Big Picture Science for Sept 30, 2019 - Headed For Trouble

Big Picture Science - Headed For Trouble

The stone heads on Easter Island are an enduring mystery: why were they built and why were they abandoned and destroyed?  The old ideas about cultural collapse are yielding to new ones based on careful investigation on the ground - but also from above.  What surprising explanations have we found and are we off base to think that ancient societies such as the Easter Islanders or the classical Egyptians were, in the end, failures?  Can what we learn from these histories help predict which societies will survive?

Guests:

• James Grant Peterkin – Tour guide, resident, and British Honorary Consul on Easter Island
• Sarah Parcak – Archaeologist, Egyptologist, remote sensing expert, professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and author of Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past
• Carl Lipo – Anthropologist and professor at Binghamton University, State University of New York

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/headed-for-trouble

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

Big Picture Science for Sept 23, 2019 - Keeping Humans in the Loop

Big Picture Science - Keeping Humans in the Loop

(Repeat) Modern technology is great, but could we be losing control?  As our world becomes more crowded and demands for resources are greater, some people worry about humanity’s uncertain prospects.  An eminent cosmologist considers globe-altering developments such as climate change and artificial intelligence. Will we be able to stave off serious threats to our future?

There’s also another possible source of danger: our trendy digital aids.  We seem all-too-willing to let algorithms classify and define our wants, our needs, and our behavior. Instead of using technology, are we being used by it – to inadvertently become social media’s product?

And while we may be skittish about the increased data our technology collects, one sci-fi writer imagines a future in which information is a pervasive and freely available commodity.

Guests:

• Martin Rees – Cosmologist, astrophysicist, and Great Britain’s Astronomer Royal.  Author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity.
• Douglas Rushkoff – Media theorist and professor of media theory and digital economics, City University of New York.  Author of Team Human.
• Malka Older – Author and humanitarian worker, author of The Centenal Cycle.

This repeat podcast was previously released on 02/11/2019

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/keeping-humans-in-the-loop

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

Big Picture Science for Sept 16, 2019 - Rip Van Winkle Worm

Big Picture Science - Rip Van Winkle Worm

(Repeat) Your shower pipes are alive.  So are your sinks, books, and floorboards.  New studies of our homes are revealing just what species live there – in the thousands, from bacteria to flies to millipedes.  Meanwhile, life keeps surprising us by popping up in other unexpected places: the deep biosphere houses the majority of the world’s bacteria and the Arctic tundra has kept worms frozen, but alive, for 40,000 years.

We embrace the multitude of life living on us, in us, and – as it turns out – in every possible ecological niche.  Most of it is harmless, some is beneficial, and it’s all testament to the amazing diversity and adaptability of life.  In addition, the hardiest organisms suggest where we might find life beyond Earth.

Guests:

• Rob Dunn – Professor of applied ecology at North Carolina State University and at the Natural History Museum at the University of Copenhagen. Author of “Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live.”
• Lynn Rothschild – Astrobiologist and synthetic biologist at the NASA Ames Research Center.
• Karen Lloyd – Environmental microbiologist and associate professor at the University of Tennessee.

This repeat podcast was previously released on 01/21/2019

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/rip-van-winkle-worm

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

Big Picture Science for Sept 09, 2019 - For Good Measure

Big Picture Science - For Good Measure

The reign of Le Grand K has come to an end. After 130 years, this hunk of metal sitting in a Parisian vault will no longer define the kilogram. The new kilogram mass will be defined by Planck’s constant, joining three other units for redefinition by fundamental constants.  But as we measure with increasing precision – from cesium atomic clocks to gravity waves 1000th the width of a proton – is something fundamental lost along the way?  Meanwhile, the BiPiSci team accepts the banana-measurement challenge.

Guests:
Jon Pratt – Mechanical engineer and engineer and Chief of the Quantum Measurement Division of the Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
Wolfgang Ketterle – Physicist at MIT, Nobel Laureate
Simon Winchester – Author of “The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World”

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/for-good-measure

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

My apologies for posting this a week late. You know, life and all.

Big Picture Science for Sept 02, 2019 - Skeptic Check: Data Bias

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Data Bias

Sexist snow plowing?  Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender.  In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.”   Human bias also infects artificial intelligence, with speech recognition triggered only by male voices and facial
recognition that can’t see black faces.  We question the assumptions baked into these numbers and algorithms.

Guests:

• Caroline Criado-Perez - Journalist and author of “Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men”
• Kade Crockford - Director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts
• Amy Webb - Futurist, founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute, and author of “The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and There Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity”

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-data-bias

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