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/

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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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Big Picture Science for Nov. 04, 2024 - Fuhgeddaboudit

 

Big Picture Science - Fuhgeddaboudit

REPEAT
A thousand years ago, most people didn’t own a single book. The only way to access knowledge was to consult their memory.

But technology – from paper to hard drives – has permitted us to free our brains from remembering countless facts. Alphabetization and the simple filing cabinet have helped to systematize and save information we might need someday.

But now that we can Google just about any subject, have we lost the ability to memorize information? Does this make our brains better or worse?

Guests:

• Judith Flanders – Historian and author, most recently of A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order
• Craig Robertson – Professor of Media Studies, Northeastern University and author of The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information
• David Eagleman – Neuroscientist and author, Stanford University

This repeat podcast originally aired on October 11, 2021

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/fuhgeddaboudit

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

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Big Picture Science for Oct.. 28, 2024 - How Hot is Too Hot?

 

Big Picture Science - How Hot is Too Hot?

REPEAT
Extreme heat is taking its toll on the natural world. We use words like “heat domes” and “freakish” to describe our everyday existence. These high temperatures aren’t only uncomfortable - they are lethal to humans, animals, and crops. In search of an answer to our episode’s question, we discuss the dilemma of an ever-hotter world with an author who has covered climate change for more than twenty years.

Guest:

• Jeff Goodell – author of “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.”

This repeat podcast originally aired on October 2, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/how-hot-is-too-hot

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 Oct.. 21, 2024 - Platypus Crazy

Big Picture Science - Platypus Crazy

REPEAT
They look like a cross between a beaver and a duck, and they all live Down Under. The platypus may lay eggs, but is actually a distant mammalian cousin, one that we last saw, in an evolutionary sense, about 166 million years ago.

Genetic sequencing is being used to trace that history, while scientists intensify their investigation of the habits and habitats of these appealing Frankencreatures; beginning by taking a census to see just how many are out there, and if their survival is under threat.

Guests:

• Josh Griffiths – Senior Wildlife Ecologist at Cesaar Australia.
• Jane Fenelon – Research fellow, University of Melbourne
• Paula Anich – Professor of Natural Resources, Northland College
• Wes Warren – Professor of Genomics, University of Missouri
• Phoebe Meagher – Conservation Officer, Taronga Conservation Society, Australia

This repeat podcast originally aired on August 2, 2021

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/platypus-crazy

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 Oct.. 14, 2024 - Skeptic Check: String Theory

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: String Theory

The idea that the universe is made of tiny vibrating strings was once the science theory du jour. String theory promised to unite the disparate theories describing particles and gravity, and many people, not just scientists, were optimistic that a theory of everything might be within our grasp. But here we are, many years later, and string theory doesn’t seem to have delivered on its initial promise. What happened? We consider the science around string theory in this episode of Skeptic Check.

Guest:

• Brian Greene – Physicist and mathematician at Columbia University, and author of The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory.

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-string-theory

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

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Big Picture Science for Oct.. 07, 2024 - We’ll Always Have Parasites

 

Big Picture Science - We’ll Always Have Parasites

REPEAT

Imagine tapeworms longer than the height of an adult human. Or microbes that turn their hosts into zombies. If the revulsion they induce doesn’t do it, the sheer number of parasites force us to pay attention. They are the most abundant form of animal life on Earth. Parasites can cause untold human suffering, like those that cause African River Blindness or Lyme disease, but their presence is also a sign of a health ecosystem. A parasitologist whose lab contains the largest parasite collection in the world gives us the ultimate inside story about these organisms.

Guest:

• Scott Gardner - Curator of parasites in the H.W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology at the University of Nebraska State Museum, one of the largest collections of parasites in the world, and professor of biological sciences at University of Nebraska. Co-author of Parasites: The Inside Story.

This repeat podcast originally aired on July 31, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/well-always-have-parasites

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

Big Picture Science for Sept. 30, 2024 - Measure For Measure

 

 

 

 

 

Big Picture Science - Measure For Measure

REPEAT
Whether in miles or pounds, meters or kilograms, we take daily measure out our lives. But how did these units ever come to be, and why do we want to change them? From light-years to leap seconds, we look at the history of efforts to quantify our lives and why there’s always room for greater precision. Plus, we debate the virtues of staying imperial measurements vs. going metric.

Guest:

• James Vincent - Author of Beyond Measure, the Hidden History of Measurement

This repeat podcast originally aired on March 24, 2023

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

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 Sept. 23, 2024 - Skeptic Check: Cell Phone Bans

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Cell Phone Bans

As middle and high schools across the country implement new cell phone bans, we consider what drove this bold step and what science says about how digital devices affect our attention and focus. An assistant principal describes how his school implemented the ban, despite protest from students and parents, and what happened next.

Guests:

• Alison - 14 year old high school student
• Raymond Dolphin - eighth grade assistant principal at Illing Middle School in Manchester, Connecticut
• Alan - 17 year old high school student
• Gloria Mark - Psychologist, professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine, author of book “Attention Span.”  

