Alle afleveringen
703 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Skeptic Check: Hypnosis*
29 januari 2024 · 54 min
You are getting sleeeepy and open to suggestion. But is that how hypnotism works? And does it really open up a portal to the unconscious mind? Hypnotism can be an effective therapeutic tool, and some scientists suggest replacing opioids with hypnosis for pain relief. And yet, the performance aspect of hypnotism often seems at odds with the idea of it being an effective treatment.
In our regular look at critical thinking, Skeptic Check, we ask what part of hypnotism is real and what is an illusion. Plus, we discuss how the swinging watch became hypnotism’s irksome trademark.
Guests:
David Spiegel – Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine
Devin Terhune – Reader in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London
*Originally aired June 27, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Inside Planets
22 januari 2024 · 54 min
With planets and moons, it’s what’s inside that counts. If we want to understand surface features, like volcanoes, or their history, such as how the planet formed or whether it’s suitable for life, we study their interiors. Astronomer Sabine Stanley takes us on a journey to the centers of Venus, Saturn’s large moon Titan, Jupiter’s moon Io, and of course Earth, to help us understand how they, and the solar system, came to be.
Guest:
Sabine Stanley - Planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of What’s Hidden Inside Planets.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Tech in Check
15 januari 2024 · 54 min
Worried that AI will replace you? It may not seem like the Hollywood writers’ strike has anything in common with the Luddite rebellion in England in 1811, but they are surprisingly similar. Today we use the term “Luddite” dismissively to describe a technophobe, but the original Luddites – cloth workers – organized and fought Industrial Revolution automation and the factory bosses who were replacing humans with cotton spinning machines and steam powered looms. Find out what our age of AI can learn from textile workers of 200 years ago about keeping humans in the loop.
Guest:
Brian Merchant - Los Angeles Times tech columnist and author of “Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Your Mind on Movies
8 januari 2024 · 54 min
By one estimate we spend a fifth of our lives watching movies or TV. In fact, we consume entertainment almost as habitually as we eat or sleep, activities that receive scientific scrutiny and study. So why not consider the effects that watching movies and TV have on our minds and bodies too? When we do, we find that they are not mere escapism. A data scientist reveals why we are what we watch, and how scientists and filmmakers work, often with competing agendas, to create sci-fi entertainment.
Guest:
Walt Hickey - journalist, data scientist, and author of “You Are What You Watch: How Movies and TV Affect Everything”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Eclectic Company
1 januari 2024 · 54 min
We present a grab bag of our favorite recent science stories – from how to stop aging to the mechanics of cooking pasta. Also, in accord with our eclectic theme – the growing problem of space junk.
Guests: Lees meerAnthony Wyss-Coray – Professor of neuroscience at Stanford University
Oliver O’Reilly – Professor of mechanical engineering, University of California Berkeley.
Moriba Jah – Professor of aerospace and engineering mechanics, University of Texas
Originally aired March 1, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Iron, Coal, Wood**
25 december 2023 · 54 min
Maybe you don’t remember the days of the earliest coal-fired stoves. They changed domestic life, and that changed society. We take you back to that era, and to millennia prior when iron was first smelt, and even earlier, when axe-handles were first fashioned from wood, as we explore how three essential materials profoundly transformed society.
We were once excited about coal’s promise to provide cheap energy, and how iron would lead to indestructible bridges, ships, and buildings. But they also caused some unintended problems: destruction of forests, greenhouse gases and corrosion. Did we foresee where the use of wood, coal, and iron would lead? What lessons do they offer for our future?
Guests:
Jonathan Waldman – Author of Rust: The Longest War.
Ruth Goodman – Historian of British social customs, presenter of a number of BBC television series, including Tudor Monastery Farm, and the author of The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything.
Roland Ennos – Professor of biological sciences at the University of Hull and author of The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization.
**Originally aired February 1, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Ocean's Genome
18 december 2023 · 54 min
After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn’t retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin’s voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems.
Guests:
Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean’s Microbiome.”
Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Skeptic Check: Naomi Klein
11 december 2023 · 56 min
Our information age is increasingly the disinformation age. The spread of lies and conspiracy theories has created competing experiences of reality. Facts are often useless for changing minds or even making compelling arguments. In this episode, author Naomi Klein and science philosopher Lee McIntyre discuss why the goal – not simply the byproduct - of spreading disinformation is to polarize society. They also offer ideas about how we might find our way back to a shared objective truth.
Guests:
Naomi Klein - Associate professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia and a co-director at the Center for Climate Justice. Author of Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
Lee McIntyre - Philosopher of science and a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and the History of Science at Boston University, and author of Post-Truth and On Disinformation.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcastnetwork. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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End of Eternity**
4 december 2023 · 54 min
Nothing lasts forever. Even the universe has several possible endings. Will there be a dramatic Big Rip or a Big Chill–also known as the heat death of the universe–in trillions of years? Or will vacuum decay, which could theoretically happen at any moment, do us in? Perhaps the death of a tiny particle – the proton – will bring about the end.
We contemplate big picture endings in this episode, and whether one could be brought about by our own machine creations.
Guests:
Anders Sandberg – Researcher at
the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford
Katie Mack – Assistant professor of physics at North Carolina State
University, and the author of “The End of Everything, Astrophysically
Speaking.”
Brian Greene – Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at
Columbia, and author of “Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our
Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe”
Originally aired May 3, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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In Living Color
27 november 2023 · 54 min
The world is a colorful place, and human eyes have evolved to take it in – from vermillion red to bright tangerine to cobalt blue. But when we do, are you and I seeing the same thing?
Find out why color perception is a trick of the brain, and why you and I may not see the same shade of green. Or blue. Or red. Also, platypuses and the growing club of fluorescent mammals, and the first new blue pigment in more than two centuries.
Guests:
Paula Anich – Associate Professor of Natural Resources, Northland College
Michaela Carlson – Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Northland College
Rob DeSalle – Curator at the American Museum of Natural History, and co-author of “A Natural History of Color: the Science Behind What We See and How We See It”
Mas Subramanian – Professor of Materials Science at Oregon State University
originally aired March 8, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The T-Rex Files
20 november 2023 · 54 min
T-Rex is having an identity crisis. Rocking the world of paleontology is the claim that Rex was not one species, but actually three. It’s not the first time that this particular dino has forced us to revise our understanding of the past. The discovery of the first T-Rex fossil in the 19th century taught humanity a scary lesson: species eventually go extinct. If it happened to this seemingly invincible apex predator, it could happen to us too.
Hear how the amateur fossil hunter Barnum Brown’s discovery of T-Rex changed our understanding of ourselves, and the epilogue to the dinosaur era: how our mammalian relatives survived the potential extinction bottleneck of an asteroid impact.
Guests:
Thomas Carr - Vertebrate paleontologist and Professor of Biology, Carthage College
Peter Makovicky - Vertebrate paleontologist and Professor of paleontology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota
David Randall - Author of “The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T Rex and How It Shook Our World”
Steve Brusatte - Personal Chair of Paleontology and Evolution, University of Edinburgh. Author of “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs” and, most recently, “The Rise and Reign of The Mammals”
Originally aired October 17, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Neanderthal in the Family**
13 november 2023 · 54 min
Back off, you Neanderthal! It sounds as if you’ve just been dissed, but maybe you should take it as a compliment. Contrary to common cliches, our Pleistocene relatives were clever, curious, and technologically inventive. Find out how our assessment of Neanderthals has undergone a radical rethinking, and hear about the influence they have as they live on in our DNA. For example, some of their genes have a strong association with severe Covid 19 infection. Plus, how Neanderthal mini-brains grown in a lab will teach us about the evolution of Homo sapiens.
Guests: Lees meerSvante Pääbo – Evolutionary geneticist and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Doyle Stevick – Associate professor of educational leadership and policies at the University of South Carolina.
