Unsung Science

Latest Episodes:

Deepfakes: Big Tech Fights Back Feb 17, 2023

Show notes

Deepfakes, those computer-generated videos of well-known people saying things they never actually said, strike a lot of experts as terrifying. If we can’t even trust videos we see online, how does democracy stand a chance?

As photo- and video-manipulation apps get cheaper and better, the rise of fake Obamas, Trumps, and Ukrainian presidents seemed unstoppable. But then a coalition of 750 camera, software, news, and social-media companies got together to embrace an ingenious way to shut the deepfakers down—not by detecting when videos are fake, but by offering proof that they’re real.

Guests: Dana Rao, chief counsel and executive vice president of Adobe.

Eric Horvitz, chief scientific officer, Microsoft.

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The Mars Helicopter That Would Not Die Feb 03, 2023

Show notes

The star attraction of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission is the Perseverance rover. But bolted to its underside was a stowaway: A tiny, 19-inch helicopter called Ingenuity. She was intended to fly five times on Mars, as a wild experiment to see if anything could fly in Mars’s incredibly thin atmosphere. But as the speed, altitude, length, and usefulness of Ingenuity’s flights improved, her mission was extended indefinitely. Ingenuity is still flying, nearly a year after its original mission was to end—and now, NASA is designing a new generation of Mars helicopters, based on her unlikely success. In this episode, meet the three engineers who created Ingenuity—and kept her flying against all physical, planetary, and managerial odds.

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ChatGPT and the End of Writing Jan 20, 2023

Show notes

In early 2023 ChatGPT blew up the internet. It’s an AI app that can create any piece of writing you ask for. Poems, homework, lyrics, essays, outlines, recipes, interview questions, and even code. All are indistinguishable from something written by a person, all instantaneous and free.

In schools, cheaters began cheating immediately. Educators were horrified, calling it the end of homework, college-entrance essays, and even writing skills. New York City schools banned it. Experts called it a potential factory for misinformation (ChatGPT routinely writes authoritative-sounding articles that are simply wrong). Everyone agrees that ChatGPT is disruptive. But how do we keep the good—and prevent the terrifying?

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Introducing: Season 2 of Unsung Science with David Pogue Jan 13, 2023

Show notes

From NASA helicopters in space to robot bouys at sea, “CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent David Pogue is covering all the latest innovations across tech and science on season 2 of Unsung Science. Hear interviews with industry leaders who take you behind the scenes of the world’s greatest advances in transportation, food, space, internet, and health. New episodes every other Friday.

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Back to Titanic Part 2 Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

In “Back to Titanic” Part 1, David Pogue told of his invitation to join an expedition to visit the wreck of the Titanic in a custom submersible. The company, OceanGate, ordinarily charges $250,000 per person, as part of a new wave in adventure travel.

Bad weather immediately canceled the dive that Pogue and the “CBS Sunday Morning” crew were scheduled to join—but the CEO offered a consolation dive to the Grand Banks. The sights were said to include shark breeding grounds, towering underwater cliffs, and marine species never seen before.

Just as the sub was descending beneath the waves, the order to halt came from mission control.

In this episode, the story concludes.

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Back to Titanic Part 1 Nov 27, 2022

Show notes

The wreck of the Titanic lies about 2.4 miles below sea level. Only five submersibles in the world can carry people to that depth—and four of them have been retired or reassigned. The one remaining sub is something special. First, it holds five people comfortably (instead of two or three uncomfortably). Second, it’s the only one made of carbon fiber. And third, you can buy your way onto it. For $250,000, OceanGate Expeditions will take you down to visit the world’s most famous shipwreck. Deep sea is the new outer space. So when OceanGate invited David Pogue and a “CBS Sunday Morning” crew to join the latest expedition, they jumped at the chance. Here’s what happened during their eight days at sea.

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The Secret of Baby Carrots Nov 20, 2022

Show notes

If you type the word “carrot” into Google Images, you get thousands of photos of the classic root vegetable. They’re all full-length, orange, straight, and pointy. Which is a little odd, because 70% of all the carrots we buy are, in fact, baby carrots.

Or at least we think they’re baby carrots. Turns out baby carrots aren’t baby at all. And the story of their creation is twisty, uplifting, and super satisfying. It’s all about a California carrot farmer with a distaste for waste—and a frustrated ex-wife.

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How Impossible Meats Might Save the Earth Feb 11, 2022

Show notes

People talk about greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, planes, and factories, but one source out-pollutes them all: Cows. Raising meat animals like cows generates more methane than the entire fossil-fuel industry. So Pat Brown left his job as a Stanford biochemistry professor to dedicate his life to fixing the problem. He vowed to create perfect meat replicas using only plant ingredients. His Impossible Burger is already a megahit—but can he be serious about replacing all beef, pork, chicken, and fish by 2035?

Guest: Pat Brown, CEO and founder, Impossible Foods

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The Man Who Stopped the Spammers Feb 04, 2022

Show notes

By the year 2000, the internet was already becoming a cesspool. The bad guys used software bots to sign up for millions of fake email accounts—for sending out spam.

PhD student Luis Von Ahn stopped them. He invented the CAPTCHA, that website login test where you have to decipher the distorted image of a word. Or you have to find the traffic lights or fire hydrants in a grid of nine blurry photos.

Those tests help to keep down the volume of spam, spyware, and misinformation; they advance the clarity of digitized books and the intelligence of self-driving cars; and, by the way, they made a handsome profit.

The only problem: We HATE those tests!

Guest: Luis Von Ahn, co-inventor of CAPTCHA, co-inventor and CEO of Duolingo.

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Where Emoji Come From Jan 28, 2022

Show notes

Each year, the powers that be endow our phones with about 70 new emoji. For 2022, you’ll be getting a mirror ball, a crutch, an X-ray, coral, a ring buoy, and a bird’s nest—with or without eggs in it.

But who ARE the powers that be? Why do they add the emoji they add? Why do we have a blowfish but not a catfish? Why do we have police car, police officer, and judge, but not handcuffs, jail, or prison?

In this hilarious episode, you’ll meet the shadowy figures who choose which symbols get added to the permanent set each year. You’ll hear about the Apple bagel disaster, the Android cheeseburger kerfluffle, and the floating beer-foam episode. And you’ll meet the 15-year-old whose emoji campaign changed the world—and probably got her into Stanford.

Guests: Jennifer Daniel, director of emoji at Google; head of emoji for the Unicode Consortium

Mark Davis, cofounder and president, Unicode Consortium

Rayouf Alhumedi, creator of the hijab emoji

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