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