Big Picture Science for 06/30/14 - Time for a Map

Big Picture Science - Time for a Map

ENCORE: It’s hard to get lost these days. GPS pinpoints your location to within a few feet. Discover how our need to get from A to B holds clues about what makes us human, and what we lose now that every digital map puts us at the center.

Plus, stories of animal navigation: how a cat found her way home across Florida, and the magnetic navigation systems used by salmon and sea turtles.

Also, why you’ll soon be riding in driverless cars. And, how to map our universe.

Guests:

• John Bradshaw – Director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute, author of Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You A Better Friend to Your Pet and, most recently, Cat Sense
• Kenneth Lohmann – Biologist at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
• Simon Garfield – Author of On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks
• William “Red” Whittaker – Roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University
• James Trefil – Physicist at George Mason University, author of Space Atlas: Mapping the Universe and Beyond

This encore podcast was first released on March 18, 2013.

Permalink: http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/Time_for_a_Map

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Gigantic sprites appear over the USA

Source - Space Weather News for June 25, 2014: http://spaceweather.com

SPRITES OVER THE USA: This week, backyard photographers have been observing gigantic red sprites flickering over the USA.  These electrical discharges, which occur high above thunderclouds, resemble enormous jellyfish and their glow can often be seen hundreds of miles away.  A specimen highlighted on today's edition of Space Weather would dwarf Mt. Everest.  

For more information and observing tips visit http://spaceweather.com.

NASA to Launch Carbon Observatory

Source - NASA Science News for June 24, 2014

NASA is about to launch a satellite dedicated to the study of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) will map global CO2 sources and sinks, and help researchers predict the future of climate change.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/24jun_oco2/

A companion video is posted below and can also be viewed at: http://youtu.be/BZtXdBBzJyA



License: Standard YouTube License

Big Picture Science for 06/23/14 - What Do You Make Of It?

Big Picture Science - What Do You Make Of It?

You are surrounded by products. Most of them, factory-made. Yet there was a time when building things by hand was commonplace, and if something stopped working, well, you jumped into the garage and fixed it, rather than tossing it into the circular file.

Participants at the Maker Faire are bringing back the age of tinkering, one soldering iron and circuit board at a time. Meet the 12-year old who built a robot to solve his Rubik’s Cube, and learn how to print shoes at home. Yes, “print.”

Plus, the woman who started Science Hack Day … the creation of a beard-slash-cosmic-ray detector … the history of the transistor … and new materials that come with nervous systems: get ready for self-healing concrete.

(Photo is a model of the first transistor built in 1947 at the Bell Telephone Labs in New Jersey that led to a Nobel Prize. Today’s computers contain many million transistors … but they’re a lot smaller than this one, which is about the size of a quarter. Credit: Seth Shostak.)

Guests:

• Lucy Beard – Founder of Feetz
• Mark Miodownik – Materials scientist, director of the Institute of Making, University College, London, and author of Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
• Steve Nelson – Team K.I.S.S. Robotics, maker of Beer2D2
• Dan Lankford – Managing director, Wavepoint Ventures
• Ariel Waldman – Founder, Spacehack.org, global instigator of Science Hack Day
• Saurabh Narain – 12 year-old participant in Maker Faire

Permalink: http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/What_Do_You_Make_Of_It_

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

A Laser Message from Space

Source - NASA Science News for June 18, 2014

In early June, a laser beam lanced out of the night sky over California, heralding a breakthrough in space communications.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/18jun_opals/

A companion video is posted below and can also be viewed at: http://youtu.be/S8uL8ox-SlQ



License: Standard YouTube License

Big Picture Science for 06/16/14 - Skeptic Check: Check the Skeptics

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Check the Skeptics

One day, coffee is good for you; the next, it’s not. And it seems that everything you eat is linked to cancer, according to research. But scientific studies are not always accurate. Insufficient data, biased measurements, or a faulty analysis can trip them up.

And that’s why scientists are always skeptical.

Hear one academic say that more than half of all published results are wrong, but that science still remains the best tool we have for learning about nature.

Also, a cosmologist points to reasons why science can never give us all the answers.

And why the heck are scientists so keen to put a damper on spontaneous combustion?

