Big Picture Science for Jan. 31, 2022 - Bare Bones

Big Picture Science - Bare Bones

(REPEAT) You may not feel that your skeleton does very much. But without it you’d be a limp bag of protoplasm, unable to move.  And while you may regard bones as rigid and inert, they are living tissue.

Bones are also time capsules, preserving much of your personal history. Find out how evolutionary biologists, forensic anthropologists, and even radiation scientists read them.

And why won’t your dog stop gnawing on that bone?

Guests:

• Brian Switek – Pen name of Riley Black, Author of “Skeleton Keys: the Secret Life of Bone.”
• Ann Ross – Forensic anthropologist at North Carolina State University.  Her lab is the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
• Stanley Coren – Professor emeritus of psychology at the University of British Columbia, and author of many books about canine behavior including, “Why Does My Dog Act That Way?”
• Doug Brugge – Professor and chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine

This repeat podcast originally aired on November 30, 2020

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/bare-bones

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.

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

Big Picture Science for Jan. 24, 2022 - Make Space For Animals

 

 

Big Picture Science - Make Space For Animals

Long before Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space, Laika, a stray dog, crossed the final frontier. Find out what other surprising species were drafted into the astronaut corps.

They may be our best friends, but we still balk at giving other creatures moral standing. And why are humans so reluctant to accept the fact that we too are animals?
 
Guests:

• Jo Wimpenny - Zoologist and writer. Author of “Aesop’s Animals”
• Taylor Maggiacomo - Associate Graphic Editor at National Geographic Society
• Alexander Stegmaier - Freelance Graphic Editor at National Geographic
• Melanie Challenger - An author who writes on nature, environment and human history. Her latest book: “How to be Animal: A New History of What it Means to be Human”

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/make-space-for-animals

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.

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

Big Picture Science for Jan. 17, 2022 - Testing Your Metal

Big Picture Science - Testing Your Metal

Catalytic converters are disappearing. If you’ve had yours stolen, you know that rare earth metals are valuable. But these metals are in great demand for things other than converters, such as batteries for electric cars, wind farms and solar panels.

We need rare earth metals to combat climate change, but where to get them? Could we find substitutes?

One activity that could be in our future: Deep sea mining. But it’s controversial. Can one company’s plan to mitigate environmental harm help?

Guests:

• Paul Dauenhauer - Professor of chemical engineering and material science at the University of Minnesota and a 2020 MacArthur Fellow
• Chris Leighton - Distinguished University Teaching Professor, Editor, Physical Review Materials, Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota
• Renee Grogan - Co-founder and Chief Sustainability Officer, Impossible Mining company

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/testing-your-metal

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.

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

Big Picture Science for Jan. 10, 2022 - Into the Deep

Big Picture Science - Into the Deep

(Rereat) Have you ever heard worms arguing? Deep-sea scientists use hydrophones to eavesdrop on “mouth-fighting worms.” It’s one of the many ways scientists are trying to catalog the diversity of the deep oceans — estimated to be comparable to a rainforest.

But the clock is ticking. While vast expanses of the deep sea are still unexplored, mining companies are ready with dredging vehicles to strip mine the seafloor, potentially destroying rare and vulnerable ecosystems. Are we willing to eradicate an alien landscape that we haven’t yet visited?

Guests:

• Craig McClain - deep-sea and evolutionary biologist and ecologist, Executive Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
• Steve Haddock - senior scientist at the Monetary Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and co-author of a New York Times op-ed about the dangers of mining.
• Emily Hall - marine chemist at the Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, Florida
• Chong Chen - deep sea biologist with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)

This repeat podcast originally aired on November 23, 2020

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/into-the-deep

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.

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

Big Picture Science for Jan. 3, 2022 - What’s a Few Degrees?

Big Picture Science - What’s a Few Degrees?

Brace yourself for heatwave “Lucifer.” Dangerous deadly heatwaves may soon be so common that we give them names, just like hurricanes. This is one of the dramatic consequences of just a few degrees rise in average temperatures.

Also coming: Massive heat “blobs” that form in the oceans and damage marine life, and powerful windstorms called “derechos” pummeling the Midwest.

Plus, are fungal pathogens adapting to hotter temperatures and breaching the 98.6 F thermal barrier that keeps them from infecting us?

