Big Picture Science

A thousand years ago, most people didn’t own a single book. The only way to access knowledge was to consult their memory.  But technology – from paper to hard drives – has permitted us to free our brains from remembering countless facts. Alphabetization and the simple filing cabinet have helped to systematize and save information we might need someday. But now that we can Google just about any subject, have we lost the ability to memorize information? Does this make our brains better or worse? Guests: Judith Flanders – Historian and author, most recently of A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order Craig Robertson – Professor of Media Studies, Northeastern University and author of The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information David Eagleman – Neuroscientist and author, Stanford University   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we struggle to control a viral invader that moves silently across the globe and into its victims, we are also besieged by other invasions. Murder hornets have descended upon the Pacific Northwest, threatening the region’s honeybees. In Africa, locust swarms darken the sky. In this episode, we draw on a classic science fiction tale to examine the nature of invasions, and what prompts biology to go on the move. Guests: Peter Ksander – Associate professor at Reed College in the Department of Theater. Producer of the spring 2020 production of War of the Worlds Eva Licht – A senior at Reed College, and producer and director of War of the Worlds Chris Looney – Entomologist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, where he manages its general entomology laboratory Nipun Basrur – Neurobiologist at The Rockefeller University Amy Maxmen – Reporter at the journal Nature, in which her story about pandemic war games appeared. Originally aired August 31, 2020   Learn more about your ad choices.

The benefits of artificial intelligence are manifest and manifold, but can we recognize the drawbacks … and avoid them in time?  In this episode, recorded before a live audience at the Seattle meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, we discuss who is making the ethical decisions about how we use this powerful technology, and a proposal to create a Hippocratic Oath for AI researchers. Guests: Oren Etzioni - CEO of The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence Mark Hill - Professor of computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and chair of the Computing Community Consortium Originally aired February 24, 2020   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Climate change isn’t happening. Vaccines make you sick. When it comes to threats to public or environmental health, a surprisingly large fraction of the population still denies the consensus of scientific evidence. But it’s not the first time – many people long resisted the evidentiary link between HIV and AIDS and smoking with lung cancer. There’s a sense that science denialism is on the rise. It prompted a gathering of scientists and historians in New York City to discuss the problem, which included a debate on the usefulness of the word “denial” itself. Big Picture Science was there. We report from the Science Denial symposium held jointly by the New York Academy of Sciences and Rutgers Global Health Institute.  Find out why so many people dig in their heels and distrust scientific findings. Plus, the techniques wielded by special interest groups to dispute some inconvenient truths. We also hear how simply stating more facts may be the wrong approach to combating scientific resistance. Guests: Melanie Br

They’re cute and cuddly. But they can also be obnoxious. Science writer Mary Roach has numerous tales about how our animal friends don’t always bow to their human overlords and behave the way we’d want. The resulting encounters, such as when gulls disrupt the Vatican’s Easter mass, make for amusing stories. But others, such as wolves threatening farmers’ livestock, can be tragic. We hear what happens at the messy crossroads of human and wildlife encounters. Guest: Mary Roach – Author of bestselling nonfiction books, most recently “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.”   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Above the Arctic Circle, much of the land is underlaid by permafrost. But climate change is causing it to thaw. This is not good news for the planet.  As the carbon rich ground warms, microbes start to feast… releasing greenhouse gases that will warm the Earth even more. Another possible downside was envisioned by a science-fiction author. Could ancient pathogens–released from the permafrost’s icy grip–cause new pandemics? We investigate what happens when the far north defrosts. Guests: Jacquelyn Gill – Associate professor of paleoecology at the University of Maine. Jim Shepard – Novelist and short story writer, and teacher of English at Williams College, and author of “Phase Six.” Scott Saleska – Global change ecologist, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, and co-founder of IsoGenie.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Without sand, engineering would be stuck in the Middle Ages. Wooden houses would line mud-packed streets, and Silicon Valley would be, well, just a valley. Sand is the building material of modern cities, and we use more of this resource than any other except water and air. Now we’re running out of it.  Hear why the Roman recipe for making concrete was lost until the 19th century, and about the super-secret mine in North Carolina that makes your smartphone possible.  Plus, engineered sand turns stormwater into drinking water, and why you might think twice about running barefoot on some tropical beaches once you learn about their biological source. And, a special report from the coast of Louisiana where livelihoods and ecosystems depend on the successful release of Mississippi sand from levees into sediment-starved wetlands. Guests: Vince Beiser – Journalist and author of “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How it Transformed Civilization” Joe Charbonnet – Science and policy associate at the Green

