Science, Spoken

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Doctors and Patients Reel After Trump’s Immigration Ban Feb 06, 2017

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Azi Tourkamani is eight months pregnant and working 12-hour shifts at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, New York. She’s a resident doctor in internal medicine. Most days she has so many patients she doesn’t have time to stop and eat lunch; she eats as she walks from floor to floor treating patients.

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Spill-Proof Cups Aren’t Magic. They’re Physics! Feb 03, 2017

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They call it the Mighty Mug-and the idea is that it isn't easily knocked over. Of course, you can tip just about anything over if you try hard enough. But really, how does this work? Let me be clear: I haven't actually played with a Mighty Mug-so most of this is just physics-based speculation. It seems the key component of this mug is some type of suction cup on the bottom. When you put the cup down, a rubber seal forms with a smooth table surface.

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Ever Had a Really Long Acid Trip? Now Science Knows Why Feb 02, 2017

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Few tropes in modern America are as enduring as the LSD Trip Gone Far Too Long. It should all be over after a few hours, right? OK maybe not. Eight? Ten? Probably should have cleared more of my calendar. Even though science has long had an intimate relationship with LSD-chemist Albert Hofmann first synthesized it way back in the '30s-why the drug insists on producing such lengthy hallucinations hasn't been so clear. Until now.

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Trump’s Muslim Ban Isn’t Just Inhumane—It’ll Make America Dumber Feb 01, 2017

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Alireza Edraki spends weekends in the lab. It’s what he does. For the past three years, test tubes full of bacteria have been his constant companions. Not this weekend. “I’m so stressed out that I can’t work,” he says. Edraki is a third-year PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts’ medical school in Worcester. You know Crispr/CAS-9, the gene-editing technology that’s in all the headlines lately? That’s what Edraki works on.

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So You Wanna Get Into Physics. Here Are Three Tips and Tricks Jan 31, 2017

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For many, it's the start of a new semester of physics labs. That means there are new students in that introductory course. Of course, no one is really 100 percent ready to start these labs-but that's OK. Here are three big ideas that I find students need to work on to be successful in lab. Converting Units This is a pretty easy problem to fix, but I think I should go over it.

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First Human-Pig Chimera Is a Step Toward Custom Organs Jan 30, 2017

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Every day, 22 people in America die while waiting for an organ transplant. But when scientists can grow replacement livers or kidneys or pancreases inside of animal hosts, medicine’s organ shortage may end. That’s the hope anyway—and this week there’s more reason to hope than ever that it might become reality. The key to producing human organs in other animals is the chimera, a mixture of cells from more than one species growing together as a single animal.

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How Being Bored Out of Your Mind Makes You More Creative Jan 27, 2017

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“I’m dying of Boredom,” complains the young wife, Yelena, in Chekhov’s 1897 play Uncle Vanya. “I don’t know what to do.” Of course, if Yelena were around today, we know how she’d alleviate her boredom: She’d pull out her smartphone and find something diverting, like BuzzFeed or Twitter or Clash of Clans. If you have a planet’s worth of entertainment in your pocket, it’s easy to stave off ennui.

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Sorry, But Speed Reading Won’t Help You Read More Jan 26, 2017

Show notes

The late Nora Ephron famously felt badly about her neck, but that's minor compared to how people feel about their reading. We think everyone else reads faster than we do, that we should be able to speed up, and that it would be a huge advantage if we could. You could read as much as a book critic for the New York Times. You could finish Infinite Jest. You could read all of Wikipedia.

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It’s Time to Stand Up for the Climate—and for Civilization Jan 25, 2017

Show notes

During his campaign for president, Donald Trump promised to end action on climate change and kill the climate treaty adopted in 2015 in Paris. To truly understand why that’s such a big deal—perhaps the biggest deal ever—you need to think about a few things. Yes, you need to think about the oft-repeated but nonetheless true and alarming statistics: 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded till 2015 snatched the crown—till 2016 obliterated the record.

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Soft Robot Exosuits Will Give You Springier Steps Jan 24, 2017

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Robots are coming to take your jog. Or, at least, your walk. Each spring in your step costs your body calories. Robotic assistants could help ease fatigue for people who earn their living on their feet—or who have been hobbled by disease. But many robotic exoskeletons are so bulky that they actually cause wearers more fatigue.

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