Big Picture Science for Monday 30 March 2015 - Hidden History

Big Picture Science - Hidden History

Archeologists continue to hunt for the city of Atlantis, even though it may never have existed. But, what if it did? Its discovery would change ancient history. Sometimes when we dig around in the past, we can change our understanding of how we got to where we are.

We thought we had wrapped up the death of the dinosaurs: blame it on an asteroid. But evidence unearthed in Antarctica and elsewhere suggests the rock from space wasn’t the sole culprit.

Also, digging into our genetic past can turn up surprising – and sometimes uncomfortable truths – from ancestral origins to genes that code for disease. But do we always want to know?

Guests:

• Mark Adams – author, Meet Me in Atlantis: My Obsessive Quest to Find the Sunken City
• David Morrison – Senior scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
• Peter Ward – Paleontologist, University of Washington, author of A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth
• Christine Kenneally – Journalist and author of The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures

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

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 02 February 2015 - Digging Our Past

Big Picture Science - Digging Our Past

ENCORE: What’s past is prologue. For centuries, researchers have studied buried evidence – bones, teeth, or artifacts – to learn about murky human history, or even to investigate vanished species. But today’s hi-tech forensics allow us to analyze samples dug from the ground faster and at a far more sophisticated level.

First, the discovery of an unknown species of dinosaur that changes our understanding of the bizarre beasts that once roamed North America.

And then some history that’s more recent: two projects that use the tools of modern chemistry and anthropology to deepen our understanding of the slave trade.

Plus, an anthropologist on an evolutionary habit that is strange to some, but nonetheless common all over the world: the urge to eat dirt.

Guests:

• Scott Sampson – Paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and author of Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life
• Fatimah Jackson – Biologist, anthropologist, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, director of the Cobb Lab at Howard University, and advisor to EUROTAST
• Joseph Jones – Biological anthropologist, visiting assistant professor at the College of William and Mary, researcher on the African Burial Ground Project
• Sera Young – Research scientist, division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, and author of Craving Earth: Understanding Pica—the Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice, and Chalk

This encore podcast was first released on August 12, 2013

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

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 07/07/14 - Deep Time

Big Picture Science - Deep Time

ENCORE: Think back, way back. Beyond last week or last year … to what was happening on Earth 100,000 years ago. Or 100 million years ago. It’s hard to fathom such enormous stretches of time, yet to understand the evolution of the cosmos – and our place in it – your mind needs to grasp the deep meaning of eons. Discover techniques for thinking in units of billions of years, and how the events that unfold over such intervals have left their mark on you.

Plus: the slow-churning processes that turned four-footed creatures into the largest marine animals that ever graced the planet and using a new telescope to travel in time to the birth of the galaxies.

Guests:

• Jim Rosenau – Artist, Berkeley, California
• Robert Hazen – Senior staff scientist at the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, executive director of the Deep Carbon Observatory and the author of The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
• Neil Shubin – Biologist, associate dean of biological sciences at the University of Chicago, and the author of The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People
• Nicholas Pyenson – Curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
• Alison Peck – Scientist, National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia

This encore podcast was first released April 22, 2013.

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

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 05/19/14 - We Can Rebuild It

Big Picture Science - We Can Rebuild It

What goes up must come down. But it’s human nature to want to put things back together again. It can even be a matter of survival in the wake of some natural or manmade disasters.

First, a portrait of disaster: the eruption of Tambora in 1815 is the biggest volcanic explosion in 5,000 years. It changed the course of history, although few people have heard of it.

Then, stories of reconstruction: assembling, disassembling, moving and reassembling one of the nation’s largest T. Rex skeletons, and what we learn about dinos in the process.

Also, the reanimation of Gorongosa National Park in Africa, after years of civil war destroyed nearly all the wildlife.

And a handbook for rebuilding civilization itself from scratch.

Guests:

• Gillen D’Arcy Wood – Professor of English, University of Illinois, author of Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World
• Patrick Leiggi – Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, Montana
• Matt Carrano – Curator of dinosauria, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
• Greg Carr – Entrepreneur and philanthropist, president of Gorongosa National Park, in Mozambique
• Lewis Dartnell – Astrobiologist, University of Leicester, author of The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/We_Can_Rebuild_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 11/04/13 - Life Back Then

Big Picture Science - Life Back Then

ENCORE: Time keeps on ticking, ticking … and as it does, evolution operates to produce remarkable changes in species. Wings may appear, tails disappear. Sea creatures drag themselves onto the shore and become landlubbers. But it’s not easy to grasp the expansive time scales involved in these transformative feats.
Travel through millennia, back through mega and giga years, for a sense of what can occur over deep time, from the Cambrian Explosion to the age of the dinosaurs to the rise of Homo sapiens.
Guests:

• Lorna O’Brien – Evolutionary biologist, University of Toronto
• Ivan Schwab – Professor of ophthalmology, University of California, Davis. His blog
• Don Henderson – Curator of dinosaurs, Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Canada
• Gregory Cochran – Physicist, anthropologist, University of Utah
• Todd Schlenke – Biologist, Emory University

This encore podcast was first released on: April 2, 2012

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

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 08/12/13 - Digging Our Past

Big Picture Science - Digging Our Past

What’s past is prologue. For centuries, researchers have studied buried evidence – bones, teeth, or artifacts – to learn about murky human history, or even to investigate vanished species. But today’s hi-tech forensics allows us to analyze samples dug from the ground faster and at a far more sophisticated level.