SMS isn’t the original instant messaging system. Plants can send chemical warnings through their leaves in a fraction of a second. And while we love being in the messaging loop – frenetically refreshing our browsers – we miss out on important conversations that no Twitter feed or inbox can capture. That’s because eavesdropping on the communications of non-human species requires the ability to decode their non-written signals. Dive into Arctic waters where scientists make first-ever recordings of the socializing clicks and squeals of narwhals, and find out how climate shifts may pollute their acoustic landscape. Also, why the chemical defense system of plants has prompted one biologist to give greenery an “11 on the scale of awesomeness.” And, you can’t see them, but they sure can sense one another: how communicating microbes plan their attack. Guests: Susanna Blackwell – Bio-acoustician with Greeneridge Sciences. Hear her recordings of narwhals here. Simon Gilroy – Professor of botany, University of Wisco

It was a radical idea a century ago, when Einstein said space and time can be bent, and gravity was really geometry. We hear how his theories inspire young minds even today. At small scales, different rules apply: quantum mechanics and the Standard Model for particles. New experiments suggest that muons – cousins of the electron – may be telling us that the Standard Model is wrong. Also, where the physics of both the large and small apply, and why black holes have no hair. Guests: Hakeem Oluseyi – Astrophysicist, affiliated professor at George Mason University, and author of “A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars” Janna Levin – Professor of physics and astronomy, Barnard College at Columbia University Mark Lancaster – Professor of particle physics, University of Manchester Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They were developed in a matter of months, and they’re 90 percent effective at stopping infection. They protect against serious illness or death. And yet, roughly one-third of Americans refuse to get the Covid vaccine. How can this be? How could something that our ancestors would have considered a miracle be refused by so many? The reasons are many, and not all are because of an anti-vax attitude. We talk to health professionals to learn what’s stopping the public from stopping the pandemic. Guests: Paul Offit – Pediatrician and Director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Tanagne Haile-Mariam – Professor of Emergency Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine Nsikan Akpan – Former Health and Science Editor for New York Public Radio   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They look like a cross between a beaver and a duck, and they all live Down Under. The platypus may lay eggs, but is actually a distant mammalian cousin, one that we last saw, in an evolutionary sense, about 166 million years ago. Genetic sequencing is being used to trace that history, while scientists intensify their investigation of the habits and habitats of these appealing Frankencreatures; beginning by taking a census to see just how many are out there, and if their survival is under threat. Guests:  Josh Griffiths – Senior Wildlife Ecologist at Cesaar Australia. Jane Fenelon – Research fellow, University of Melbourne Paula Anich – Professor of Natural Resources, Northland College Wes Warren – Professor of Genomics, University of Missouri Phoebe Meagher – Conservation Officer, Taronga Conservation Society, Australia   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The seas are rising. It’s no longer a rarity to see kayakers paddling through downtown Miami. By century’s end, the oceans could be anywhere from 2 to 6 feet higher, threatening millions of people and property. But humans once knew how to adapt to rising waters. As high water threatens to drown our cities, can we learn do it again. Hear stories of threatened land: submerged Florida suburbs, the original sunken city (Venice), and the U.S. East Coast, where anthropologists rush to catalogue thousands of low-lying historical and cultural sites in harm’s way, including Jamestown, Virginia and ancient Native American sites.  But also, stories of ancient adaptability: from the First American tribes of the Colusa in South Florida to the ice age inhabitants of Doggerland. And, modern approaches to staying dry: stilt houses, seawalls, and floating cities. Guests: ·       Jeff Goodell – Journalist and author of “The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World” ·       Brian Fag