Beverly Brown – Professor emerita of anthropology, Rockland Community College, New York.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes – Paleolithic anthropologist, author of “Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art.”
Alysson Muotri – Neuroscientist and professor of pediatrics, cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine
Originally aired March 22, 2021
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Night Flight
6 november 2023 · 55 min
Owls are both the most accessible and elusive of birds. Every child can recognize one, but you’ll be lucky to spot an owl in a tree, even if you’re looking straight at it. Besides their camouflage and silent flight, these mostly nocturnal birds, with their amazing vision and hearing, are most at home in the dead of night, a time humans find alien and scary. Ecologist Carl Safina got to know an injured baby screech owl well. Their relationship saved the owl’s life and gave Safina insider’s wisdom about these aerial hunters of the night.
Guests:
Carl Safina – ecologist at Stony Brook University, head of the non-profit Safina Center, and author of “Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe”
Tom Damiami – natural resources interpreter, singer on Long Island, NY and leader of the Shelter Island Owl Prowl
Gordy Slack – science writer, former senior editor of California Wild, the science and natural history magazine published by the California Academy of Sciences
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Extraordinary Ordinary Objects
30 oktober 2023 · 54 min
“To live is to count and to count is to calculate.” But before we plugged in the computer to express this ethos, we pulled out the pocket calculator. It became a monarch of mathematics that sparked a computing revolution. But it’s not the only deceptively modest innovation that changed how we work and live. Find out how sewing a scrap of fabric into clothing helped define private life and how adding lines to paper helped build an Empire. Plus, does every invention entail irrevocable cultural loss?
Guests:
Keith Houston – author of “Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator.”
Hannah Carlson – teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, author of “Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.”
Dominic Riley – bookbinder in the U.K.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Like Lightning*
23 oktober 2023 · 54 min
Every second, lightning strikes 50 to 100 times somewhere. It can wreak havoc by starting wildfires and sometimes killing people. But lightning also produces a form of nitrogen that’s essential to vegetation. In this episode, we talk about the nature of these dramatic sparks. Ben Franklin established their electric origin, so what do we still not know? Also, why the frequency of lightning strikes is increasing in some parts of the world. And, what to do if you find someone hit by lightning.
Guests:
Thomas Yeadaker – Resident of Oakland, California
Chris Davis – Medical doctor and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Wake Forest University and Medical Director for the National Center for Outdoor Adventure Education
Jonathan Martin – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Steve Ackerman – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Peter Bieniek – Professor of Atmospheric and Space Science, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
*Originally aired September 12, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Skeptic Check: Worrier Mentality*
16 oktober 2023 · 54 min
Poisonous snakes, lightning strikes, a rogue rock from space. There are plenty of scary things to fret about, but are we burning adrenaline on the right ones? Stepping into the bathtub is more dangerous than flying from a statistical point of view, but no one signs up for “fear of showering” classes.
Find out why we get tripped up by statistics, worry about the wrong things, and how the “intelligence trap” not only leads smart people to make dumb mistakes, but actually causes them to make more.
Guests:
Eric Chudler – Research associate professor, department of bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle and co-author of “Worried: Science Investigates Some of Life’s Common Concerns”
Lise Johnson – Director of the Basic Science Curriculum, Rocky Vista University, and co-author of “Worried: Science Investigates Some of Life’s Common Concerns”
Willie Turner – Vice President of Operations at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, CA
Charles Wheelan – Senior Lecturer and Policy Fellow, Dartmouth College, and author of “Naked Statistics”
David Robson – Commissioning Editor for the BBC and author of “The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes”
*Originally aired May 27, 2019
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Going Multicellular
9 oktober 2023 · 55 min
Imagine life without animals, trees, and fungi. The world would look very different. But while the first life was surely single-celled, we don’t know just how it evolved to multicellular organisms. Two long-term experiments hope to find out, and one has been running for more than 35 years. Hear about the moment scientists watched evolution take off in the lab, and how directed evolution was used to create a multicellular organism. Also, how single embryonic cells become humans, and what all of this says about the possibility of life on other worlds.
