Big Picture Science for 12/05/11 - Science's Alliances

Big Picture Science - Science's Alliances

Mom and apple pie. Computers and silicon. Martians and death rays. Some things just go together naturally. But how about science and politics? Science and religion? Science and fiction? These pairings are often unnatural and contentious … but they don’t have to be.

Discover how science can team up with other endeavors in productive, if surprising, symbiosis.

Meet a particle physicist, turned U.S. Congressman, who calls for more scientists on Capitol Hill. Also, a tour of the Golden Age of Islamic Science.

Plus, scientists named Elmo and Super Grover 2.0 teach small children to conduct experiments with the help of chickens and dancing penguins.

And, it’s not quite science but it’s not entirely ficition either: how sci-fi helps shape our cultural debates about the future.

Guests:

• Bill Foster – Physicist and former U.S. representative from Illinois
• Carol-Lynn Parente – Executive Producer, Sesame Street
• Ranjana Mehra – Docent at The Tech Museum, San Jose, California
• Brooks Peck – Curator, EMP Museum, Seattle, Washington

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Science_s_Alliances

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

Are We Alone for 10/26/09 - Skeptic Check: Mind Your Body

Are We Alone - Skeptic Check: Mind Your Body

Popping a pill may help when you’re sick… but maybe not for the reasons you think. Sugar pills – placebos – cure illness better than prescription pills in as many as half of all cases in clinical trials … and the placebo effect is getting stronger.

Plus, the safety – or otherwise – of electromagnetic waves, and the “electro-sensitive” refugees who have built a camp to protect themselves from waves they say are causing pain. Is it all in their minds?

And, New York Times reporter Dennis Overbye joins Phil Plait on the latest lapse in critically-thinking brains – a wild idea that may not be so loony: namely, could a cosmic censor from the future be thwarting efforts to find the Higgs boson?

It’s Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it!

• Dennis Overbye – Cosmic Affairs Correspondent, New York Times
• Phil Plait – Keeper of the skeptical website badastronomy.com and author of Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End . . .
• Steve Silberman – Contributing editor, Wired Magazine, author of “The Placebo Problem” in the September 2009 issue
• Leeka Kheifets – Epidemiologist, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles

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