Big Picture Science for Feb 17, 2025: Skeptic Check: Into the DeepSeek

Big Picture Science: Skeptic Check: Into the DeepSeek

When the Chinese developer of DeepSeek released its model R1, a rift opened up in Silicon Valley. The company, a relatively unknown player, appeared to have created a better and cheaper model than its American competitors. Some big voices in the tech world called it a “Sputnik moment.” Others worried that the open-source model would allow malicious actors to harness the power of this AI technology. But did the arrival of DeepSeek significantly change how artificial intelligence will unfold? We explore that question and ask whether one particular sci-fi franchise got it right when portraying our anxiety about runaway AI.

Guests:

• Alex Kantrowitz – Tech journalist and founder of the podcast and newsletter Big Technology
• Kristian Hammond – Professor of computer science at Northwestern University and Director of the Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence
• Dorian Lynskey – podcaster and author of “Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World”

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-into-the-deepseek

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Big Picture Science for Feb 10, 2025: Chasing an Asteroid

Big Picture Science: Chasing an Asteroid

Everyone knows that a big rock wiped out the dinosaurs. But the danger from an asteroid hitting Earth is not limited to ancient history. To deal with this threat, scientists recently ran an experiment to deflect a potential “city killer.” We’ll hear the results of that experiment, and about a visit to another asteroid. In the dusty material NASA brought back from the asteroid Bennu, scientists found the chemical building blocks of life, including many of the amino acids that are found in our cells. Could an asteroid have brought the ingredients for life to ancient Earth? In this episode, we look at our paradoxical relationship with the space rocks that taketh way – and may help giveth - life.

Guests:

• Scott Sandford - Astrophysicist and Research Scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center
• Robin George Andrews - Science journalist, volcanologist, and author of "How to Kill an Asteroid: The Real Science of Planetary Defense"

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/chasing-an-asteroid

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

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Big Picture Science for Feb 03, 2025: Coming to Our Animal Senses

Big Picture Science - Coming to Our Animal Senses

REPEAT
Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are not restricted to vision: Elephants can hear subsonic sounds, birds navigate by magnetism, and your dog lives in a world marked by odors. In this episode, we speak to science journalist Ed Yong about how other creatures sense the world. Could we ever understand what it’s like to have the hearing of a bat or the sight of a hawk?

Guest:

• Ed Yong – Science writer for The Atlantic whose coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned him a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism. He is the author of, “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.” 

This repeat podcast originally aired on September 5, 2022

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/coming-to-our-animal-senses

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

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Big Picture Science for Jan 27, 2025: Skeptic Check: Drone Panic

 

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Drone Panic

When several mysterious objects were spotted flying over New Jersey, their unknown identity led to frightening rumors, and triggered frustration and alarm among some residents of the Garden State. What were these objects, and if they were drones, as some appeared to be, were they friendly or foe? Many of the objects have now been identified. We talk about what happened when calmer heads prevailed and consider what the Great Drone Panic might have in common with other episodes involving objects cruising the skies. Also, why one expert thinks the event gave birth to a new UFO subculture.

Guests:

• Andrew Fraknoi - Professor of Astronomy at the Fromm Institute of the University of San Francisco
• Mick West - Investigator of conspiracy theories and UFO sightings
• Greg Eghigian - Professor of history and bioethics at Penn State and author of “After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon”

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-drone-panic

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Jan 20, 2025: The Best Things in Life are Tree(s)

 

Big Picture Science - The Best Things in Life are Tree(s)

While humans were leaving the Stone Age and entering the Bronze, some Bristlecone pine trees grew from seeds to sprouts. They’ve been growing ever since. These 5,000-year-old pines are among the oldest organisms on Earth. Superlatives are also appropriate for the towering redwoods.

Trees are amazing in many ways. They provide us with timber and cool us with shade, they sequester carbon and release oxygen, and are home to countless species. But they are also marvels of evolutionary adaptation. We consider the beauty and diversity of trees, and learn why their future is intertwined with ours.