Guests:
Jeff Barrick – molecular scientist at the University of Texas at Austin where his lab oversees the Long-Term Evolution Experiment that’s been running since 1988.
Will Ratcliff - an evolutionary biologist at Georgia Institute of Technology
Ben Stanger - cancer researcher, professor of medicine and developmental biology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “From One Cell: A Journey into Life’s Origins and the Future of Medicine.”
Joseph L. Graves - evolutionary biologist and geneticist at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and author of “A Voice in the Wilderness: A Pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Our Biggest Problems.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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How Hot is Too Hot?
2 oktober 2023 · 57 min
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.”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Lees meer -
Skeptic Check: Near Death Experiences
25 september 2023 · 56 min
Near death experiences can be profound and even life changing. People describe seeing bright lights, staring into the abyss, or meeting dead relatives. Many believe these experiences to be proof of an afterlife.
But now, scientists are studying these strange events and gaining insights into the brain and consciousness itself. Will we uncover the scientific underpinning of these near-death events?
Guests:
Steve Paulson - executive producer of To the Best of Our Knowledge for Wisconsin Public Radio
Sebastian Junger - journalist, filmmaker and author of “The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea”
Christoph Koch - neuroscientist at the Allen Institute in Seattle and chief scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation in Santa Monica California
Daniel Kondziella - neuroscientist in the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Copenhagen
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Into the Deep*
18 september 2023 · 54 min
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)
*Originally aired November 23, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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What's a Few Degrees?
11 september 2023 · 54 min
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
Originally aired October 19, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Building a Space Colony*
4 september 2023 · 54 min
Ready to become a space emigre? For half a century, visionaries have been talking about our future off-Earth – a speculative scenario in which many of us live in space colonies. So why haven’t we built them? Will the plans of billionaire space entrepreneurs to build settlements on Mars, or orbiting habitats that would be only minutes away from Earth, revive our long-held spacefaring dreams? And is having millions of people living off-Earth a solution to our problems… or an escape from them?
Guests:
Marianne Dyson – Author and former NASA flight controller
Emily St. John Mandel – Author, most recently of “Sea of Tranquility”
John Adams – Deputy Director, Biosphere 2, University of Arizona
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired July 25, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Talk the Walk*
28 augustus 2023 · 54 min
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.
Originally aired October 5, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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A Twist of Slime*
21 augustus 2023 · 54 min
Your daily mucus output is most impressive. Teaspoons or measuring cups can’t capture its entire volume. Find out how much your body churns out and why you can’t live without the viscous stuff. But slime in general is remarkable. Whether coating the bellies of slithery creatures, sleeking the surface of aquatic plants, or dripping from your nose, its protective qualities make it one of the great inventions of biology. Join us as we venture to the land of ooze!
Guests:
Christopher Viney - Professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Merced
Katharina Ribbeck - Bioengineer at MIT
Anna Rose Hopkins - Chef and partner at Hank and Bean in Los Angeles
Ruth Kassinger - author of “Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us”
*Originally aired January 27, 2020
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Granting Immunity*
14 augustus 2023 · 54 min
“Diversity or die” could be your new health mantra. Don’t boost your immune system, cultivate it! Like a garden, your body’s defenses benefit from species diversity. Find out why multiple strains of microbes, engaged in a delicate ballet with your T-cells, join internal fungi in combatting disease. Plus, global ecosystems also depend on the diversity of its tiniest members; so what happens when the world’s insects bug out?
Guests: Lees meerMatt Richtel – Author, most recently, of “An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of The Immune System”
Rob Dunn – Biologist and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University. Author of “Never Home Alone”
David Underhill – Professor of medicine, Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles, California
Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson – Professor in conservation biology at the Institute for Ecology and Nature Management at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Author of “Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects”
Originally aired August 12, 2019
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Skeptic Check: UFO Conspiracy
7 augustus 2023 · 57 min
UFOs are back. This time they’ve landed on Capitol Hill in the form of a public, congressional hearing. We watched the hearing with great interest, but felt dissatisfied when it came to evidence. Claims that the government has alien technology are obviously tantalizing. So tantalizing, in fact, that it’s easy to overlook logical fallacies in how these claims are presented. We identify a few of the missteps. But what would convince you that the government is aware of alien visitation? Is the word of an authority figure all we need to accept that “they’re here?”