Studies discussed in this episode:

• Chocolate and red wine aren’t good for you after all
• The Moon is younger than we thought

Guests:

• John Ioannidis – Professor of medicine, health research and policy, and statistics, and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University. His paper, “Why Most Published Research Findings are False,” was published in PLoS Medicine.
• Marcelo Gleiser – Physicist and astronomer at Dartmouth College, author of The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
• Joe Schwarcz – – Professor of chemistry and Director of the Office for Science and Society, McGill University, Montreal and author of Is That a Fact?: Frauds, Quacks, and the Real Science of Everyday Life

Permalink: http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/Skeptic_Check_Check_the_Skeptics

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Solar Mini-Max

Source - NASA Science News for June 10, 2014

NASA and NOAA agree: Solar Max has arrived, but this "mini Max" is not like any other solar maximum of the Space Age.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/10jun_solarminimax/

A companion video is posted below and can also be viewed at: http://youtu.be/8Ha7X6dWVQE



License: Standard YouTube License

New Sunspot Sparks Double X-Flare

Source - Space Weather News for June 10, 2014: http://spaceweather.com

DOUBLE X-FLARE:  Breaking a weeks-long spell of quiet, the sun erupted on June 10th, producing not one but two X-class solar flares. The source is a new sunspot just emerging over the sun's southeastern limb. This active region is not squarely facing our planet.  However, it will become increasingly geoeffective as it turns toward Earth in the days ahead.

Check http://spaceweather.com for details and updates.

Big Picture Science for 06/09/14 - Apt to Adapt

Big Picture Science - Apt to Adapt

If you move with the times, you might stick around long enough to pass on your genes. And that is adaptation and evolution, in a nutshell.

But humans are changing their environment faster than their genes can keep pace. This has led to a slew of diseases – from backache to diabetes – according to one evolutionary biologist. And our technology may not get us out of the climate mess we’ve created. So just how good are we at adapting to the world around us?

Find out as you also discover why you should run barefoot … the history of rising tides … why one dedicated environmentalist has thrown in the towel … and an answer to the mystery of why Hawaiian crickets suddenly stopped chirping.

Guests:

• Daniel Lieberman – Professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, author of The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease
• Brian Fagan – Emeritus professor of anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels
• Paul Kingsnorth – Environmental journalist and author of Real England: The Battle Against the Bland and The Wake. The profile of his retreat from environmentalism appeared in the “New York Times Magazine”.
• Marlene Zuk – Evolutionary biologist, University of Minnesota

Permalink: http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/Apt_to_Adapt

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Rosetta Comet Comes Alive

Source - NASA Science News for June 3, 2014

Later this year, Europe's Rosetta probe will orbit and land on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. New images of the comet show that it will be a lively place when Rosetta arrives.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/03jun_rosetta/

A companion video is posted below and can also be viewed at: http://youtu.be/4x-u3v_CTcM




License: Standard YouTube License

NASA's 'Flying Saucer' Readies for First Test Flight

Source - NASA Science News for June 2, 2014

To test a new technology for landing heavy payloads on Mars, NASA is about to drop a flying-saucer shaped vehicle from a helium balloon 120,000 ft above Earth's surface.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/02jun_saucer/

Big Picture Science for 06/02/14 - A New Hope for Life In Space

Big Picture Science - A New Hope for Life In Space

Alien life. A flurry of recent discoveries has shifted the odds of finding it. Scientists use the Kepler telescope to spot a planet the same size and temperature as Earth … and announce that there could be tens of billions of similar worlds, just in our galaxy!

Plus, new gravity data suggests a mammoth reservoir of water beneath the icy skin of Saturn’s moon Enceladus … and engineers are already in a race to design drills that can access the subsurface ocean of another moon, Jupiter’s Europa.

Meanwhile, Congress holds hearings to assess the value of looking for life in space. Seth Shostak goes to Washington to testify. Hear what he said and whether the exciting discoveries in astrobiology have stimulated equal enthusiasm among those who hold the purse strings.

Guests:

• Elisa Quintana – Research scientist at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center
• Christopher McKay – Planetary scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
• Victoria Siegel – Autonomous systems engineer for Stone Aerospace Inc.
• Cynthia Phillips – Planetary geologist, SETI Institute

Permalink: http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/A_New_Hope_for_Life_In_Space

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.