Guests:

• Kathy Baughman McLeod – director and senior vice president of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at The Atlantic Council
• Pippa Moore – Marine ecologist at Newcastle University in the U.K.
• Ted Derouin – Michigan farmer
• Jeff Dukes – Ecologist and director of Purdue Climate Change Research Center at Purdue University.
• Arturo Casadevall – Molecular microbiologist and immunologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

This repeat podcast originally aired on October 19, 2020

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/whats-few-degrees

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.

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

Big Picture Science for Dec. 27, 2021 - Mycology Education

 

Big Picture Science - Mycology Education

(Repeat) Beneath our feet is a living network just as complex and extensive as the root systems in a forest. Fungi, which evolved in the oceans, were among the first to colonize the barren continents more than a half-billion years ago. They paved the way for land plants, animals, and (eventually) you.

Think beyond penicillin and pizza, and take a moment to consider these amazing organisms. Able to survive every major extinction, essential as Nature’s decomposers, and the basis of both ale and antibiotics, fungi are essential to life. And their behavior is so complex you’ll be wondering if we shouldn’t call them intelligent!

Guest:

• Merlin Sheldrake – Biologist and the author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds and Shape our Futures.

This repeat podcast originally aired on 9/28/2020

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/mycology-education

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.

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

Big Picture Science for Dec. 20, 2021 - Attack of the Mutants

Big Picture Science - Attack of the Mutants

The omicron variant is surging. More contagious than delta, omicron demonstrates how viruses use mutations to quickly adapt.

Mutations drive evolution, although most don’t do much. But occasionally a mutation improves an organism. Omicron, the latest in a string of variants, is bad for us, but good for the virus.

How mutation of viruses ensures their own survival while threatening ours, and the prospect of a universal vaccine that would protect us against all a viruses’ variants.

Guests:

• Robert Garry – Professor of microbiology and virologist in the Tulane University School of Medicine
• Kevin Saunders – Professor in the Duke University School of Medicine’s Human Vaccine Institute and professor of surgery

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/attack-of-the-mutants

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.

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

Big Picture Science for Dec. 13, 2021 - Hubble and Beyond

Big Picture Science - Hubble and Beyond

The universe is not just expanding; it’s accelerating. Supermassive black holes are hunkered down at the center of our galaxy and just about every other galaxy, too. We talk about these and other big discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, now in orbit for over 30 years.

But two new next-generation telescopes will soon be joining Hubble: the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. Hear what cosmic puzzles they’ll address. Plus, life in a clean room while wearing a coverall “bunny suit”; what it takes to assemble a telescope.

Guests:

• Meg Urry – Professor of physics and astronomy, Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University
• John Grunsfeld – Former NASA Associate Administrator, and astronaut
• Kenneth Harris – Senior Project Engineer, Aerospace Corporation

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/hubble-and-beyond

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.

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

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

Big Picture Science for Dec. 06, 2021 - Skeptic Check: Identifying UAPs

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Identifying UAPs

The Pentagon’s report on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) said nothing about the possibility that some might be alien spacecraft. Nonetheless, the report has generated heightened interest in figuring out what these UAPs are, and that interest extends to some scientists. We talk to two researchers who want an open and strictly scientific investigation of these phenomena. What should they do and what do they expect to find? And finally, will the possibility of alien visitors ever be resolved?

Guests:

• Jacob Haqq-Misra – Senior Research Investigator at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science
• Ravi Kopparapu – Planetary scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-identifying-uaps

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.

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

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

Big Picture Science for Nov. 29, 2021 - Talk the Walk

 

Big Picture Science - Talk the Walk

Birds and bees do it … and so do fish. In a discovery that highlights the adaptive benefits of walking, scientists have discovered fish that can walk on land. Not fin-flap their bodies, mind you, but ambulate like reptiles.

And speaking of which, new research shows that T Rex, the biggest reptile of them all, wasn’t a sprinter, but could be an efficient hunter by outwalking its prey.

Find out the advantage of legging it, and how human bipedalism stacks up. Not only is walking good for our bodies and brains, but not walking can change your personality and adversely affect your health.

Guests:

• Hans Larsson – Paleontologist and biologist, and Director of the Redpath Museum at McGill University in Montréal.
• Shane O’Mara – Neuroscientist and professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of “In Praise of Walking.”
• Brooke Flammang – Biologist at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

This repeat podcast originally aired on October 5, 2020

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/talk-the-walk

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.