Guests:
Benjamin Radford - Research fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Nadia Drake - Science journalist and member of NASA’s UAP group
James McGaha - Retired military pilot and astronomer he's a longtime investigator of UFO reports and claims and he's a scientific consultant to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Mick West - A skeptical investigator who looks at claims of UFOs
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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We'll Always Have Parasites
31 juli 2023 · 54 min
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.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Measure For Measure
24 juli 2023 · 54 min
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
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Fantastic-er Voyage*
17 juli 2023 · 54 min
Thinking small can sometimes achieve big things. A new generation of diminutive robots can enter our bodies and deal with medical problems such as intestinal blockages. But do we really want them swimming inside us, even if they’re promising to help? You might change your mind when you hear what else is cruising through our bloodstream: microplastics!
We take a trip into the human body, beginning with the story of those who first dared to open it up for medical purposes. But were the first surgeons really cavemen?
Guests: Lees meerIra Rutkow – Surgeon and writer, and author of “Empire of the Scalpel: The History of Surgery”
Dick Vethaak – Emeritus professor of ecotoxicology, water quality and health at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University, Amsterdam) in The Netherlands
Li Zhang – Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Michael LaBarbera – Professor in organismal biology, anatomy and geophysical sciences, University of Chicago
Originally aired June 20, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
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Dinosaurs' Last Gasp*
10 juli 2023 · 54 min
Do we have physical evidence of the last day of the dinosaurs? We consider fossilized fish in South Dakota that may chronicle the dramatic events that took place when, 66 million years ago, a large asteroid slammed into the Gulf of Mexico and caused three-quarters of all species to disappear.
Also, what new discoveries have paleontologists made about these charismatic animals, and the director of Jurassic World: Dominion talks about how his film hews to the latest science. Hint: feathers!
It’s deep history, as we look at what happened as terrestrial life experienced its worst day ever.
Guests: Lees meerColin Trevorrow – Director of Jurassic World: Dominion
Riley Black – Science writer and author of “The Last Days of the Dinosaurs”
Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan – Paleontologist at the University of Cape Town, South Africa
*Originally aired June 13, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Allergy Reason
3 juli 2023 · 54 min
Runny nose. Itchy, watery eyes. Sneezing. If you don’t have allergies, you probably know someone who does. The number of people with allergies, including food allergies and eczema, is increasing. What is going on?
A medical anthropologist describes how our hygiene habits, our diets, and our polluted environment are irritating our bodies. Also, the case for skipping your shower. Is skin healthier when we stop lathering?
Guests:
James Hamblin – Preventive medicine physician and a lecturer in public health at Yale and author of Clean: the New Science of Skin
Theresa MacPhail – medical anthropologist, professor of science and technology studies at Stevens Institute of Technology and author of Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Made for Mars
26 juni 2023 · 54 min
Do you have what it takes to survive on Mars? Beginning this month, four people will spend a year in a prototype Martian habitat meant to simulate living on the Red Planet. It’s part of NASA’s efforts to prepare us for real human missions to Mars. Find out how well we can replicate that world on Earth and what we might learn from doing so.
Also, a new robotic mission aims to be the first to bring back a piece of the Red Planet, and why Mars has enchanted us for centuries.
Guests:
Scott Smith – Lead for the nutritional biochemistry lab at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, and member of the CHAPEA team.
Matthew Shindell – Historian of science and Curator of Planetary Science and Exploration at the National Air and Space Museum. Author of For the Love of Mars; a Human History of the Red Planet.
