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PODCAST

Science, Spoken

Get in-depth coverage of current and future trends in technology, and how they are shaping business, entertainment, communications, science, politics, and society.

science

All Episodes

5:00

What Termites Teach Us About Robot Cooperation

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/13

At a glance, a single worker of the genus Macrotermes is not a very complex creature—less than half an inch long, eyeless, wingless, with an abdomen so transparent you can spot the dead grass it ate for lunch. Put it in a group, though, and it may pile up pinhead-sized balls of mud, one after the other, until a complex mound takes shape. By the time that mound is 17 feet tall, it will be equivalent in scale to the Burj Khalifa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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8:56

This Solar Probe Is Built to Survive a Brush With the...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/10

Early Saturday morning, the skies above Cape Canaveral will light up with the launch of the Parker Solar Probe. Its mission? To sweep through the sun’s infernal outer atmosphere, studying the gaseous fireball at the center of the solar system at closer range than any man-made object ever before. Despite being the nearest star to Earth, the sun’s extreme environment has stymied scientists for decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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9:32

Native Tribes Are Taking Fire Control Into Their Own...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/10

Sometimes Vikki Preston is inching her way through the forest when she comes across a grove of tan oak trees that feels special. The plants are healthy, the trees are old, and their trunks are nicely spaced out on the forest floor. “You can feel that the grove has been taken care of,” she says. “There’s been a lot of love and thoughtfulness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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3:09

The Unknowability of the Next Global Epidemic

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/09

Disease X n. A dire contagion requiring immediate attention—but which we don’t yet know about. In 2013 a virus jumped from an animal to a child in a remote Guinean village. Three years later, more than 11,000 people in six countries were dead. Devastating—and Ebola was a well-studied disease. What may strike next, the World Health Organization fears, is something no doctor has ever heard of, let alone knows how to treat. It’s come to be known as Disease X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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8:57

Scientists Take a Harder Look at Genetic Engineering...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/09

The distant future of designer babies might not seem so distant after all. The last year has been full of news about genetic engineering—much of it driven by the the cut-and-paste technique called Crispr. And at the top of the list: news that Crispr could modify human embryos, correcting a relatively common, often deadly mutation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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6:03

You Can Learn Everything Online Except for the Things...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/08

I've seen several quotes that say something like this. Everything I learned in college can now be found online for free. Is this true or false? Well, it of course depends on what you did in college—but I hope it's false. Let's start with some examples that seem to support this idea. I will use the area of physics since I'm a physics professor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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6:54

How Much Power Does It Take to Fly in a Real-Life Jet...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/08

This isn't actually a real Iron Man suit. But it does fly. It's a flying suit made by Gravity Industries, a young British startup that builds what they call 'jet suits.' The system uses six kerosene-powered jet thrusters to let a human fly around. Honestly, it just looks cool. This tweet states that it takes 1,000 horsepower to fly—how about an estimation to check this number? The Physics of Flight Let's start off with some fundamental physics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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7:09

This Community Is Advocating for Air Quality—With...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/07

Kamita Gray and her mom have spent a lot of time volunteering at Brandywine Elementary School, helping kindergarteners learn to write their names and making sure everyone has a turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every time they’re at the Maryland school, they’re struck by the heavy black smoke from diesel trucks roaring by, en route from construction sites or delivering mining waste to dumps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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8:16

My Two-Week Edible-Insect Feast

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/07

The insects appeared at my Chicago doorstep in swarms. Crickets, grasshoppers, locusts, mealworms, ants—all of them dead on arrival, entombed in resealable bags and glass jars. Before long, my apartment was overrun with bugs, and soon all of my meals would be too. I had summoned this infestation, ranging from whole dried insects to bug-based chips, granola, and protein bars, for the greater good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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6:21

Who's Responsible for Your Bad Tech Habits? It's...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/06

First the phones gave. They gave connection and communication. Then they gave music and movies and maps. Then came the apps, and with the apps came… well... everything. And we took it all gladly. But somewhere along the way, the phones began to take, too. They took our attention, distracting us from dates and family dinners. They took our time, devouring hours of our days a few minutes at a time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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5:54

