Big Picture Science for Monday 15 December 2014 - Shocking Ideas

Big Picture Science - Shocking Ideas

Electricity is so 19^th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not the opinion of the Nobel committee that awarded its 2014 physics prize to scientists who invented the blue LED.

Find out why this LED hue of blue was worthy of our most prestigious science prize … how some bacteria actually breathe rust … and a plan to cure disease by zapping our nervous system with electric pulses.

Guests:

• Siddha Pimputkar – Postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Department of the Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center under Shuji Nakamura, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Jeff Gralnick – Associate professor of microbiology at the University of Minnesota
• Kevin Tracey – Neurosurgeon and president of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York

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

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 08 December 2014 - Living Computers

Big Picture Science - Living Computers

It’s the most dramatic technical development of recent times: Teams of people working for decades to produce a slow-motion revolution we call computing. As these devices become increasingly powerful, we recall that a pioneer from the nineteenth century – Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and Lord Byron’s daughter – said they would never surpass human ability. Was she right?

We consider the near-term future of computing as the Internet of Things is poised to link everything together, and biologists adopt the techniques of information science to program living cells.

Plus: What’s your favorite sci-fi computer?

Guests:

• Walter Isaacson – President and CEO of the Aspen Institute and the author of The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
• Christopher Voigt – Bioengineer at MIT
• Andy Ihnatko – Technology journalist
• André Bormanis – Writer, screenwriter, Star Trek
• John Barrett – Electronic engineer, NIMBUS Centre for Embedded Systems Research at the Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland

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

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 15 September 2014 - Skeptic Check: Is It True?

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Is It True?

We often hear fantastic scientific claims that would change everything if true. Such as the report that algae is growing on the outside of the International Space Station or that engineers have built a rocket that requires no propellant to accelerate. We examine news stories that seem too sensational to be valid, yet just might be – including whether a killer asteroid has Earth’s name on it.

Plus, a journalist investigates why people hold on to their beliefs even when the evidence is stacked hard against them – from skepticism about climate change to Holocaust denial. And, why professional skeptics are just as enamored with their beliefs as anyone else.

Guests:

• Lynn Rothschild – Evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center
• Will Storr – Journalist, author of The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science
• Steven Novella – Assistant professor, Yale University School of Medicine, host of the “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” podcast
• David Morrison – Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute

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

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 08/18/14 - Moving Right Along

Big Picture Science - Moving Right Along

You think your life is fast-paced, but have you ever seen a bacterium swim across your countertop? You’d be surprised how fast they can move.

Find out why modeling the swirl of hurricanes takes a roomful of mathematicians and supercomputers, and how galaxies can move away from us faster than the speed of light.

Also, what happens when we try to stop the dance of atoms, cooling things down to the rock bottom temperature known as absolute zero.

And why your watch doesn’t keep the same time when you’re in a jet as when you’re at the airport. It’s all due to the fact that motion is relative, says Al Einstein.

Guests:

• William Phillips – Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Joint Quantum Institute, a partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland.
• Bob Berman – Astronomy writer and author of Zoom: How Everything Moves: From Atoms and Galaxies to Blizzards and Bees
• Michael Smith – Meteorologist, senior vice president of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions, and author of Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather

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

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 08/04/14 - Eye Spy

Big Picture Science - Eye Spy

Who’s watching you? Could be anyone, really. Social media sites, webcams, CCTV cameras and smartphones have made keeping tabs on you as easy as tapping “refresh” on a tablet. And who knows what your cell phone records are telling the NSA?

Surveillance technology has privacy on the run, as we navigate between big data benefits and Big Brother intrusion.

Find out why wearing Google Glass could make everything you see the property of its creator, and which Orwellian technologies are with us today. But just how worried should we be? A cyber security expert weighs in.

Also, the benefits of an eye in the sky. A startup company claims that their suite of microsatellites will help protect Earth’s fragile environment.

And Gary catches a cat burglar!

Guests:

• Robert Gehl – Professor in the Department of Communication, University of Utah. His article, “A Mind Meld with the Surveillance State” appeared in an online issue of The Week.
• Hal Rappaport – Technology consultant for businesses, author of the paranormal thriller Hath No Fury: The Lesson of Three Book One. His article, “7 Sinister Technologies from Orwell’s 1984", appeared on the SyFy Channel’s online magazine.
• Susan Landau – Professor of cyber security policy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, author of Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies and Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption.
• William Marshall – Physicist, Planet Labs

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

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 06/23/14 - What Do You Make Of It?

Big Picture Science - What Do You Make Of It?

You are surrounded by products. Most of them, factory-made. Yet there was a time when building things by hand was commonplace, and if something stopped working, well, you jumped into the garage and fixed it, rather than tossing it into the circular file.

Participants at the Maker Faire are bringing back the age of tinkering, one soldering iron and circuit board at a time. Meet the 12-year old who built a robot to solve his Rubik’s Cube, and learn how to print shoes at home. Yes, “print.”