Pascal Lee – Planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, principal investigator of the Haughton-Mars Project, and co-founder of The Mars Institute
Michela Muñoz Fernández – Program Executive for NASA’s Mars Sample Return Mission
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Skeptic Check: NASA UFO Study
19 juni 2023 · 59 min
NASA is studying more than 800 sightings of unidentified objects in our sky as part of its investigation into the UFO phenomenon. We get an update on the agency’s study in a conversation with a member of the NASA UAP panel.
We also hear why the belief that aliens exist has broad consensus, but that’s not the same as saying they routinely visit Earth. Plus, a UFO investigator analyzes the startling claim that the military is hiding evidence of alien technology. Lees meerGuests:
Nadia Drake – Science journalist and member of NASA’s UAP group
Mick West – Science writer, skeptical debunker, former video game programmer. Author of “Escaping the Rabbit Hole”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Ears Have It*
12 juni 2023 · 54 min
What’s the difference between a bird call and the sound of a pile driver? Not much, when you’re close to the loudest bird ever. Find out when it pays to be noisy and when noise can worsen your health. Just about everyone eventually suffers some hearing loss, but that’s not merely aging. It’s an ailment we inflict on ourselves. Hear how a team in New York City has put sensors throughout the city to catalog noise sources, hoping to tame the tumult.
And can underwater speakers blasting the sounds of a healthy reef bring life back to dead patches of the Great Barrier Reef?
Guests:
Mark Cartwright – Research Assistant Professor at New York University’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Charles Mydlarz – Research Assistant Professor at New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and the Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL)
David Owen – Staff writer at The New Yorker, and author of Volume Control: Hearing in a Deafening World
Jeff Podos – Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Steve Simpson – Professor of Marine Biology and Global Change, Exeter University, U.K.
Originally aired January 20, 2020
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Skeptic Check: The Body Electric
5 juni 2023 · 56 min
Electricity plays an important role in our everyday lives, including allowing our bodies to communicate internally. But some research claims electricity may be used to diagnose and treat disease? Could electric pulses one day replace medications?
We speak with experts about the growing field of bioelectric medicine and the evidence for electricity’s healing abilities. Their comments may shock you.
Guests:
Sally Adee – Science journalist, author of “We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body’s Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds"
Samantha Payne – Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences at University of Guelph
Kevin Tracey – Neurosurgeon and President of the Feinstein Institute at Northwell Health
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Life in the Solar System
29 mei 2023 · 54 min
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”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Let's Stick Together*
22 mei 2023 · 54 min
Crowded subway driving you crazy? Sick of the marathon-length grocery store line? Wish you had a hovercraft to float over traffic? If you are itching to hightail it to an isolated cabin in the woods, remember, we evolved to be together. Humans are not only social, we’re driven to care for one another, even those outside our immediate family.
We look at some of the reasons why this is so – from the increase in valuable communication within social groups to the power of the hormone oxytocin. Plus, how our willingness to tolerate anonymity, a condition which allows societies to grow, has a parallel in ant supercolonies.
Guests:
Adam Rutherford – Geneticist and author of “Humanimal: How Homo sapiens Became Nature’s Most Paradoxical Creature – a New Evolutionary History”
Patricia Churchland – Neurophilosopher, professor of philosophy emerita at the University of California San Diego, and author most recently of “Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition”
Mark Moffett – Tropical biologist, Smithsonian Institution researcher, and author of “The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive and Fall”
*Originally aired July 22, 2019
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Skeptic Check: Shroom With a View*
15 mei 2023 · 56 min
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
Originally aired December 7, 2020
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Catching Fire*
8 mei 2023 · 54 min
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
*Originally aired May 9, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Finding Endurance*
1 mei 2023 · 54 min
In 1915, Endurance, the ship that took Ernest Shackleton to the Antarctic, was slowly crushed and sank. Shackleton, and the 28 men he brought with him, were camped on the ice near the ship, and watched helplessly as their transport went to a watery grave, two miles down.
But a recent expedition has found the Endurance, taking the world back to the last hurrah of the heroic age of polar expedition. How was it found, and what will be done with it?