First, the discovery of an unknown species of dinosaur that changes our understanding of the bizarre beasts that once roamed North America.

And then some history that’s more recent: two projects that use the tools of modern chemistry and anthropology to deepen our understanding of the slave trade.

Plus, an anthropologist on an evolutionary habit that is strange to some, but nonetheless common all over the world: the urge to eat dirt.

Guests:

• Scott Sampson – Paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and author of Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life
• Fatimah Jackson – Biologist, anthropologist, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, director of the Cobb Lab at Howard University, and advisor to EUROTAST
• Joseph Jones – Biological anthropologist, visiting assistant professor at the College of William and Mary, researcher on the African Burial Ground Project
• Sera Young – Research scientist, division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, and author of Craving Earth: Understanding Pica—the Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice, and Chalk

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Digging_Our_Past
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 05/20/13 - Skeptic Check: Hostile Climate

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Hostile Climate

It’s a record we didn’t want to break. The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has hit the 400 parts-per-million mark, a level at which some scientists say is a point of no return for stopping climate change. A few days later, a leading newspaper prints an op-ed essay that claims CO₂ is getting a bad rap: it’s actually good for the planet. The more the better.

Skeptic Phil Plait rebuts the CO₂-is-awesome idea while a paleontologist paints a picture of what Earth was like when the notorious gas last ruled the planet. Note: humans weren’t around.

Plus, our skit says NO to O₂ … and a claim that climate change skeptics have borrowed from the Creationists’ playbook in challenging the teaching of established science in schools.

Guests:

• Phil Plait – Astronomer, Skeptic, and author of Slate Magazine’s blog Bad Astronomy
• Peter Ward – Paleontologist and biologist, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington in Seattle
• Josh Rosenau – Programs and Policy Director at the National Center for Science Education
• Eugenie Scott – Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education

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

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 04/22/13 - Deep Time

Big Picture Science - Deep Time

Think back, way back. Beyond last week or last year … to what was happening on Earth 100,000 years ago. Or 100 million years ago. It’s hard to fathom such enormous stretches of time, yet to understand the evolution of the cosmos – and our place in it – your mind needs to grasp the deep meaning of eons. Discover techniques for thinking in units of billions of years, and how the events that unfold over such intervals have left their mark on you.

Plus: the slow-churning processes that turned four-footed creatures into the largest marine animals that ever graced the planet and using a new telescope to travel in time to the birth of the galaxies.

Guests:

• Jim Rosenau – Artist, Berkeley, California
• Robert Hazen – Senior staff scientist at the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, executive director of the Deep Carbon Observatory and the author of The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
• Neil Shubin – Biologist, associate dean of biological sciences at the University of Chicago, and the author of The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People
• Nicholas Pyenson – Curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
• Alison Peck – Scientist, National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia

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

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 04/02/12 - Life Back Then

Big Picture Science - Life Back Then

Time keeps on ticking, ticking … and as it does, evolution operates to produce remarkable changes in species. Wings may appear, tails disappear. Sea creatures drag themselves onto the shore and become landlubbers. But it’s not easy to grasp the expansive time scales involved in these transformative feats.

Travel through millennia, back through mega and giga years, for a sense of what can occur over deep time, from the Cambrian Explosion to the age of the dinosaurs to the rise of Homo sapiens.

Guests:

• Lorna O’Brien – Evolutionary biologist, University of Toronto
• Ivan Schwab – Professor of ophthalmology, University of California, Davis. His blog
• Don Henderson – Curator of dinosaurs, Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Canada
• Gregory Cochran – Physicist, anthropologist, University of Utah
• Todd Schlenke – Biologist, Emory University

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

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.

Are We Alone for 12/27/10 - Seth's Storage Locker

Are We Alone - Seth's Storage Locker

ENCORE It’s always an adventure to go digging in Seth’s storage locker – who knows what we’ll find …

In this imposing pile of paraphernalia, tucked between boxes of socket wrenches and old 45s, we stumble upon the hunt for extrasolar planets, the evidence for water on moons of the solar system, theories of language, a controversial hypothesis for the peopling of the Americas, and a new dinosaur fossil.

Guests:

• Steve Brusatte – Vertebrate paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York
• Steven Pinker – Psychologist, Harvard University
• Geoff Marcy – Astronomer, University of California, Berkeley
• Adam Showman – Planetary scientist at the University of Arizona
• Mike Collins – Associate Director, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory

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

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 04/20/09 - Reading Life's Tea Leaves

Are We Alone - Reading Life's Tea Leaves
For nearly four billion years, life has been swimming and shuffling across our planet. But how can we deduce what it was like? You don’t need Sherlock Holmes to track the clues of life that came before – call on an anthropologist or biologist. From fossils to alien radio signals, find out how to interpret the clues that living organisms leave behind, and hear adventure stories in the evolution of life on Earth.

Also, the discovery of a dino-eating crocodile and the tale of scientist/explorer/polymath Idaho Brown.

Guests:

• Sean Carroll - Molecular biologist and geneticist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and author of Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species
• Paul Sereno - Paleontologist at the University of Chicago, and National Geographic Explorer in Residence
• Seth Shostak - Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute and author of Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

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.