Plus, the woman who started Science Hack Day … the creation of a beard-slash-cosmic-ray detector … the history of the transistor … and new materials that come with nervous systems: get ready for self-healing concrete.

(Photo is a model of the first transistor built in 1947 at the Bell Telephone Labs in New Jersey that led to a Nobel Prize. Today’s computers contain many million transistors … but they’re a lot smaller than this one, which is about the size of a quarter. Credit: Seth Shostak.)

Guests:

• Lucy Beard – Founder of Feetz
• Mark Miodownik – Materials scientist, director of the Institute of Making, University College, London, and author of Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
• Steve Nelson – Team K.I.S.S. Robotics, maker of Beer2D2
• Dan Lankford – Managing director, Wavepoint Ventures
• Ariel Waldman – Founder, Spacehack.org, global instigator of Science Hack Day
• Saurabh Narain – 12 year-old participant in Maker Faire

Permalink: http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/What_Do_You_Make_Of_It_

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 04/14/14 - That's Containment!

Big Picture Science - That's Containment!

ENCORE: We all crave power: to run laptops, charge cell phones, and play Angry Birds. But if generating energy is easy, storing it is not. Remember when your computer conked out during that cross-country flight? Why can’t someone build a better battery?

Discover why battery design is stuck in the 1800s, and why updating it is key to future green transportation (not to mention more juice for your smartphone). Also, how to build a new type of solar cell that can turn sunlight directly into fuel at the pump.

Plus, force fields, fat cells and other storage systems. And: Shock lobster! Energy from crustaceans?

Guests:

• Dan Lankford – Former CEO of three battery technology companies, and a managing director at Wavepoint Ventures
• Jackie Stephens – Biochemist at Louisiana State University
• Kevin MacVittie – Graduate student of chemistry, Clarkson University, New York
• Nate Lewis – Chemist, California Institute of Technology
• Alex Filippenko – Astronomer, University of California, Berkeley
• Peter Williams – Physicist, San Francisco Bay Area

This encore podcast was first released on February 4, 2103

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/That_s_Containment_
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 03/10/14 - We Heart Robots

Big Picture Science - We Heart Robots

ENCORE: The machines are coming! Meet the prototypes of your future robot buddies and discover how you may come to love a hunk of hardware. From telerobots that are your mechanical avatars … to automated systems for the disabled … and artificial hands that can diffuse bombs.

Plus, the ethics of advanced robotics: should life-or-death decisions be automated?

And, a biologist uses robo-fish to understand evolution.

Guests:

• Illah Nourbakhsh – Professor of robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, author of Robot Futures. Check out his Robot Futures blog.
• Marco Mascorro – Vice President of Hardware, 9^th Sense Robotics, Mountain View, California
• Curt Salisbury – Mechanical engineer, senior member, technical staff, Sandia National Laboratories
• Joe Karnicky – Retired engineer, Menlo Park, California. Videos of his gadgetry can be found at the bottom of this page.
• John Long – Professor of biology and cognitive science at Vassar College and the author of Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology

This encore podcast was first released on January 21, 2013

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

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 03/03/14 - Space for Everyone

Big Picture Science - Space for Everyone

Is space the place for you? With a hefty amount of moolah, a trip there and back can be all yours. But when the price comes down, traffic into space may make the L.A. freeway look like a back-country lane.

Space is more accessible than it once was, from the development of private commercial flights … to a radical new telescope that makes everyone an astronomer … to mining asteroids for their metals and water to keep humanity humming for a long time.

Plus, move over Russia and America: Why the next words you hear from space may be in Mandarin.

Guests:

• Leonard David – Space journalist, writer for SPACE.com
• Mario Juric – Astronomer working on data processing for the LSST – the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
• John Lewis – Chemist, professor emeritus of planetary sciences, University of Arizona, chief scientist, Deep Space Industries
• Philip Lubin – Professor of physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
• James Oberg – Retired NASA rocket scientist, space historian, and a self-described space nut

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

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 10/28/13 - Shutting Down Science

Big Picture Science - Shutting Down Science

“Sorry, closed for business.” That sign hung on doors of national laboratories when the US government shut down. What that meant for one Antarctic researcher: her critically important work was left out in the cold.

So just what do we lose when public funds for science fade? The tools for answering big questions about our universe for one, says a NASA scientist … while one of this year’s Nobel Prize winners fears that it is driving our young researchers to pursue their work overseas.

Yet one scientist says publically funding isn’t even necessary; privatizing science would be more productive.

Plus, an award-winning public-private research project changes the way we use GPS … and a BBC reporter on the fate of international projects when Americans hang up their lab coats.

Guests:

• Jill Mikucki – WISSARD principal investigator and a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee
• Max Bernstein – Lead for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
• James Rothman – Professor and chairman of the department of cell biology at Yale University, recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine
• Alexandre Bayen – Civil engineer and computer scientist, University of California, Berkeley
• Pat Michaels – Director for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute
• Roland Pease – BBC science reporter

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Shutting_Down_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 02/04/13 - That's Containment!

