Big Picture Science for Monday 16 February 2015 - Sesquicentennial Science

Big Picture Science - Sesquicentennial Science

Today, scientists are familiar to us, but they weren’t always. Even the word “scientist” is relatively modern, dating from the Victorian Era.

And it is to that era we turn as we travel to the University of Notre Dame to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of its College of Science with a show recorded in front of a live audience.

Find out how the modern hunt for planets around other stars compares to our knowledge of the cosmos a century and a half ago. Also how faster computers have ushered in the realm of Big Data.

And a science historian describes us what major science frontiers were being crossed during the era of Charles Darwin and germ theory.

It’s then versus now on Sesquicentennial Science!

Recorded at the Eck Center at the University of Notre Dame, February 4th, 2015

Guests:

• Justin Crepp – Professor of physics, University of Notre Dame
• Nitesh Chawla – Professor of computer science and engineering and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Sciences and Applications at Notre Dame
• John Durant – Historian of science, director of the MIT Museum

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

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.

Big Picture Science for Monday 05 January 2015 - Meet Your Replacements

Big Picture Science - Meet Your Replacements

ENCORE: There’s no one like you. At least, not yet. But in some visions of the future, androids can do just about everything, computers will hook directly into your brain, and genetic human-hybrids with exotic traits will be walking the streets. So could humans become an endangered species?

Be prepared to meet the new-and-improved you. But how much human would actually remain in the humanoids of the future?

Plus, tips for preventing our own extinction in the face of inevitable natural catastrophes.

Guests:

• Robin Hanson – Associate professor of economics, George Mason University
• Luke Muehlhauser – Executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute
• Stuart Newman – Professor of cell biology and anatomy, New York Medical College
• Annalee Newitz – Editor of io9.com, and author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction

This encore podcast was first released on July 1, 2013

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

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.

Big Picture Science for 04/07/14 - Since Sliced Bread

Big Picture Science - Since Sliced Bread

Happy Birthday, World Wide Web! The 25-year-old Web, along with the Internet and the personal computer, are among mankind’s greatest inventions. But back then, who knew?

A techno-writer reminisces about the early days of the WWW and says he didn’t think it would ever catch on.

Also, meet an inventor who claims his innovation will leave your laptop in the dust. Has quantum computing finally arrived?

Plus, why these inventions are not as transformative as other creative biggies of history: The plow. The printing press. And… the knot?

And, why scientific discoveries may beat out technology as the most revolutionary developments of all. A new result about the Big Bang may prove as important as germ theory and the double helix.

Guests:

• Kevin Kelly – Senior maverick, Wired, author of What Technology Wants
• Eric Ladizinsky – Physicist, co-founder and the chief scientist of D-Wave Systems Palo Alto, California
• Aaron Gardner – Bakery manager, Hy-Vee Store, Chillicothe, Missouri
• George Dyson – Historian of technology, author of Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe and Darwin Among The Machines: The Evolution Of Global Intelligence
• Rob Shostak – Brother and founder of Vocera Communications, San Jose, California
• Jamie Bock – Physicist at the California Institute of Technology

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

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.

Big Picture Science for 07/01/13 - Meet Your Replacements

Big Picture Science - Meet Your Replacements

There’s no one like you. At least, not yet. But in some visions of the future, androids can do just about everything, computers will hook directly into your brain, and genetic human-hybrids with exotic traits will be walking the streets. So could humans become an endangered species?

Be prepared to meet the new-and-improved you. But how much human would actually remain in the humanoids of the future?

Plus, tips for preventing our own extinction in the face of inevitable natural catastrophes.

Guests:

• Robin Hanson – Associate professor of economics, George Mason University
• Luke Muehlhauser – Executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute
• Stuart Newman – Professor of cell biology and anatomy, New York Medical College
• Annalee Newitz – Editor of io9.com, and author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction

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

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.

Big Picture Science for 12/03/12 - Doomsday Live, Part 2

Big Picture Science - Doomsday Live, Part 2

If there is only one show you hear about the end of the world, let it be this one. Recorded before a live audience at the Computer History Museum on October 27^th, 2012, this two-part special broadcast of Big Picture Science separates fact from fiction in doomsday prediction.

In this second episode: a global viral pandemic … climate change … and the threat of assimilation by super-intelligent machines.

Presented as part of the Bay Area Science Festival.

Find out more about our guests and their work.

Guests:

• Kirsten Gilardi – Wildlife veterinarian at the University of California, Davis. leader of the Gorilla Doctors program, and team leader for the US-AID Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT program
• Ken Caldeira – Climate scientist, Carnegie Intuition for Science at Stanford University
• Luke Muehlhauser – Executive Director of the Singularity Institute
• Bradley Voytek – Neuroscience researcher at the University of California, San Francisco

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Doomsday_Live_Part_2

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.

Big Picture Science for 09/24/12 - Big Data

Big Picture Science - Big Data

It’s all in the numbers. The trick is, finding what you’re looking for. But that’s the name of the game with big data. We have a giga-gigabyte of information, and combing through it will lead to new cures for disease, new discoveries about the cosmos, or clues to our social and economic behavior.

But is big data Big Brother? You leave a little bit of yourself behind with each mouse click. Discover how surveillance and privacy issues bubble out of the mix, as the terabytes keep flowing in.

Plus one man’s quest to know himself through the numbers as he records everything – and we do mean everything – about his body.

Guests:

• Atul Butte – Associate professor, division chief, systems medicine, Stanford University
• Larry Smarr – Professor of computer science, University of California, San Diego, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, (Calit2)
• Karen Nelson – Microbiologist, director of the Rockville Campus of the J. Craig Venter Institute
• Gerry Harp – Physicist, and Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute
• Deirdre Mulligan – Assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information and faculty director of the Berkeley Center of Law and Technology
• Ken Goldberg – Professor of engineering, information and art at the University of California, Berkeley

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

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.

Big Picture Science for 07/18/11 - Know Laughing Matter

Big Picture Science - Know Laughing Matter

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It’s nearly impossible to fake a laugh. Yet, humans will laugh even if something isn’t funny. Discover the evolutionary function of cracking up and meet the other species that love to giggle (and monkey around).

Also, hilarious science comedy. Yes, science comedy. Plus, teaching machines to write punch lines… and stretching – and splitting – your sides with laughter yoga.

Guests:

• Frans de Waal – Primatologist, Emory Univeristy and the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta, Georgia
• Brian Malow – Science comedian
• Robert Provine – Neuroscientist, University of Maryland, Balitimore, author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation
• Tony Veale – Computer scientist and natural language processing researcher. University College, Dublin, Ireland
• Tommy Westerfield – Instructor, We Are Laughter

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

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.

NOTICE - Are We Alone is now Big Picture Science! You can find out more here: http://radio.seti.org/blog/2011/05/the-names-they-are-a-changin/