Rip van Winkle snoozed for 20 years, and Sleeping Beauty for 100. But seeds in an underground bottle have easily beaten both these records, germinating long after the scientist who buried them a few feet underground had died. We investigate biology’s long haulers–from seeds to small creatures–who are able to wake up and restart their lives, even after tens of thousands of years. Also, what are those buried 17-year cicadas doing as they wait to come back topside? Guests: Chris Simon – Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut Sarah Dwyer – Chocolatier, Chouquette Chocolates Frank Telewski – Director of the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden at Michigan State University, and professor in its department of plant biology Rocco Mancinelli – Microbial ecologist, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute Featuring music by Dewey Dellay   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the government announced it would release a report about strange aerial phenomena, public excitement and media coverage took off like a Saturn V rocket. But what’s really in the report? Do we finally have the long-awaited evidence of alien visitation? We discuss the report’s content and implications with both a former U.S. Air Force pilot and a skeptical investigator. And if it hasn’t proven alien presence, what happens next with those who nonetheless think Earth is being visited? Guests: James McGaha - Retired USAF pilot, astronomer, and director of the Grasslands Observatory. Founder and chairman of the Tucson Skeptics and a Scientific Consultant to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.  Mick West - Science writer, skeptical debunker, former video game programmer. Author of “Escaping the Rabbit Hole.”   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The scientific method is tried and true. It has led us to a reliable understanding of things from basic physics to biomedicine. So yes, we can rely on the scientific method. The fallible humans behind the research, not so much. And politicians? Don’t get us started. Remember when one brought a snowball to the Senate floor to “prove” that global warming was a hoax? Oy vey. We talk to authors about new books that seem to cast a skeptical eye on the scientific method… but that are really throwing shade on the ambitious labcoat-draped humans who heat the beakers and publish the papers … as well as the pinstriped politicians who twist science to win votes. Find out why the hyper-competitive pursuit of results that are “amazing” and “incredible” is undermining medical science… how a scientific breakthrough can turn into a societal scourge (heroin as miracle cure)… and what happens when civil servants play the role of citizen scientists on CSPAN. Guests: Richard Harris - NPR science correspondent, author of Rigor

Everyone is familiar with the immediate consequences of a pandemic – sickness and death. But the long-term ramifications can be just as dramatic: a breakdown of the family and society, shifts in political power, and widespread appeals to magical thinking. Plagues are societal disrupters. Their effects can linger long after the pathogens have gone. Also, hear how art responded to a pandemic and how the Louisiana Purchase was made possible by an outbreak of fever in the Caribbean. Guest: Frank Snowden – Professor of History and the History of Medicine at Yale University, and author of Epidemics and Society.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The toilet: A ubiquitous appliance that dates to the time of Shakespeare. But billions of people around the world still lack modern sanitation infrastructure. And the incentive to modernize includes the possibility that recycling human waste could help with conservation efforts, energy generation, and even medicine. Also, a sixth-grader puts lipstick on cats’ bottoms to map places their tush has touched, and in Michigan, why peeing on the peonies can be a good thing. Guests: Kaeden Henry – Sixth grade student in Tennessee. Kerry Griffin – Mother of Kaeden Henry; holds a doctorate in animal behavior. Yvette Johnson-Walker – Clinical Instructor in Veterinary Clinical Medicine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Chelsea Wald – Science and environmental journalist, and author of Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet. Nancy Love – Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Bio

Whether you yawn, gasp, sniff, snore, or sigh, you’re availing yourself of our very special atmosphere. It’s easy to take this invisible chemical cocktail for granted, but it’s not only essential to your existence: it unites you and every other life form on the planet, dead or alive. The next breath you take likely includes molecules exhaled by Julius Caesar or Eleanor Roosevelt. And for some animals, air is an information superhighway. Dogs navigate with their noses. Their sniffing snouts help them to identify their owners, detect trace amounts of drugs, and even sense some diseases. Find out what a dog’s nose knows, and why no amount of bathing and dousing in perfume can mask your personal smelliness. Plus, why your own schnoz is key to not only enjoying a fine Bordeaux, but to survival of our species. Guests: Sam Kean – Science writer, author of “Caesar’s Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us”  Ken Givich – Microbiologist, Guittard Chocolate company Alexandra Horowitz – Dog cognition