Guests:

• Kevin Dixon - Naturalist at The East Bay Regional Park District, Oakland, California
• Daniel Lewis - Environmental historian and senior curator for the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library, art museum and botanical gardens in Pasadena, California, professor of the natural sciences and the environment at Caltech, and author of “Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of our Future”

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/best-things-life-are-trees

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

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Big Picture Science for Jan 13, 2025: The Ocean’s Genome

 

Big Picture Science - The Ocean’s Genome

REPEAT
After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn’t retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin’s voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems.

Guests:

• Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean’s Microbiome.”
• Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition.

This repeat podcast originally aired on December 18, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-oceans-genome

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Jan 06, 2025: Night Flight

 

Big Picture Science - Night Flight

REPEAT
Owls are both the most accessible and elusive of birds. Every child can recognize one, but you’ll be lucky to spot an owl in a tree, even if you’re looking straight at it. Besides their camouflage and silent flight, these mostly nocturnal birds, with their amazing vision and hearing, are most at home in the dead of night, a time humans find alien and scary. Ecologist Carl Safina got to know an injured baby screech owl well. Their relationship saved the owl’s life and gave Safina insider’s wisdom about these aerial hunters of the night.

Guests:

• Carl Safina – ecologist at Stony Brook University, head of the non-profit Safina Center, and author of “Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe”
• Tom Damiami – natural resources interpreter, singer on Long Island, NY and leader of the Shelter Island Owl Prowl
• Gordy Slack – science writer, former senior editor of California Wild, the science and natural history magazine published by the California Academy of Sciences

This repeat podcast originally aired on November 6, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/night-flight

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

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Big Picture Science for Dec. 30, 2024: Skeptic Check: Naomi Klein

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Naomi Klein

REPEAT
Our information age is increasingly the disinformation age. The spread of lies and conspiracy theories has created competing experiences of reality. Facts are often useless for changing minds or even making compelling arguments. In this episode, author Naomi Klein and science philosopher Lee McIntyre discuss why the goal – not simply the byproduct - of spreading disinformation is to polarize society. They also offer ideas about how we might find our way back to a shared objective truth.

Guests:

• Naomi Klein - Associate professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia and a co-director at the Center for Climate Justice. Author of Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
• Lee McIntyre - Philosopher of science and a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and the History of Science at Boston University, and author of Post-Truth and On Disinformation.

This repeat podcast originally aired on December 11, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-naomi-klein

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

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Big Picture Science for Dec. 23, 2024 - 2024: Extraordinary Ordinary Objects

Big Picture Science - 2024: Extraordinary Ordinary Objects

REPEAT
“To live is to count and to count is to calculate.”  But before we plugged in the computer to express this ethos, we pulled out the pocket calculator. It became a monarch of mathematics that sparked a computing revolution. But it’s not the only deceptively modest innovation that changed how we work and live. Find out how sewing a scrap of fabric into clothing helped define private life and how adding lines to paper helped build an Empire. Plus, does every invention entail irrevocable cultural loss?

Guests:

• Keith Houston – author of “Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator.”
• Hannah Carlson – teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, author of “Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.”
• Dominic Riley – bookbinder in the U.K.

This repeat podcast originally aired on October 30, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/extraordinary-ordinary-objects

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Dec. 16, 2024 - 2024: Our Space Odyssey

Big Picture Science - 2024: Our Space Odyssey

This year has been a spectacular one for celestial phenomena. The northern lights delighted in unexpected ways while a total solar eclipse cast a shadow across North America. Those events were enough to make it a memorable year, but 2024 also shook up our understanding of the universe. A new reading of Voyager 2 data may explain Uranus’s weird magnetic field. And the impressive James Webb Space Telescope has detected an early and incredibly distant galaxy. Join us in our look back at some of the top space news from 2024.

Guests:

• Andrew Fraknoi – Professor of Astronomy at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and SETI board member
• Jamie Jasinski - space plasma physicist for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and author of a recent paper re-examining data from the Voyager 2 mission, published in Nature.
• Phil Plait - astronomer, author, science communicator and frequent contributor at Scientific American.

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/2024-our-space-odyssey

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Dec. 09, 2024 - A Real Gas

Big Picture Science - A Real Gas

Just because something is invisible doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We can’t see gases in our atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen, but we benefit from their presence with every breath we take. From the bubbles that effervesce in soda to the vapors that turn engines, gases are part of our lives. They fill our lungs, give birth to stars, and… well, how would we spot a good diner without glowing neon? In this episode, a materials scientist shares the history of some gaseous substances that we don’t usually see, but that make up our world.