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-cell-phone-bans

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 Sept. 16, 2024 - Cold Comfort

Big Picture Science - Cold Comfort

Another scorching summer has us blasting the AC and grabbing a chilled drink. Air conditioning and refrigeration may beat the heat, but they also present a dilemma. The more we use them, the more greenhouse gases we emit, the hotter the planet becomes, and the more we require artificial cooling.  Can we escape this feedback loop?  We look at the origins of these chilling technologies, tour the extensive chain of cold that keeps food from perishing, and consider how a desert city like Phoenix could not exist without AC.

Guests:

• Nicola Twilley – co-host of the Gastropod podcast, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, and the author of  “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves”
• Erik Morrison – Chief cooling engineer at Transaera, Somerville, Massachusetts
• Stan Cox – Lead scientist at the Land Institute, author of “Losing Our Cool: The Uncomfortable Truths about our Air-Conditioned World”

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/cold-comfort

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

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Big Picture Science for Sept. 09, 2024 - Shipwrecks

Big Picture Science - Shipwrecks

Shipwrecks are scenes of tragedy, but they are also bits of history frozen in time that can provide insights into events and ideas from long ago. That is, if we can find them.  From an 11th century Viking sailing ship to a WW II era British cargo ship with a mailbag of letters onboard amazingly preserved, an underwater archeologist takes us on a deep dive into history.

Guest:

• David Gibbins - underwater archeologist, novelist, and the author of nonfiction, including his latest book, “The History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks”

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/shipwrecks

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 Sept. 02, 2024 - Calling All Aliens

Big Picture Science - Calling All Aliens

REPEAT
Are we alone in the universe? Is there other intelligence out there? COSMIC, the most ambitious SETI search yet, hopes to answer that. We hear updates on this novel signal detection project being conducted on the Very Large Array in the desert of New Mexico.

Also, we chat with award-winning science fiction writer Ted Chiang about how he envisions making contact with aliens in his stories, including the one that was the basis for the movie Arrival. And find out why some scientists don’t want only to listen for signals, they want to deliberately transmit messages to aliens. Is that wise and, if we did it, what would we say?

Guests:

• Chenoa Tremblay – Postdoc researcher in radio astronomy for the SETI Institute and member of COSMIC science team
• Ted Chiang – Nebula and Hugo award-winning science fiction writer, best known for his collections, Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation
• Douglas Vakoch – Founder and president of METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to transmitting intentional signals to extraterrestrial civilizations

This repeat podcast originally aired on April 3, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/calling-all-aliens

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 Aug 26, 2024 - Life in the Solar System

Big Picture Science - Life in the Solar System

REPEAT
Spewing lava and belching noxious fumes, volcanoes seem hostile to biology. But the search for life off-Earth includes the hunt for these hotheads on other moons and planets, and we tour some of the most imposing volcanoes in the Solar System.

Plus, a look at how tectonic forces reshape bodies from the moon to Venus to Earth. And a journey to the center of our planet reveals a surprising layer of material at the core-mantle boundary. Find out where this layer was at the time of the dinosaurs and what powerful forces drove it deep below.

Guests:

• Samantha Hansen – Geologist at the University of Alabama
• Paul Byrne – Associate professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
• Robin George Andrews – Science journalist and author of “Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond”

This repeat podcast originally aired on May 29, 2023

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/life-in-the-solar-system

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 Aug 19, 2024 - Catching Fire

Big Picture Science - Catching Fire

REPEAT
We have too much “bad fire.” Not only destructive wildfires, but the combustion that powers our automobiles and provides our electricity has generated a worrying rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. And that is driving climate change which is adding to the frequency of megafires. Now we’re seeing those effects in “fire-clouds,” pyrocumulonimbus events.

But there’s such a thing as “good fire.” Indigenous peoples managed the land with controlled fires, reaped the benefits of doing so, and they’re bringing them back.

So after millions of years of controlling fire, is it time for us to revisit our attitudes and policies, not just with regard to combustion, but how we manage our wildfires?

Guests:

• David Peterson - Meteorologist, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
• Stephen Pyne - Emeritus professor at Arizona State University, fire historian, urban farmer, author of “The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next”
• Richard Wrangham - Ruth B. Moore Research Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and author of "Catching Fire: How Coooking Made Us Human"
• Margo Robbins - Co-founder and president of the Cultural Fire Management Council (CFMC), organizer of the Cultural Burn Training Exchange (TREX) that takes place on the Yurok Reservation twice a year, and an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe

This repeat podcast originally aired on May 9, 2022

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/catching-fire

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 Aug 12, 2024 - Not Just a Phage

Big Picture Science - Not Just a Phage

We’re hurtling towards a post-antibiotic world, as the overuse of antibiotics has given rise to dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. Can we fight back using viruses as weapons? An obscure medical therapy uses certain viruses called bacteriophages to treat infection. For a century attempts to turn phage-therapy into a life-saving treatment have faltered, but today there’s renewed interest in this approach. Can we use phages to forestall the antibiotic crisis?

Guests:

• Claas Kirchhelle – Medical historian at the University College, Dublin
• Tom Ireland – Journalist, editor of The Biologist and author of “The Good Virus: The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage”
• Steffanie Strathdee – Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences at the University of California San Diego
• Tom Patterson – Professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/not-just-a-phage

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!