Meet the Astronauts Who Will Fly the First Private...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/06

SpaceX and Boeing are preparing to face off in an epic game of capture the flag. The winner not only wins bragging rights as the first private company to shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station, but gets to bring home a piece of history: a small American flag that flew on both the first and last shuttle missions. That tiny patch of red, white, and blue is more than a piece of cloth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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6:31

Robots Are Renting Airbnbs to Get a Better Grip

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/03

Maybe you like your Airbnb to come with a nice big living room, or lots of light, or his-and-her sinks. If you’re a robot, though, you just want a little variety. A carpet here, a hardwood floor there. Because you’re a pioneer, not just a tourist. At least, if you’re a very special robot from a team at Carnegie Mellon University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

7:23

Climate Change's Looming Mental Health Crisis

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/03

For the Inuit of Labrador in Canada, climate disaster has already arrived. These indigenous people form an intense bond with their land, hunting for food and fur. “People like to go out on the land to feel good,” says Noah Nochasak in the documentary Lament for the Land. “If they can’t go out on the land, travel a long ways to feel good, they don’t feel like people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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7:51

The Only Thing Fire Scientists Are Sure of: This Will...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/02

Subtract out the conspiracists and the willfully ignorant and the argument marshaled by skeptics against global warming, roughly restated, assumes that scientists vastly overstate the consequences of pumping greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere. Uncertainties in their calculations, the skeptics say, make it impossible to determine with confidence how bad the future was going to be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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9:13

Why Big Stuff Cools Off Slower Than Small Stuff

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/02

Welcome to another chapter in my ongoing saga entitled "big things are not small things." In this edition of big vs. small, let's look at hot stuff. Here I have three aluminum objects. A large block, a small block, and a heat sink. Just for reference, the big block is about 14 centimeters long and the smaller block is almost 4 centimeters long (with the heat sink a little bit bigger than that). Of course none of these objects are cubes—but that's OK. So here's what I did. Learn more about your ad

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10:49

Climate Change Is Coming for Underwater...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/01

This story originally appeared on Atlas Obscura and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On a choppy voyage to Antarctica in 1928, the crew of the ship that would eventually be rechristened as the Vamar bestowed upon their vessel an optimistic nickname: “Evermore Rolling.” It proved to be a bit of a misnomer. Far from slicing through cresting waves forever, the ship sank near Florida in 1942, 3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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9:56

Making Personalized Cancer Vaccines Takes an Army—of...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/08/01

When Melissa Moore was tinkering around with RNA in the early 90s, the young biochemist had to painstakingly construct the genetic molecules by micropipette, just a few building blocks at a time. Inside the MIT lab of Nobel laureate Phil Sharp, it could take days to make just a few drops of RNA, which ferries a cell’s genetic source code to its protein-making machinery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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8:42

This Robot Hand Taught Itself How to Grab Stuff Like...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/07/31

Elon Musk is kinda worried about AI. (“AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization and I don’t think people fully appreciate that,” as he put it in 2017.) So he helped found a research nonprofit, OpenAI, to help cut a path to “safe” artificial general intelligence, as opposed to machines that pop our civilization like a pimple. Yes, Musk’s very public fears may distract from other more real problems in AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

9:18

Sorry, Nerds: Terraforming Might Not Work on Mars

Science, Spoken ·

2018/07/31

Listen, I get it. You want to go to Mars. I want to go to Mars. (Sort of.) And the plan—it’s good. A rocket with people. A base on the moon. Then more rockets and more people. Start making fuel on the surface, maybe depot it along the way. An outpost becomes a base becomes a domed city. And then: terraforming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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6:44

If Germany Can't Quit Coal, Can Anyone Else?

Science, Spoken ·

2018/07/30

Sometime next month, underground miners will dig Germany’s last ton of black coal, load it onto a conveyor belt, and whisk it a mile to the surface of the Ibbenbüren mining facility. From there, the high-energy anthracite will be tossed into a high-combustion chamber in an adjacent power plant, where it will be converted into electricity to light up this northwest corner of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state. It’s been a good run at the Ibbenbüren mine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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