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

Big Picture Science for Nov. 22, 2021 - Skeptic Check: Shroom with a View

 

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Shroom with a View

(REPEAT) Magic mushrooms – or psilocybin - may be associated with tripping hippies and Woodstock, but they are now being studied as new treatments for depression and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Is this Age of Aquarius medicine or something that could really work? Plus, the centuries-long use of psychedelics by indigenous peoples, and a discovery in California’s Pinwheel Cave offers new clues about the relationship between hallucinogens and cave art.

Guests:

• Merlin Sheldrake - Biologist and the author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds and Shape our Futures.
• Albert Garcia-Romeu - Assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• David Wayne Robinson - Archeologist in the School of Forensic and Applied Sciences, University of Central Lancashire, U.K.
• Sandra Hernandez - Tejon Indian Tribe spokesperson

This repeat podcast originally aired on December 7, 2020

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-shroom-with-a-view

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 Nov. 15, 2021 - Suitable For Life?

Big Picture Science - Suitable For Life?

Life nearby? We’ve not yet found any on our favorite planet, Mars. But even if Mars is sterile, could we ever change that by terraforming it? Or seeding it with life from Earth?

The Red Planet is not the only game in town: A new NASA mission to a Jovian moon may give clues to biology on a world where, unlike Mars, liquid water still exists.

Also, the promise of the James Webb Space Telescope and why the solar system’s largest active volcano offers clues to the habitability of other worlds.

Guests:

• Kate Craft – Planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where she studies icy moons such as Europa.
• Julie Rathbun – Senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute
• Courtney Dressing – Professor of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley
• Chris McKay – Research scientist, NASA Ames Research Center

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/suitable-for-life

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 Nov. 08, 2021 - Your Inner Tree

Big Picture Science - Your Inner Tree

Declining biodiversity is a problem as fraught as climate change.

Loss of habitat, monoculture crops, and the damming of waterways all lead to massive species extinction. They tear at life’s delicate web, and threaten a balance established by four billion years of evolution.

Can we reassess our relationship to Nature? We consider logging efforts that make elephants part of the work force, and how to leverage the cooperative behavior of trees.

Becoming Nature’s ally, rather than its enemy.

Guests:

• Suzanne Simard – Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia and author of “Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.”
• Carl Safina – Professor of Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and founder of the Safina Center, and author of “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.”
• Jacob Shell – Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University, and author of “Giants of the Monsson Forest: Living and Working with Elephants

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/your-inner-tree

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 Nov. 01, 2021 - Dimming the Sun

Big Picture Science - Dimming the Sun

Does geoengineering offer a Plan B if nations at the U.N. climate meeting can't reduce carbon emissions? The Glasgow meeting has been called “the last best chance” to take measures to slow down global heating.  But we're nowhere near to achieving the emission reductions necessary to stave off a hothouse planet. We consider both the promise and the perils of geoengineering, and ask who decides about experimenting with Earth’s climate.

Guests:

• Elizabeth Kolbert – Staff Writer at The New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Sixth Extinction,” and, most recently, of “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future.”
• David Keith – Professor of public policy and applied physics at Harvard University who also participates in the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPex) geoengineering project.
• Kim Cobb – Professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Tech, and the director of its Global Change Program.

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/dimming-the-sun

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 Oct. 25th, 2021 - Skeptic Check: Brain Gain

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Brain Gain

Looking to boost your brainpower? Luckily, there are products promising to help. Smart drugs, neurofeedback exercises, and brain-training video games all promise to improve your gray matter’s performance. But it’s uncertain whether these products really work. Regulatory agencies have come down har
 on some popular brain training companies for false advertising. But other brain games have shown benefits in clinical trials. And could we skip the brain workout altogether and pop a genius pill instead?

In our regular look at critical thinking, we separate the pseudo from the science of commercial cognitive enhancement techniques.

Guests:

• Caroline Williams – Science journalist and author of “My Plastic Brain: One Woman’s Yearlong Journey to Discover If Science Can Improve Her Mind”
• Adam Gazzaley – Neuroscientist, University of California, San Francisco, and the executive director of Neuroscape.  His book is “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World.”
• Amy Arnsten – Professor of neuroscience and psychology at Yale Medical School
• Kevin Roose – Journalist for the New York Times.
• Leonard Mlodinow – Physicist and author of “Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change”

This repeat podcast originally aired on August 6, 2018

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-brain-gain

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.