Guest:

• Mark Miodownik – Professor of materials and society at the University College London and the author of “It’s a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World.”

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/a-real-gas

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Dec. 01, 2024 - Going Multicellular

 

 

Big Picture Science - Going Multicellular

REPEAT
Imagine life without animals, trees, and fungi. The world would look very different. But while the first life was surely single-celled, we don’t know just how it evolved to multicellular organisms. Two long-term experiments hope to find out, and one has been running for more than 35 years. Hear about the moment scientists watched evolution take off in the lab, and how directed evolution was used to create a multicellular organism. Also, how single embryonic cells become humans, and what all of this says about the possibility of life on other worlds.

Guests:

• Jeff Barrick – molecular scientist at the University of Texas at Austin where his lab oversees the Long-Term Evolution Experiment that’s been running since 1988.
• Will Ratcliff – an evolutionary biologist at Georgia Institute of Technology
• Ben Stanger – cancer researcher, professor of medicine and developmental biology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “From One Cell: A Journey into Life’s Origins and the Future of Medicine.”
• Joseph L. Graves – evolutionary biologist and geneticist at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and author of “A Voice in the Wilderness: A Pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Our Biggest Problems.”

This repeat podcast originally aired on October 9, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/going-multicellular

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Nov. 25, 2024 - Skeptic Check: Near Death Experiences

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Near Death Experiences

REPEAT
Near death experiences can be profound and even life changing. People describe seeing bright lights, staring into the abyss, or meeting dead relatives. Many believe these experiences to be proof of an afterlife.

But now, scientists are studying these strange events and gaining insights into the brain and consciousness itself. Will we uncover the scientific underpinning of these near-death events?

Guests:

• Steve Paulson - executive producer of To the Best of Our Knowledge for Wisconsin Public Radio
• Sebastian Junger - journalist, filmmaker and author of “The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea”
• Christoph Koch - neuroscientist at the Allen Institute in Seattle and chief scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation in Santa Monica California
• Daniel Kondziella - neuroscientist in the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Copenhagen

This repeat podcast originally aired on September 25, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-near-death-experiences

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Nov. 18, 2024 - Beyond the Periodic Table

 

Big Picture Science - Beyond the Periodic Table

You interact with about two-thirds of the elements of the periodic table every day. Some, like carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, make up our bodies and the air we breathe. Yet there is also a class of elements so unstable they can only be made in a lab. These superheavy elements are the purview of a small group stretching the boundaries of chemistry. Can they extend the periodic table beyond the 118 in it now? Find out scientists are using particle accelerators to create element 120 and why they’ve skipped over element 119. Plus, if an element exists for only a fraction of a second in the lab, can we still say that counts as existing?

Guests:

• Mark Miodownik – professor of materials and society at the University of College London and the author of “It’s a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World.”
• Kit Chapman – Science historian at Falmouth University, author of “Superheavy; Making and Breaking the Periodic Table.”
• Jennifer Pore – Research Scientist of Heavy Elements at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/beyond-the-periodic-table

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Nov. 11, 2024 - Amazing Amazonia

Big Picture Science - Amazing Amazonia

The Amazon is often described as an ecosystem under dire threat due to climate change and deliberate deforestation. Yet there is still considerable hope that these threats can be mitigated.  In the face of these threats, indigenous conservationists are attempting to strike a balance between tradition and preserving Amazonia.  Meanwhile, two river journeys more than 100 years apart – one by a contemporary National Geographic reporter and another by “The Lewis and Clark of Brazil”— draw attention to the beauty and diversity of one of the world’s most important ecosystems.

Guests:

• Cynthia Gorney – Contributing writer at the National Geographic Society, former bureau chief for South America at The Washington Post
• Larry Rohter – Reporter and correspondent in Rio de Janeiro for fourteen years for Newsweek and as The New York Times bureau chief. Author of Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist
• João Campos-Silva – Brazilian researcher and conservationist, and cofounder of Instituto Jura, a conservation organization.  His work, along with that of other conservationists, is featured in the National Geographic issue devoted to the Amazon.

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/amazing-amazonia

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

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