Also, while feats of exploration inspire TV shows and magazine articles, do they have other functions in society? Is modern exploration more than just a nice thing to do?
We go to the bottom of the world on “Finding Endurance.”
Guests:
Michael Smith – Author and journalist. His book: “Shackleton: By Endurance We Conquer”
Christian Katlein – Sea ice physicist
Tim Jarvis – Adventurer and environmental scientist
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired April 8, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. Lees meerYou can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Latest Buzz*
24 april 2023 · 54 min
Is your windshield accumulating less bug splatter? Insects, the most numerous animals on Earth, are becoming scarcer, and that’s not good news. They’re essential, and not just for their service as pollinators. We ask what’s causing the decrease in insect populations, and how can it be reversed.
Also, the story of how California’s early citrus crops came under attack – a problem that was solved by turning Nature on itself. And how chimpanzee “doctors” use insects to treat wounds.
We investigate the small and the many on “The Latest Buzz.”
Guests:
Martin Kernan – Historian and journalist. His article, “The Bug That Saved California,” appeared in the January-February 2022 issue of the Smithsonian
Alessandra Mascaro – Evolutionary Biologist, currently working at the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project, co-author of the Current Biology paper, “Application of insects to wounds of self and others by chimpanzees in the wild”
Lara Southern – Doctoral student at the University of Osnabruck, co-author of the Current Biology paper, “Application of insects to wounds of self and others by chimpanzees in the wild”
Oliver Milman – Environment correspondent for The Guardian in the U.S. and author of “The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired March 28, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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CRISPR Mosquitoes
17 april 2023 · 56 min
The editing tool CRISPR is already being tested on animal and plant cells. It has even been used on humans. How might this revolutionary tool change our lives? On the one hand, it could cure inherited diseases and rid the world of malaria-spreading mosquitoes. On the other hand, scientists using it are accelerating evolution and introducing novel genetic combinations that could transform our biological landscape in unforeseen ways. We explore the ramifications of this revolutionary technology. Lees meer
Guests:
Nathan Rose – Molecular biologist and head of malaria programs at U.K. based biotech company, Oxitec.Hank Greely – Law professor and director of the Center for Law in the Biosciences at Stanford University and author of “CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans.”
Antonio Regalado – Senior Editor for Biomedicine, MIT Technology Review.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
We've been nominated for a Webby! Our episode "Vaccine Inequity" is in the top 5 of the Technology category. Vote for Big Picture Science before April 20, 2023!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Skeptic Check: Feeling Risky
10 april 2023 · 56 min
It’s not just facts that inform our decisions. They’re also guided by how those facts feel. From deciding whether to buckle our seat belts to addressing climate change, how we regard risk is subjective. In this extended conversation with an expert on the psychology of risk, find out about our exaggerated fears, as well as risks we don’t take seriously enough. Meanwhile, while experts warn society about the dangers of self-aware AI – are those warnings being heeded?
Guest:
David Ropeik – Professor emeritus Harvard University, and expert on the psychology of risk
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
We've been nominated for a Webby! Our episode "Vaccine Inequity" is in the top 5 of the Technology category. Vote for Big Picture Science!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Calling All Aliens
3 april 2023 · 55 min
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
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Make Space for Animals*
27 maart 2023 · 55 min
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: Lees meerJo Wimpenny - Zoologist and writer. Author of “Aesop’s Animals”
Taylor Maggiacomo - Associate Graphic Editor at National Geographic
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”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired January 24, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Skeptic Check: Do Your Own Research*
20 maart 2023 · 55 min
Scientists are increasingly finding their expertise questioned by non-experts who claim they’ve done their own “research.” Whether advocating Ivermectin to treat Covid, insisting that climate change is a hoax, or asserting that the Earth is flat, doubters are now dismissed by being told to “do your own research!” But is a Wiki page evidence? What about a YouTube video? What happens to our quest for truth along the way? Plus, a science historian goes to a Flat Earth convention to talk reason.
Guests: Lees meerYvette Johnson-Walker – epidemiologist at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, and affiliate faculty with the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health.