Big Picture Science - That's Containment!

We all crave power: to run laptops, charge cell phones, and play Angry Birds. But if generating energy is easy, storing it is not. Remember when your computer conked out during that cross-country flight? Why can’t someone build a better battery?

Discover why battery design is stuck in the 1800s, and why updating it is key to future green transportation (not to mention more juice for your smartphone). Also, how to build a new type of solar cell that can turn sunlight directly into fuel at the pump.

Plus, force fields, fat cells and other storage systems. And: Shock lobster! Energy from crustaceans?

Guests:

• Dan Lankford – Former CEO of three battery technology companies, and a managing director at Wavepoint Ventures
• Jackie Stephens – Biochemist at Louisiana State University
• Kevin MacVittie – Graduate student of chemistry, Clarkson University, New York
• Nate Lewis – Chemist, California Institute of Technology
• Alex Filippenko – Astronomer, University of California, Berkeley

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

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 01/21/13 - We Heart Robots

Big Picture Science - We Heart Robots

The machines are coming! Meet the prototypes of your future robot buddies and discover how you may come to love a hunk of hardware. From telerobots that are your mechanical avatars … to automated systems for the disabled … and artifical hands that can diffuse bombs.

Plus, the ethics of advanced robotics: should life-or-death decisions be automated?

And, a biologist uses robo-fish to understand evolution.

Guests:

• Illah Nourbakhsh – Professor of robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, author of Robot Futures. Check out his Robot Future’s blog.
• Marco Mascorro – Vice President of Hardware, 9^th Sense Robotics, Mountain View, California
• Curt Salisbury – Mechanical engineer, senior member, technical staff, Sandia National Laboratories
• Joe Karnicky – Retired engineer, Menlo Park, California
• John Long – Professor of biology and cognitive science at Vassar College and the author of Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology

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

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.

Rocket U: Engineers Push New Limits

Source - NASA Kennedy Space Center for Sept. 14, 2012:

Rocket University participants at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida created an instrumented capsule and dropped it from a high-altitude balloon during a recent test to find out how the aerodynamic payload would handle during free-fall. The engineering program allows participants to work in fields outside their specialties to broaden their experience base.



License: Standard YouTube License

Big Picture Science for 01/16/12 - Wired for Thought

Big Picture Science - Wired for Thought

A cup of coffee can leave you wired for the day. But a chip in your brain could wire you to a machine forever. Imagine manipulating a mouse without moving a muscle, and doing a Google search with your mind. Welcome to the future of the brain-machine interface.

Don your EEG thinking-cap, and discover a high-tech thought game that may be the harbinger of machine relationships to come.

Plus, the ultimate mapping project: the Human Connectdome Project aims to identify all the neural pathways in the human brain. It may help us understand what makes us human, but could it also point the way to making us smarter?

And, what all this brain research reveals about the mind and free will – who, or what, is really in charge?

Guests:

• Jan Rabaey – Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), University of California, Berkeley
• Arthur Toga – Neurologist at the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, and researcher on the Human Connectome Project
• Michael Gazzaniga – Neuroscientist, director of the University of California Santa Barbara’s SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, and author of Who’s in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain
• Bradley Voytek – Neuroscientist, University of California, San Francisco

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

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.

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.

Big Picture Science for 11/07/11 - NASA or What?

Big Picture Science - NASA or What?

“Making space for everyone” could be NASA’s motto. But as commercial spaceships get ready to blast off, that populist idea is being tested. Space cowboys in the private sector say they’re the ones who can provide unfettered access to space, for tourists and scientists alike.

Meet a scientist who already has a ticket to ride on SpaceShip Two and discover what he hopes to learn about asteroids during his five minutes of weightlessness.

Plus, NASA in motion: it’s back to the moon as the GRAIL mission probes the interior of our lovely lunar satellite. Also, can you dig it? The rover Curiosity can. It’s headed to Mars to hunt for clues to alien life … with a jackhammer.

Also, as the Hubble Space Telescope shuts down, the James Webb Space Telescope revs up. Or does it? The telescope is designed to study the birth of galaxies and hunt for evidence of water on far away worlds. But will Congress pull the plug?

Guests:

• James Oberg – former Space Shuttle Mission Control engineer, and space expert
• Maria Zuber – Planetary scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Principal Investigator of NASA’s GRAIL mission
• Joy Crisp – Geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Principal Investigator on the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity
• Massimo Stiavelli – Astronomer at the Space Science Telescope Institute, and Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope
• Dan Durda – Planetary scientist, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado
  
  More about the Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference

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

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.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee--on the Moon!

Source - NASA Science News for May 15, 2009

Have you ever wondered how you'd make your morning coffee if you were living on another planet? NASA engineers have power systems on the drawing board that could run coffee makers--and so much more--on the Moon, Mars and beyond.

FULL STORY at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/15may_stirling.htm?list894285