Nathan Ballantyne – Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, in New York.
David Dunning – Social psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan.
Lee McIntyre – Research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History at Boston University, author of “Post-Truth,” and “How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason.”
*Originally aired February 7, 2022
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Flower Power
13 maart 2023 · 55 min
Before everything could come up roses, there had to be a primordial flower – the mother, and father, of all flowers. Now scientists are on the hunt for it. The eFlower project aims to explain the sudden appearance of flowering plants in the fossil record, what Darwin called an “abominable mystery.”
Meanwhile, ancient flowers encased in amber or preserved in tar are providing clues about how ecosystems might respond to changing climates. And, although it was honed by evolution for billions of years, can we make photosynthesis more efficient and help forestall a global food crisis?
Guests:
Eva-Maria Sadowski - Post doctoral paleobotanist at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Regan Dunn - Paleobotanist and assistant Curator at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum
Royal Krieger - Rosarian and volunteer at the Morcom Rose Garden, Oakland, California
Ruby Stephens - Plant ecology PhD candidate at Macquarie University in Australia, and member of the eFlower Project
Stephen Long - Professor of Plant Science, University of Illinois
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Lady Parts*
6 maart 2023 · 1 uur 1 min
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe has ignited fierce debate about bodily autonomy. But it’s remarkable how little we know about female physiology. Find out what studies have been overlooked by science, and what has been recently learned. Plus, why studying women’s bodies means being able to say words like “vagina” without shame ... a researcher who is recreating a uterus in her lab to study endometriosis … and an overdue recognition of medical pioneer Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler.
Guests:
Melody T. McCloud - Obstetrician Gynecologist and Founder and Medical Director of Atlanta Women's Health Care; co-author of “Black Women's Wellness: Your ‘I've Got This!’ Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living”
Victoria Gall - Volunteer with the Friends of the Hyde Park Library and the Hyde Park Historical Society
Rachel E. Gross - Science journalist and author of “Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage”
Linda Griffith - Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T., Director of the Center for Gynepathology Research, and author of the Boston Globe article, “‘FemTech’ and a moonshot for menstruation science”
Roshni Babal - Pediatric Asthma and Chronic Disease Program Coordinator at Boston Medical Center
Perri Klass - Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University and Author of “The Best Medicine: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired October 31, 2022
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Please take our listener survey! Help us get to know you and enter to win a $500 Amazon gift card! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Waste Not [rebroadcast]
27 februari 2023 · 55 min
Why create more landfill? Perhaps you should resist the urge to toss those old sneakers, the broken ceiling fan, or last year’s smart phone. Instead, repurpose them! Global junk entrepreneurs are leading the way in turning trash to treasure, while right-to-repair advocates fight for legislation that would give you a decent shot at fixing your own electronic devices.
And, if you toss food scraps down the drain as you cook, are you contributing to a “fatberg” horror in the sewer?
Guests: Lees meerJohn Love – Synthetic biologist at the University of Exeter
Adam Minter – Author of Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale
Amanda Preske – Chemist and the owner of Circuit Breaker Labs
Nathan Proctor – National campaign director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group – (PIRGS) Right to Repair campaign
Kyle Wiens – CEO of I-Fixit, an Internet repair community
Originally aired December 16, 2019
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Post Social Media
20 februari 2023 · 58 min
Before you check your social media feeds today. And post. And post again. And get into an argument on Twitter, lose track of time and wonder where the morning went, consider that social media was never a natural way to socialize.
A cultural anthropologist weighs in on the evolutionary reasons humans can’t thrive on social media. And we hear about the signs that social media is on its way out. If that’s the case, what’s next?
Guests:
Max Fisher – Reporter for The New York Times, author of “The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World”
Douglas Rushkoff – Professor of media theory and digital economics at City University of New York, and author of “Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires”
Ian Bogost – Professor of Media Studies and computer science at Washington University in St. Louis and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
Alex Mesoudi – Professor of Cultural Evolution at the University of Exeter, U.K.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices