Big Picture Science

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, diff...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/phreaky-physics

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 s...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/de-permafrosting

Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Oly...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/for-the-birds

The zombie eco-thriller “The Last of Us” has alerted us to the threats posed by fungi. But the show is not entirely science fiction. Our vulnerability to pathogenic fungi is more real than m...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/fungi-fear

Drinking a cup of coffee is how billions of people wake up every morning. But climate change is threatening this popular beverage. Over 60% of the world’s coffee species are at risk of extincti...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/coffee-of-the-future

The Great North American Solar Eclipse will trace a path of shadow across Mexico and 13 U.S. States on April 8th. Phil Plait, also known as The Bad Astronomer, joins the show for an extended inte...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/when-the-moon-hits-your-eye

Asteroids are rich in precious metals and other valuable resources. But mining them presents considerable challenges. We discuss these, and consider how these spinning, rocky resources might be t...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-asteroid-mining

Standing on your own two feet isn’t easy. While many animals can momentarily balance on their hind legs, we’re the only critters, besides birds, for whom bipedalism is completely normal. Find...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/feet-dont-fail-me

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 b...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/lady-parts

A century ago, British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the only surviving intact tomb from ancient Egypt. Inside was the mummy of the boy king Tutankhamun, together with “wonderful things”...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/tomb-with-a-view

The discovery of a massive amount of lithium under the Salton Sea could make the U.S. lithium independent. The metal is key for batteries in electric vehicles and solar panels. But the area is al...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ARML2729439931.mp3?updated=1708147261

Whales are aliens on Earth; intelligent beings who have skills for complex problem-solving and their own language. Now in what’s being called a breakthrough, scientists have carried on an exten...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/alien-says-what

By one estimate the average American home has 300,000 objects. Yet our ancient ancestors had no more than what they could carry with them. How did we go from being self-sufficient primates to non...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-wrong-stuff

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 ...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-hypnosis

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 f...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/inside-planets

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. Tod...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/tech-in-check

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 stu...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/your-mind-on-movies

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 spa...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/eclectic-company

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 fir...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/iron-coal-wood

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 revo...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-oceans-genome

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 ...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-naomi-klein

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? ...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/end-of-eternity

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 ou...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/living-color

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...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-t-rex-files

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...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/neanderthal-in-the-family

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 camo...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/night-flight

“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 ...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/extraordinary-ordinary-objects

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...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/like-lightning

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 d...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-worrier-mentality

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 organi...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/going-multicellular

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...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/how-hot-is-too-hot

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 ...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-near-death-experiences

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 th...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/into-the-deep

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 d...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/whats-few-degrees

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’...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/building-a-space-colony

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 yo...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/talk-the-walk

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 stuf...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/a-twist-of-slime

“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 multipl...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/granting-immunity

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 evidenc...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-ufo-conspiracy

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 t...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/well-always-have-parasites

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,...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/measure-for-measure

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...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/fantastic-er-voyage

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 lar...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/dinosaurs-last-gasp

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 increasin...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/allergy-reason

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�...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/made-for-mars

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...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-nasa-ufo-study

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 y...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-ears-have-it

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?...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-the-body-electric

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 ...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/life-in-the-solar-system

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 ...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/lets-stick-together

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 Al...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-shroom-with-a-view

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 di...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/catching-fire

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 ...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/finding-endurance

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 servi...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-latest-buzz

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 inhe...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/crispr-mosquitoes

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 ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-feeling-risky

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...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/calling-all-aliens

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. The...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/make-space-for-animals

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 clima...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-do-your-own-research

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 t...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/flower-power

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 b...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/lady-parts

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 a...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/waste-not

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...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/post-social-media

The zombie eco-thriller “The Last of Us” has alerted us to the threats posed by fungi. But the show is not entirely science fiction. Our vulnerability to pathogenic fungi is more real than m...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/fungi-fear

If you bake, you can appreciate math’s transformative properties. Admiring the stackable potato chip is to admire a hyperbolic sheet. Find out why there’s no need to fear math - you just ne...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/maths-paths

Hosted by Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart from the hit show Morbid. When 90-year-old Laurence Pilgeram drops dead on the sidewalk outside his condo, you might think that’s the end of his story. ...

http://wondery.fm/FH_BPS

The newest Pentagon report on UAPs – or Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon – reflects long standing public interest about what’s in our skies. Now, NASA is investigating for themselves. Should ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-understanding-uaps

A radical plan could solve a historic global health inequity. Countries in the global south who waited for more than a year for ample supplies of Covid vaccines have banded together to make mRN...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/vaccine-inequity

Catalytic converters are disappearing. If you’ve had yours stolen, you know that precious and rare earth metals are valuable. But these metals are in great demand for things other than converte...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/testing-your-metal

Climate change isn’t waiting for us to act. We’ve missed several deadlines to mitigate the dangers of this existential threat, which suggests we prefer to avert our gaze rather than deal with...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/melting-down

Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/coming-to-our-animal-senses

The James Webb Space Telescope has turned its golden eye on the cosmos. The largest, most sensitive telescope put in space since the Hubble Space Telescope is already producing new photos of far-...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/webb-feat

5G, the latest mobile network standard, is coming. As new cell towers sprout around the world, do we know enough to confidently claim that this new technology is safe? After all, older networking...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-5g

A century ago, British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the only surviving intact tomb from ancient Egypt. Inside was the mummy of the boy king Tutankhamun, together with “wonderful things”...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/tomb-with-a-view

Modern technology is great, but could we be losing control? As our world becomes more crowded and demands for resources are greater, some people worry about humanity’s uncertain prospects. An ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/keeping-humans-in-the-loop

A new theory about life’s origins updates Darwin’s warm little pond. Scientists say they’ve created the building blocks of biology in steaming hot springs. Meanwhile, we visit a NASA lab w...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/is-life-inevitable

A radical plan could solve a historic global health inequity. Countries in the global south who waited for more than a year for ample supplies of Covid vaccines have banded together to make mRN...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/vaccine-inequity

Declining biodiversity is a problem as fraught as climate change. Loss of habitat, monoculture crops, and the damming of waterways all lead to massive species extinction. They tear at life’s de...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/your-inner-tree

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 ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/fuhgeddaboudit

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 b...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/lady-parts

When a Google software engineer claimed that a piece of chatbot software was sentient, it was a major story. Just like your dog is sentient, could it be that some computer code – a chatbot syst...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-ai-comes-alive

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...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-t-rex-files

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...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/animals-being-jerks

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, diff...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/phreaky-physics

Sexist snow plowing? Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender. In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.”...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-data-bias

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 s...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/de-permafrosting

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...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/lightning

Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/coming-to-our-animal-senses

Do we still need doctors? There are umpteen alternative sources of medical advice, including endless and heartfelt health tips from people without medical degrees. Frankly, self-diagnosis with a...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-heal-thyself

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 s...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/platypus-crazy

Your shower pipes are alive. So are your sinks, books, and floorboards. New studies of our homes are revealing just what species live there – in the thousands, from bacteria to flies to milli...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/rip-van-winkle-worm

The James Webb Space Telescope has turned its golden eye on the cosmos. The largest, most sensitive telescope put in space since the Hubble Space Telescope is already producing new photos of far-...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/webb-feat

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’...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/building-a-space-colony

One of the many shocking aspects of the Capitol attack was that it revealed how thoroughly the nation had cleaved into alternate realities. How did we get to this point? How did misinformation co...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-shared-reality

Are you ready to defer all your personal decision-making to machines? Polls show that most Americans are uneasy about the unchecked growth of artificial intelligence. The possible misuse of gene...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/sci-fi-from-the-future

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 inclu...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/flush-with-excitement

Standing on your own two feet isn’t easy. While many animals can momentarily balance on their hind legs, we’re the only critters, besides birds, for whom bipedalism is completely normal. Find...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/feet-dont-fail-me

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 ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-hypnosis

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...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/fantastic-er-voyage

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 lar...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/dinosaurs-last-gasp

Heredity was once thought to be straightforward. Genes were passed in an immutable path from parents to you, and you were stuck – or blessed – with what you got. DNA didn’t change.  But n...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/dna-is-not-destiny

Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Ol...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/for-the-birds

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? ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/end-of-eternity

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...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/neanderthal-in-the-family

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 di...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/catching-fire

Dr. Oz’s personable and folky approach when talking about difficult health subjects has made him a trusted source for medical information. But some of the claims offered on The Doctor Oz Show�...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-dr-oz

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 ou...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/living-color

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 spa...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/eclectic-company

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 ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/finding-endurance

Solid materials get all the production credit. Don’t get us wrong, we depend on their strength and firmness for bridges, bones, and bento boxes. But liquids do us a solid, too. Their free-fl...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/go-with-the-flow

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 servi...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-latest-buzz

The nuclear threat is back, and the Doomsday Clock is almost at midnight. How did we end up here again? In the 1930s, German physicists learned that splitting the nuclei of heavy atoms could rele...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/nuclear-worries

DNA is the gold standard of identification. Except when it’s not. In rare cases when a person has two complete sets of DNA, that person’s identity may be up in the air. Meanwhile, DNA ancest...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/identity-crisis

There’s no place like “ome.” Your microbiome is highly influential in determining your health. But it’s not the only “ome” doing so. Your exposome – environmental exposure over a li...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/you-are-exposed

5G, the latest mobile network standard, is coming. As new cell towers sprout around the world, do we know enough to confidently claim that this new technology is safe? After all, older networking...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-5g

Climate change isn’t waiting for us to act. We’ve missed several deadlines to mitigate the dangers of this existential threat, which suggests we prefer to avert our gaze rather than deal with...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/melting-down

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 fir...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/iron-coal-wood

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 clima...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-do-your-own-research

You may not feel that your skeleton does very much. But without it you’d be a limp bag of protoplasm, unable to move. And while you may regard bones as rigid and inert, they are living tissue....

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/bare-bones

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. The...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/make-space-for-animals

Catalytic converters are disappearing. If you’ve had yours stolen, you know that rare earth metals are valuable. But these metals are in great demand for things other than converters, such as b...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/testing-your-metal

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 th...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/into-the-deep

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 d...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/whats-few-degrees

Beneath our feet is a living network just as complex and extensive as the root systems in a forest. Fungi, which evolved in the oceans, were among the first to colonize the barren continents more...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/mycology-education

The omicron variant is surging. More contagious than delta, omicron demonstrates how viruses use mutations to quickly adapt. Mutations drive evolution, although most don’t do much. But occasion...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/attack-of-the-mutants

The universe is not just expanding; it’s accelerating. Supermassive black holes are hunkered down at the center of our galaxy and just about every other galaxy, too. We talk about these and oth...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/hubble-and-beyond

The Pentagon’s report on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) said nothing about the possibility that some might be alien spacecraft. Nonetheless, the report has generated heightened interest i...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-identifying-uaps

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 yo...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/talk-the-walk

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 Alzh...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-shroom-with-a-view

Life nearby? We’ve not yet found any on our favorite planet, Mars. But even if Mars is sterile, could we ever change that by terraforming it? Or seeding it with life from Earth? The Red Planet ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/suitable-for-life

Declining biodiversity is a problem as fraught as climate change. Loss of habitat, monoculture crops, and the damming of waterways all lead to massive species extinction. They tear at life’s de...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/your-inner-tree

Does geoengineering offer a Plan B if nations at the U.N. climate meeting can't reduce carbon emissions? The Glasgow meeting has been called “the last best chance” to take measures to slow do...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2985055524.mp3?updated=1635607747

Looking to boost your brainpower? Luckily, there are products promising to help. Smart drugs, neurofeedback exercises, and brain-training video games all promise to improve your gray matter’s ...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-brain-gain

400 years ago, some ideas about the cosmos were too scandalous to mention. When the Dominican friar Giordano Bruno suggested that planets existed outside our Solar System, the Catholic Inquisitio...

http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/radical-cosmology

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-10-11.mp3

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 Northw...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-10-04.mp3

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...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-09-27.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-09-20.mp3

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...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-09-13.mp3

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 s...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-09-06.mp3

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 mode...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-08-30.mp3

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 – frenetical...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-08-23.mp3

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, diff...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-08-16.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-08-09.mp3

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 s...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-08-02.mp3

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 stuf...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-07-26.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-07-19.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-07-12.mp3

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...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-07-05.mp3

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...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-06-28.mp3

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 i...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-06-21.mp3

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 inclu...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-06-14.mp3

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 y...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-06-07.mp3

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 ess...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-05-31.mp3

Standing on your own two feet isn’t easy. While many animals can momentarily balance on their hind legs, we’re the only critters, besides birds, for whom bipedalism is completely normal. Find...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-05-24.mp3

Two heads may be better than one. But what about three or more? A new study shows that chimpanzees excel at complex tasks when they work in groups, and their accumulated knowledge can even be p...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-05-17.mp3

Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Ol...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-05-10.mp3

Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Ol...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-05-03.mp3

The Earth is not round. Technically, it’s an oblate spheroid. But for some people, the first statement is not even approximately correct. Flat Earthers believe that our planet resembles – n...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-04-26.mp3

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...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-04-19.mp3

We all get defensive sometimes. For some animals, evolution has provided a highly effective mechanism for saying “back off!”. A puncture by a pair of venom-filled fangs gets the point acros...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-04-12.mp3

The Earth’s surface is dappled with more than a thousand volcanoes. They mark the edges of tectonic plates, spewing hot gas and ash, and boiling over with lava. We can detect the warning signs ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-04-05.mp3

Can self-deception be useful? During the pandemic, it has been fashionable to say that we’re “following the science,” and that our behavior is determined by verifiable facts. We are, after ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-03-29.mp3

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...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-03-22.mp3

They were pioneers in their fields, yet their names are scarcely known – because they didn’t have a Y chromosome. We examine the accomplishments of two women who pioneered code breaking and ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-03-15.mp3

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 ou...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-03-08.mp3

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...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-03-01.mp3

Okay you animals, line up: stoned sloths, playful pandas, baleful bovines, and vile vultures. We’ve got you guys pegged, thanks to central casting.  Or do we? Our often simplistic view of anim...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-02-22.mp3

“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 multipl...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-02-15.mp3

Earth invades Mars in February. In a historic trifecta for space exploration, spacecraft of three countries will arrive at Mars, and for two of those it will be their first time at the Red Planet...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-02-08.mp3

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 fir...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-02-01.mp3

One of the many shocking aspects of the Capitol attack was that it revealed how thoroughly the nation had cleaved into alternate realities. How did we get to this point? How did misinformation co...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-01-25.mp3

Do you have a hard-to-answer question? The Summit, Sierra, Trinity, Frontier, and Aurora supercomputers are built to tackle it. Summit tops the petaflop heap – at least for now. But Frontier ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-01-18.mp3

Psychics may not be able to predict the future or sense your thoughts. Nonetheless, they rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. But the harm from pseudoscience can go far beyond yo...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-01-11.mp3

The stone heads on Easter Island are an enduring mystery: why were they built and why were they abandoned and destroyed? The old ideas about cultural collapse are yielding to new ones based on ca...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci21-01-04.mp3

The reign of Le Grand K has come to an end. After 130 years, this hunk of metal sitting in a Parisian vault will no longer define the kilogram. The new kilogram mass will be defined by Planck’s...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-12-28.mp3

The stress of the holidays can make you want to hide under the covers with a warm cup of cocoa. From gift buying to family gatherings, the holidays can feel like being inside a pressure cooker.�...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-12-21.mp3

Small bodies will hit the big time next year; a sample return from asteroid Bennu and the launch of both the DART and Lucy missions could unravel puzzles about the formation of the solar system, ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-12-14.mp3

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 Alzh...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-12-07.mp3

You may not feel that your skeleton does very much. But without it you’d be a limp bag of protoplasm, unable to move. And while you may regard bones as rigid and inert, they are living tissue....

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-11-30.mp3

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 th...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-11-23.mp3

Birds do it, bees do it, but humans may not do it for much longer. At least not for having children. Relying on sex to reproduce could be supplanted by making babies in the lab, where parents-to...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-11-16.mp3

Hey, let’s meet last week for coffee. Okay, we can’t meet in the past… yet. But could it be only a matter of time before we can? In an attempt to defy the grandfather paradox, scientists tr...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-11-09.mp3

Reason for hope is just one thing that ecologist Carl Safina can offer. He understands why many of us turn to nature to find solace during this stressful time. Safina studies the challenges faci...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-11-02.mp3

Whether you call it hooey, codswallop, or malarky, misinformation is not what it used to be. It’s harder to spot now. New-school BS is often cloaked in the trappings of math, science, and stati...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-10-26.mp3

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 d...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-10-19.mp3

The record of the rocks is not just the history of Earth; it’s your history too. Geologists can learn about events going back billions of years that influenced – and even made possible – o...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-10-12.mp3

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 yo...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-10-05.mp3

Beneath our feet is a living network just as complex and extensive as the root systems in a forest. Fungi, which evolved in the oceans, were among the first to colonize the barren continents more...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-09-28.mp3

The universe is not just expanding; it’s accelerating. Supermassive black holes are hunkered down at the center of our galaxy and just about every other galaxy, too. We talk about these and oth...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-09-21.mp3

Have scientists found evidence of life on Venus? Known for its scorching temperatures and acidic atmosphere, Earth’s twin hardly seems a promising place for living things. But could a discovery...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-09-14.mp3

It takes a lot of energy and technology to leave terra firma. But why rocket into space when there’s so much to be done on Earth? From the practical usefulness of satellites to the thrill of ex...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-09-07.mp3

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 Northw...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-08-31.mp3

Insect populations are declining. But before you say “good riddance,” consider that insects are the cornerstone of many ecosystems. They are dinner for numerous animal species and are essenti...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-08-24.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-08-17.mp3

If you bake, you can appreciate math’s transformative properties. Admiring the stackable potato chip is to admire a hyperbolic sheet. Find out why there’s no need to fear math - you just ne...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-08-10.mp3

Water is essential for life – that we know. But the honeycomb lattice that forms when you chill it to zero degrees Celsius is also inexorably intertwined with life. Ice is more than a repositor...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-08-03.mp3

Think you’re some kind of expert? Join the club. It’s one thing to question authority; another to offer up your untrained self as its replacement. Rebellion may be a cherished expression of A...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-07-27.mp3

Inhale. Now exhale. Notice anything different? Our response to the virus is changing the air in unexpected ways. A pandemic-driven pause on travel has produced clear skies and a world-wide air qu...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-07-20.mp3

COVID Curiosities Some dogs and cats have become sick with COVID. But it’s not just domestic critters that are vulnerable: zoo animals have fallen ill too. There’s more strange news about the...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-07-13.mp3

Your cat is smart, but its ability to choreograph a ballet or write computer code isn’t great. A lot of animals are industrious and clever, but humans are the only animal that is uniquely inge...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-07-06.mp3

Laughing rats, sorrowful elephants, joyful chimpanzees. The more carefully we observe, and the more we learn about animals, the closer their emotional lives appear to resemble our own. Most wou...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-06-29.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-06-22.mp3

Sexist snow plowing? Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender. In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.”...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-06-15.mp3

While citizens take to the streets to protest racist violence, the pandemic has its own brutal inequities. Black, Latino, and Native American people are bearing the brunt of COVID illness and dea...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-06-08.mp3

Some safeguards against COVID-19 don’t require a medical breakthrough. Catching sufficient Z’s makes for a healthy immune system. And, while you wash your hands for the umpteenth time, we'll ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-06-01.mp3

Your virtual assistant is not without a sense of humor. Its repertoire includes the classic story involving a chicken and a road. But will Alexa laugh at your jokes? Will she groan at your pun...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-05-25.mp3

It will be the shot heard ‘round the world, once it comes. But exactly when can we expect a COVID vaccine? We discuss timelines, how it would work, who’s involved, and the role of human cha...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-05-18.mp3

To fight a pandemic, you need to first understand where a virus comes from. That quest takes disease ecologist Jon Epstein to gloomy caverns where bats hang out. There he checks up on hundreds of...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-05-11.mp3

A new theory about life’s origins updates Darwin’s warm little pond. Scientists say they’ve created the building blocks of biology in steaming hot springs. Meanwhile, we visit a NASA lab w...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-05-04.mp3

Nature abhors a vacuum, but conspiracy theorists love one. While we wait for scientists to nail down the how and why of the coronavirus, opportunists have jumped into the void, peddling DIY test...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-04-27.mp3

Treating the Virus It’s not like waiting for Godot, because he never arrived. A coronavirus vaccine will come. But it is still months away. Meanwhile, scientists are adding other weapons to ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-04-20.mp3

Reason for hope is just one thing that ecologist Carl Safina can offer. He understands why many of us turn to nature to find solace during this stressful time. Safina studies the challenges faci...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-04-13.mp3

What do a zombie attack and a viral pandemic have in common? They are both frightening, mindless, and relentless in their assault. And both require preparedness.  That’s why the author of �...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-04-06.mp3

Humans aren’t the only animals stressed-out by social distancing. Narwhals send out echolocation clicks to locate their buddies and ease their loneliness. And a plant about to be chomped by a...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-03-30.mp3

“Climate change at warp speed” is the way one scientist described the coronavirus outbreak.   In a show recorded before a live audience at the Seattle AAAS meeting, and co-presented with th...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-03-23.mp3

Astronauts are made of the “right stuff,” but what about their spacesuits?  NASA’s pressurized and helmeted onesies are remarkable, but they need updating if we’re to boldly go into dee...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-03-16.mp3

Contagion aside, coronavirus is a powerful little virus. It has prompted a global experiment in behavior modification: elbow bumps instead of handshakes, hand sanitizer and mask shortages, a gyr...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-03-09.mp3

They were pioneers in their fields, yet their names are scarcely known – because they didn’t have a Y chromosome. We examine the accomplishments of two women who pioneered code breaking and ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-03-02.mp3

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...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-02-24.mp3

Have you adapted to the changing climate? Rising waters, more destructive wildfires, record-breaking heatwaves. Scientists have long predicted these events, but reporting on climate change has mo...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-02-17.mp3

It’s one of the most bizarre biological experiments ever. In the 18th century, a scientist fitted a pair of tailor-made briefs on a male frog to determine the animal’s contribution to reprod...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-02-10.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-02-03.mp3

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 st...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-01-27.mp3

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 y...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-01-20.mp3

Get ready for compassionate computers that feel your pain, share your joy, and generally get where you’re coming from. Computers that can tell by your voice whether you’re pumped up or feeli...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-01-13.mp3

You are your brain. But what happens when your brain changes for the worse – either by physical injury or experience? Are you still responsible for your actions? We hear how the case of a New...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci20-01-06.mp3

Do we still need doctors? There are umpteen alternative sources of medical advice, including endless and heartfelt health tips from people without medical degrees. Frankly, self-diagnosis with a...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-12-30.mp3

The stress of the holidays can make you want to hide under the covers with a warm cup of cocoa. From gift buying to family gatherings, the holidays can feel like being inside a pressure cooker.�...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-12-23.mp3

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 entrepreneur...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-12-16.mp3

(repeat) We all may retreat to our protective shells, but evolution has perfected the calcite variety to give some critters permanent defense against predators. So why did squids and octopuses l...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-12-09.mp3

(repeat) Fir tree needles embedded in carpet are a holiday headache. Why not decorate a genetically-modified, needle-retaining tree instead? It’s just another way that science is relevant to ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-12-02.mp3

Psychics may not be able to predict the future or sense your thoughts. Nonetheless, they rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. But the harm from pseudoscience can go far beyond yo...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-11-25.mp3

A new vaccine may help turn Ebola into a disease we can prevent, and a new drug may make it one we can cure. But the political crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo has fueled violence agai...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-11-18.mp3

(repeat) 400 years ago, some ideas about the cosmos were too scandalous to mention. When the Dominican friar Giordano Bruno suggested that planets existed outside our Solar System, the Catholic I...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-11-11.mp3

Do you have a hard-to-answer question? The Summit, Sierra, Trinity, Frontier, and Aurora supercomputers are built to tackle it. Summit tops the petaflop heap – at least for now. But Frontier...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-11-04.mp3

(repeat) Two heads may be better than one. But what about three or more? A new study shows that chimpanzees excel at complex tasks when they work in groups, and their accumulated knowledge can ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-10-28.mp3

For two Swiss astronomers, it’s “Stockholm, here we come.” Their first-ever discovery of a planet orbiting another star has been awarded the most prestigious prize in science. Find out ho...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-10-21.mp3

(repeat) Solid materials get all the production credit. Don’t get us wrong, we depend on their strength and firmness for bridges, bones, and bento boxes. But liquids do us a solid, too. Thei...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-10-14.mp3

We can’t say we weren’t warned. More than 75 years ago, bacteriologist Rene Dubos cautioned that misuse of antibiotics could breed drug-resistant bacteria – and he has been proved prescien...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-10-07.mp3

The stone heads on Easter Island are an enduring mystery: why were they built and why were they abandoned and destroyed? The old ideas about cultural collapse are yielding to new ones based on c...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-09-30.mp3

(repeat) Modern technology is great, but could we be losing control? As our world becomes more crowded and demands for resources are greater, some people worry about humanity’s uncertain prosp...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-09-23.mp3

(repeat) Your shower pipes are alive. So are your sinks, books, and floorboards. New studies of our homes are revealing just what species live there – in the thousands, from bacteria to flies...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-09-16.mp3

The reign of Le Grand K has come to an end. After 130 years, this hunk of metal sitting in a Parisian vault will no longer define the kilogram. The new kilogram mass will be defined by Planck’s...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-09-09.mp3

Sexist snow plowing? Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender. In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.�...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-09-02.mp3

(repeat) Looking to boost your brainpower? Luckily, there are products promising to help. Smart drugs, neurofeedback exercises, and brain-training video games all promise to improve your gray m...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-08-26.mp3

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 mode...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-08-19.mp3

“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 multipl...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-08-12.mp3

(repeat) Are you ready to defer all your personal decision-making to machines? Polls show that most Americans are uneasy about the unchecked growth of artificial intelligence. The possible misuse...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-08-05.mp3

(repeat) The Earth is not round. Technically, it’s an oblate spheroid. But for some people, the first statement is not even approximately correct. Flat Earthers believe that our planet resem...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-07-29.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-07-22.mp3

If you bake, you can appreciate math’s transformative properties. Admiring the stackable potato chip is to admire a hyperbolic sheet. Find out why there’s no need to fear math - you just ne...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-07-15.mp3

(repeat) Heredity was once thought to be straightforward. Genes were passed in an immutable path from parents to you, and you were stuck – or blessed – with what you got. DNA didn’t chang...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-07-08.mp3

Neil, Buzz, and Michael made it look effortless, but the moon landing was neither easy nor inevitable. Soon after President Kennedy publicly stated the goal of sending Americans to the moon, NAS...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-07-01.mp3

Laughing rats, sorrowful elephants, joyful chimpanzees. The more carefully we observe, and the more we learn about animals, the closer their emotional lives appear to resemble our own. Most wou...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-06-24.mp3

(repeat) 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 – ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-06-17.mp3

(repeat) There’s evidence for a subsurface lake on Mars, and scientists are excitedly using the “h” word. Could the Red Planet be habitable, not billions of years ago, but today? While we...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-06-10.mp3

(repeat) Okay you animals, line up: stoned sloths, playful pandas, baleful bovines, and vile vultures. We’ve got you guys pegged, thanks to central casting.  Or do we? Our often simplistic v...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-06-03.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-05-27.mp3

(repeat) 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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-05-20.mp3

A new theory about life’s origins updates Darwin’s warm little pond. Scientists say they’ve created the building blocks of biology in steaming hot springs. Meanwhile, we visit a NASA lab w...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-05-13.mp3

The catastrophic explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 triggered the full-scale destruction of the reactor. But now researchers with access to once-classified Soviet docum...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-05-06.mp3

(repeat) DNA is the gold standard of identification. Except when it’s not. In rare cases when a person has two complete sets of DNA, that person’s identity may be up in the air. Meanwhile,...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-04-29.mp3

Your virtual assistant is not without a sense of humor. Its repertoire includes the classic story involving a chicken and a road. But will Alexa laugh at your jokes? Will she groan at your pun...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-04-22.mp3

(repeat) Dinosaurs are once again stomping and snorting their way across the screen of your local movie theater. But these beefy beasts stole the show long before CGI brought them back in the J...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-04-15.mp3

DecodeHer They were pioneers in their fields, yet their names are scarcely known – because they didn’t have a Y chromosome. We examine the accomplishments of two women who pioneered code bre...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-04-01.mp3

(repeat) There’s no place like “ome.” Your microbiome is highly influential in determining your health. But it’s not the only “ome” doing so. Your exposome – environmental exposu...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-03-25.mp3

(repeat) Hundreds of thousands of scientists took to the streets during the March for Science. The divisive political climate has spurred some scientists to deeper political engagement – publi...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-03-18.mp3

(repeat) Stephen Hawking felt gravity’s pull. His quest to understand this feeble force spanned his career, and he was the first to realize that black holes actually disappear – slowly losin...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-03-11.mp3

(repeat) "The moon or bust” is now officially bust. No private company was able to meet the Lunar X Prize challenge, and arrange for a launch by the 2018 deadline. The $30 million award goes ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-03-04.mp3

(repeat) Will virtual reality make you a better person? It’s been touted as the “ultimate empathy machine,” and one that will connect people who are otherwise emotionally and physically is...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-02-25.mp3

The fault is in our stars. And according to astrology, so is our destiny, our moods, and our character. Mars may be in retrograde, but interest in the ancient practice of astrology is rising. ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-02-04.mp3

(repeat) Move over Roomba. Café robots are the latest in adorable automation. And they may be more than a fad. As robots and artificial intelligence enter the workforce, they could serve up mor...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci19-01-28.mp3

(repeat) Insect populations are declining. But before you say “good riddance,” consider that insects are the cornerstone of many ecosystems. They are dinner for numerous animal species and ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-12-31.mp3

(repeat) It takes a lot of energy and technology to leave terra firma. But why rocket into space when there’s so much to be done on Earth? From the practical usefulness of satellites to the th...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-12-24.mp3

(repeat) 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 fallib...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-12-10.mp3

Your cat is smart, but its ability to choreograph a ballet or write computer code isn’t great. A lot of animals are industrious and clever, but humans are the only animal that is uniquely inge...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-12-03.mp3

(Repeat) Why did the chicken take antibiotics? To fatten it up and prevent bacterial infection. As a result, industrial farms have become superbug factories, threatening our life-saving antibiot...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-11-26.mp3

It’s not a bird or a plane, and probably not an alien spaceship, although the jury’s still deliberating that one. Some astronomers have proposed that an oddly-shaped object that recently pas...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-11-19.mp3

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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-11-12.mp3

(Repeat) Lost your sense of direction? Blame your GPS. Scientists say that our reliance on dashboard devices is eroding our ability to create cognitive maps and is messing with our minds in gene...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-11-05.mp3

(Repeat) 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 ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-10-22.mp3

(Repeat) We’re hearing about harassment of, and barriers to, women seeking careers in politics and entertainment. But what about science? Science is supposed to be uniquely merit-based and obje...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-10-01.mp3

Do we still need doctors? There are umpteen alternative sources of medical advice, including endless and heartfelt health tips from people without medical degrees. Frankly, self-diagnosis with a...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-09-24.mp3

(Repeat) The biotech tool CRISPR lets us do more than shuffle genes. Researchers have embedded an animated GIF into a living organism’s DNA, proving that the molecule is a great repository for...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-09-17.mp3

(repeat) Changed your computer password recently? We all try to stay one step ahead of the hackers, but the fear factor is increasing. The risks can range from stolen social security numbers to...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-09-10.mp3

(repeat)  Long before cyber criminals were stealing ATM passwords, phone phreaks were tapping into the telephone system. Their motivation was not monetary, but the thrill of defeating a complex,...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-09-03.mp3

(Repeat) Celebrations are in order for the physicists who won the 2017 Nobel Prize, for the detection of gravitational waves. But the road to Stockholm was not easy. Unfolding over a century, i...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-08-20.mp3

(Repeat) Astronauts are made of the “right stuff,” but what about their spacesuits?  NASA’s pressurized and helmeted onesies are remarkable, but they need updating if we’re to boldly go...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-07-30.mp3

ENCORE Water is essential for life – that we know. But the honeycomb lattice that forms when you chill it to zero degrees Celsius is also inexorably intertwined with life. Ice is more than a ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-07-16.mp3

ENCORE It’s not just tin cans and newspapers. One man says that, from a technical standpoint, everything can be recycled – cigarette butts, yoga mats, dirty diapers. Even radioactive waste...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-07-09.mp3

ENCORE It’s one of the most bizarre biological experiments ever. In the 18th century, a scientist fitted a pair of tailor-made briefs on a male frog to determine the animal’s contribution t...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-07-02.mp3

ENCORE Get ready for compassionate computers that feel your pain, share your joy, and generally get where you’re coming from. Computers that can tell by your voice whether you’re pumped up ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-06-18.mp3

Pluto, we hardly knew ye. Well, not anymore! Until recently, Pluto and Mars were respectively the least-known and best-known planet-sized bodies in our Solar System. Thanks to the New Horizons...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-06-04.mp3

ENCORE Time passes like an arrow, but what if it flew like a boomerang? Scientists are learning how to reverse time’s most relentless march: aging. But before we rewind time, let’s try to ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-05-28.mp3

ENCORE You are your brain. But what happens when your brain changes for the worse – either by physical injury or experience? Are you still responsible for your actions? We hear how the case ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-05-21.mp3

ENCORE Whether they swim, slither, jump, or fly, animal locomotion is more than just an urge to roam: it’s necessary for survival. Evolution has come up with ingenious schemes to get from her...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-04-30.mp3

ENCORE Know your brain? Think again. Driven by a hidden agenda, powered by an indecipherable web of neurons, and influenced by other brains, your grey matter is a black box. To "know thyself" ...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-04-09.mp3

ENCORE Sherlock Holmes doesn’t have a science degree, yet he thinks rationally – like a scientist. You can too! Learn the secrets of being irritatingly logical from the most famous sleuth on...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-03-26.mp3

ENCORE Einstein thought that quantum mechanics might be the end of physics, and most scientists felt sure it would never be useful. Today, everything from cell phones to LED lighting is complet...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-02-19.mp3

It was a shocker of a story, splashed across the New York Times front page: The existence of a five-year long, hidden Pentagon investigation of UFOs. With one-third of the American public conv...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-01-29.mp3

ENCORE For a half-century, space has been the playground of large, government agencies. While everyone could dream of becoming an astronaut, few could actually do so. Things have changed. We h...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-01-22.mp3

ENCORE The record of the rocks is not just the history of Earth; it’s your history too. Geologists can learn about events going back billions of years that influenced – and even made possib...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-01-15.mp3

ENCORE You own a cat, or is it vice versa? Family friendly felines have trained their owners to do their bidding. Thanks to a successful evolutionary adaptation, they rule your house. Find out...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-01-08.mp3

ENCORE Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Not that they haven’t tried. History is replete with attempts to control the weather, but we’d settle for an accur...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci18-01-01.mp3

ENCORE Got aches and pains? Critters in the Cretaceous would have been sympathetic. A new study reveals that painful arthritis plagued a duck-billed dinosaur. Scientists impressively diagnose...

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ENCORE You are not alone. You can’t see ‘em, but your face is a festival of face mites. They’ve  evolved with us for millennia. And a new study finds that hundreds of different tiny sp...

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Hey, let’s meet last week for coffee. Okay, we can’t meet in the past … yet. But could it be only a matter of time before we can? In an attempt to defy the grandfather paradox, scientist...

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Will your calendar entry for November 19th be your last? Some people say yes, predicting a catastrophic collision between Earth and planet Nibiru on that date and the end of the world. But it w...

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We all get defensive sometimes. For some animals, evolution has provided a highly effective mechanism for saying “back off!”. A puncture by a pair of venom-filled fangs gets the point acros...

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Birds do it, bees do it, but humans may not do it for much longer. At least not for having children. Relying on sex to reproduce could be supplanted by making babies in the lab, where parents-t...

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The military is a dangerous calling. But technology can help out, so researchers are constantly trying to make soldiers safer. Writer Mary Roach investigates how scientists studying so-called h...

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Once again the aliens have landed … in theaters. It’s no spoiler to say that the latest cinematic sci-fi, Arrival, involves extraterrestrials visiting Earth.  But for some folks, the film�...

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We know how the stars shine, but how do you make a star? We take an all-night ride on a high-flying jet – an airborne observatory called SOFIA – to watch astronomers investigate how a star...

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It’s elementary, Watson. Things are in flux – from the elements in the air you breathe to party balloons.  We investigate the massive, historic loss of nitrogen from the atmosphere and mee...

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In space, no one can hear you scream, but, using the right instruments, scientists can pick up all types of cosmic vibrations – the sort we can turn into sound. After a decade of listening, LI...

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Can an opera singer’s voice really shatter glass? Can you give your car a rocket-assisted boost and survive the test drive? How do you protect yourself from a shark attack?  Those are among...

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"Locked and loaded” is how one scientist recently described the San Andreas fault. Find out when this famous west-coast rift might cause “the big one;” also, the state of early earthquake ...

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They say that the experience of watching a total eclipse is so profound, you’re not the same afterward. If life-changing events are your thing and you’re in the lower 48 states on August 21s...

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Baby, it’s cold outside… but you still might want to be there. Some people claim that chilly temperatures are good for your health, and proponents of cryotherapy suggest you have a blast –...

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No one knows what the future will bring, but science fiction authors are willing to take a stab at imagining it. We take our own stab at imagining them imagining it. Find out why the genre of s...

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You can’t pick your parents. But soon you may be able to change the DNA they gave you. CRISPR technology is poised to take DNA editing to new levels of precision and speed. Imagine deleting ...

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It was “one giant leap for mankind,” but the next step forward may require going back. Yes, back to the moon. Only this time the hardware may come from China. Or perhaps Europe. In fact, ...

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In astronomy, the rule of thumb was simple: If you can’t see it with a telescope, it’s not real. Seeing is believing. Well, tell that to the astronomers who discovered dark energy, or dark ...

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Only two of the following three creations have had lasting scientific or cultural impact: The telescope … the Sistine Chapel ceiling … the electric banana. Find out why one didn’t make th...

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Exploration: It’s exciting, it’s novel, and you can’t always count on a round-trip ticket. You can boldly go, but you might not come back. That’s no showstopper for robotic explorers, t...

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Eat dark chocolate. Don’t drink coffee. Go gluten-free. If you ask people for diet advice, you’ll get a dozen different stories. Ideas about what’s good for us sprout up faster than alf...

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Ask anyone what extraordinary powers they’d love to have, and you’re sure to hear “be able to fly.” We’ve kind of scratched that itch with airplanes. But have we gone as far as we can...

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Admit it – the universe is cool, but weird. Just when you think you’ve tallied up all the peculiar phenomena that the cosmos has to offer – it throws more at you. We examine some of the re...

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Obesity, diabetes, heart disease … maybe even Alzheimer’s. Could these modern scourges have a common denominator? Some people believe they do: sugar. But is this accusation warranted? We t...

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ENCORE Congratulations, you have a big brain. Evolution was good to Homo sapiens. But make some room on the dais. Research shows that other animals, such as crows, may not look smart, but can...

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ENCORE Meet your new relatives.  The fossilized bones of Homo naledi are unique for their sheer number, but they may also be fill a special slot in our ancestry: the first of our genus Homo. �...

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She’s among the most famous missing persons in history. On the eightieth anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, mystery still shrouds her fate. What happened during the last leg of ...

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Face it – your mug is not entirely yours. It’s routinely uploaded to social media pages and captured on CCTV cameras with – and without – your consent. Sophisticated facial recognition ...

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The light bulb needs changing. Edison’s incandescent bulb, virtually unaltered for more than a century, is now being eclipsed by the LED. The creative applications for these small and efficie...

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The moon jellyfish has remarkable approach to self-repair. If it loses a limb, it rearranges its remaining body parts to once again become radially symmetric. Humans can’t do that, but a new ...

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Shhh. Is someone coming? Okay, we’ll make this quick. There are a lot of scary things going on in the world. Naturally you’re fearful. But sometimes fear has a sister emotion: suspicion.�...

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What you can’t see may astound you. The largest unexplored region of Earth is the ocean. Beneath its churning surface, oceanographers have recently discovered the largest volcano in the world...

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Earth may be the cradle of life, but our bodies are filled with materials cooked up billions of years ago in the scorching centers of stars. As Carl Sagan said, “We are all stardust.” We came...

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Archaeologists continue to hunt for the city of Atlantis, even though it may never have existed. But, what if it did? Its discovery would change ancient history. Sometimes when we dig around in t...

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"If it bleeds, it leads” is the tried and true tenet of news. Indeed, headlines are often no more than a long list of moral atrocities. Yet one man argues that we’re living in the most civi...

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This year’s election is divisive, but one subject enjoys some consensus: science and technology policies are important. So why aren’t the candidates discussing these issues? The answers mig...

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Are you skeptical? Sure, you raise an eyebrow when some Nigerian prince asks for your bank numbers, or when a breakfast cereal claims that it will turn your kid into a professional athlete overn...

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Darwinian evolution is adaptive and slow … millennia can go by before a species changes very much. But with the tools of genetic engineering we can now make radical changes in just one generati...

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Everyone knows that a big rock did in the dinosaurs, but smaller asteroids are millions of times more common and can also make a violent impact.  Yet unlike the bigger asteroids, we’re not tr...

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You’re a private person. But as long as you’re on-line and have skin and hair, you’re shedding little bits of data and DNA everywhere you go. Find out how that personal information – whet...

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When astronaut Gene Cernan stepped off the moon in 1972, he didn’t think he’d be the last human ever to touch its surface. But no one’s been back. Hear astronaut Cernan’s reaction to be...

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There are few enduring truths, but one is that no one gets out of life alive. What’s less certain is what comes next. Does everything stop with death, or are we transported to another plane of ...

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We all try to fight it: the inexorable march of time. The fountain of youth doesn’t exist, and all those wrinkle creams can’t help. But modern science is giving us new weapons in the fight ag...

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You are what you eat. Whether you dine on kimchi, carnitas, or corn dogs determines which microbes live in your stomach. And gut microbes make up only part of your total micro biome.  Find out h...

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Don’t believe everything you see on TV or the movies. Science fiction is just a guide to how our future might unfold. It can be misleading, as anyone who yearns for a flying car can tell you. A...

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Wondering whether to vaccinate your children? The decision can feel like a shot in the dark if you don’t know how to evaluate risk. Find out why all of us succumb to the reasoning pitfalls of c...

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The world is hot, and getting hotter. But higher temperatures aren’t the only impact our species is having on mother Earth. Urbanization, deforestation, and dumping millions of tons of plastic ...

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"Dear E.T. …” So far, so good. But now what? Writing is never easy, but what if your task was to craft a message to aliens living elsewhere in the universe, and your prose would represent all...

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Electricity is so 19th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not the opinion of the Nobel committee that awar...

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It’s the most dramatic technical development of recent times: Teams of people working for decades to produce a slow-motion revolution we call computing. As these devices become increasingly pow...

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You think your life is fast-paced, but have you ever seen a bacterium swim across your countertop? You’d be surprised how fast they can move. Find out why modeling the swirl of hurricanes takes...

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In the century and a half since Charles Darwin wrote his seminal On the Origin of the Species, our understanding of evolution has changed quite a bit. For one, we have not only identified the inh...

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We all have at least some musical talent. But very few of us can play the piano like Vladimir Horowitz. His talent was rarefied, and at the tail end of the bell curve of musical ability – that ...

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A single ant isn’t very brainy. But a group of ants can do remarkable things. Biological swarm behavior is one model for the next generation of tiny robots. Of course, biology can get hijacked:...

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Hang on to your globe. One day it’ll be a collector’s item. The arrangement of continents you see today is not what it once was, nor what it will be tomorrow. Thank plate tectonics. Now evide...

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Germs can make us sick, but we didn’t know about these puny pathogens prior to the end of the 19th century. Just the suggestion that a tiny bug could spread disease made eyes roll. Then came ge...

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If you move with the times, you might stick around long enough to pass on your genes. And that is adaptation and evolution, in a nutshell. But humans are changing their environment faster than th...

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The stars are out tonight. And they do more than just twinkle. These boiling balls of hot plasma can tell us something about other celestial phenomena. They betray the hiding places of black hole...

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Sure you have a big brain; it’s the hallmark of Homo sapiens. But that doesn’t mean that you’ve cornered the market on intelligence. Admittedly, it’s difficult to say, since the very defi...

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We may be connected, but some say we’re not communicating. The consequences could be dire. A U.S. Army major says that social media are breaking up our “band of brothers,” and that soldie...

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Do you feel happy today? How about happily disgusted? Maybe sadly surprised, or sadly disgusted? Human emotions are complex. But at least they’re the common language that unites us all – exce...

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The Paris climate talks are scheduled to go ahead despite the terrorist attacks, and attendees hope to sign an international agreement on climate change. A BBC reporter covering the meetings tel...

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What’s for dinner? Meat, acorns, tubers, and fruit. Followers of the Paleo diet say we should eat what our ancestors ate 10,000 years ago, when our genes were perfectly in synch with the enviro...

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One day, coffee is good for you; the next, it’s not. And it seems that everything you eat is linked to cancer, according to research. But scientific studies are not always accurate. Insufficien...

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For many, the word virus is a synonym for disease – diseases of humans, plants, and even computers. Ebola is an example: a virus with a big and terrifying reputation. And yet the vast majority ...

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

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It’s the starkly beautiful setting for the new film “The Martian,” and – just in time – NASA has announced that the Red Planet is more than a little damp, with liquid water occasionally...

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We all have worries. But as trained observers, scientists learn things that can affect us all. So what troubles them should also trouble us. From viral pandemics to the limits of empirical knowle...

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Imagine not knowing where you are – and no one else knowing either. Today, that’s pretty unlikely. Digital devices pinpoint our location within a few feet, so it’s hard to get lost anymore....

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Picture a cockroach skittering across your kitchen. Eeww! Now imagine it served as an entrée at your local restaurant. There’s good reason these diminutive arthropods give us the willies – b...

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Ever gone bungee jumping on Venus? Of course not. No one has. However your great-great-great grandchildren might find themselves packing for the cloudy planet … or for another locale in our ...

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Nuclear fission powers the Sun. Or is it fusion? At any rate, helium is burned in the process, of that you are certain. After all, you read that article on astronomy last week*. You know what you...

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You must not remember this. Indeed, it may be key to having a healthy brain. Our gray matter evolved to forget things; otherwise we’d have the images of every face we saw on the subway rattling...

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Pluto is ready for its close up – but the near encounter during this historic flyby will last less than three minutes. Be ready for the action with our special New Horizons episode! Hear from r...

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A computer virus that bombards you with pop-up ads is one thing. A computer virus that shuts down a city’s electric grid is another. Welcome to the new generation of cybercrime. Discover what ...

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It’s hard to imagine the twists and turns of evolution that gave rise to Homo Sapiens. After all, it required geologic time, and the existence of many long-gone species that were once close rel...

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A century ago, Albert Einstein rewrote our understanding of physics with his Theory of General Relativity. Our intuitive ideas about space, time, mass, and gravity turned out to be wrong. Find o...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3442635490.mp3?updated=1636043494

Imagine a world without algebra. We can hear the sound of school children applauding. What practical use are parametric equations and polynomials, anyway? Even some scholars argue that algebra is...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8747515982.mp3?updated=1636043545

You can’t see it, but it’s there, whether an atom, a gravity wave, or the bottom of the ocean … but we have technology that allows us to detect what eludes our sight. When we do, whole worl...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4784187706.mp3?updated=1636043579

Discovering bacteria on Mars would be big news. But nothing would scratch our alien itch like making contact with intelligent life. Hear why one man is impatient for the discovery, and also about...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1606245247.mp3?updated=1636043630

Monsters don’t exist. Except when they do. And extinction is forever, except when it isn’t. So, which animals are mythical and which are in hiding? Bigfoot sightings are plentiful, but real e...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2001106023.mp3?updated=1636043734

Let there be light! Well, it’s easy to do: just flip a switch. But it took more than the invention of the light bulb to make that possible. It required new technology for the distribution of el...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV6632264324.mp3?updated=1636043761

You love to travel. But would you if doing so meant never coming home? The private company Mars One says it will land humans on the Red Planet by 2026, but is only offering passengers one-way tic...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1537144157.mp3?updated=1636043803

Today, scientists are familiar to us, but they weren’t always. Even the word “scientist” is relatively modern, dating from the Victorian Era. And it is to that era we turn as we travel to t...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3665623333.mp3?updated=1636043896

What’s past is prologue. For centuries, researchers have studied buried evidence – bones, teeth, or artifacts – to learn about murky human history, or even to investigate vanished species. ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1431324691.mp3?updated=1636043930

Shh …mummy’s the word! We don’t want to provoke the curse of King Tut. Except that there are many curses associated with this fossilized pharaoh – from evil spirits to alien malevolence. ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9890476502.mp3?updated=1636043990

Here are questions that give a cosmologist – and maybe even you – insomnia: What happened after the Big Bang? What is dark matter? Will dark energy tear the universe apart? Let us help you ca...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV6714799247.mp3?updated=1636044030

There’s no one like you. At least, not yet. But in some visions of the future, androids can do just about everything, computers will hook directly into your brain, and genetic human-hybrids wit...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4554213083.mp3?updated=1636044062

The sweet stuff is getting sour press. Some researchers say sugar is toxic. A new study seems to support that idea: mice fed the human equivalent of an extra three sodas a day become infertile or...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2199606603.mp3?updated=1636078208

Electricity is so 19th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not the opinion of the Nobel committee that awar...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7005124324.mp3?updated=1636078240

Here’s to a long life – which, on average, is longer today than it was a century ago. How much farther can we extend that ultimate finish line? Scientists are in hot pursuit of the secret to ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5893019997.mp3?updated=1636078285

There are many kinds of islands. There’s your iconic sandy speck of land topped with a palm tree, but there’s also our home planet – an island in the vast seas of space. You might think of ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2535378051.mp3?updated=1636078312

The world is a noisy place. But now we have a better idea what the fuss is about. Not only can we record sound, but our computers allow us to analyze it. Bird sonograms reveal that our feathery f...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8061257844.mp3?updated=1636078351

We love our family and friends, but sometimes their ideas about how the world works seem a little wacky. We asked BiPiSci listeners to share examples of what they can’t believe their loved-ones...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8794357711.mp3?updated=1636078509

We make split second decisions about others – someone is male or female, black or white, us or them. But sometimes the degrees of separation are incredibly few. A mere handful of genes determin...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4565116438.mp3?updated=1636078548

We all want to turn back time. But until we build a time machine, we’ll have to rely on a few creative approaches to capturing things as they were – and preserving them for posterity. One is ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2765026256.mp3?updated=1636078646

We often hear fantastic scientific claims that would change everything if true. Such as the report that algae is growing on the outside of the International Space Station or that engineers have b...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5698437551.mp3?updated=1636078699

A planet is a planet is a planet. Unless it’s Pluto – then it’s a dwarf planet. But even then it’s a planet, according to experts. So what was behind the unpopular re-classification of Pl...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8307618592.mp3?updated=1636078739

Hi ho, hi ho … it’s out with work we go! As you relax this holiday weekend, step into our labor-atory and imagine a world with no work allowed. Soft robots help us with tasks at home and at t...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3064741095.mp3?updated=1636078783

We’ve all hit the snooze button when the alarm goes off, but why do we crave sleep in the first place? We explore the evolutionary origins of sleep … the study of narcolepsy in dogs … and c...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5702875681.mp3?updated=1636078819

Maybe goodbye isn’t forever. Get ready to mingle with mammoths and gaze upon a ground sloth. Scientists want to give some animals a round-trip ticket back from oblivion. Learn how we might go f...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9306917672.mp3?updated=1636078902

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

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2649725686.mp3?updated=1636078948

Face it – humans are pattern-seeking animals. We identify eyes, nose and mouth where there are none. Martian rock takes on a visage and the silhouette of Elvis appears in our burrito. Discover ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV6485356538.mp3?updated=1636078990

Think back, way back. Beyond last week or last year … to what was happening on Earth 100,000 years ago. Or 100 million years ago. It’s hard to fathom such enormous stretches of time, yet to u...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV6200712609.mp3?updated=1636086039

It’s hard to get lost these days. GPS pinpoints your location to within a few feet. Discover how our need to get from A to B holds clues about what makes us human, and what we lose now that eve...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5056515639.mp3?updated=1636086095

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

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3281673936.mp3?updated=1636086124

Alien life. A flurry of recent discoveries has shifted the odds of finding it. Scientists use the Kepler telescope to spot a planet the same size and temperature as Earth … and announce that th...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7738754963.mp3?updated=1636086184

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

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7520644231.mp3?updated=1636086249

Imagine biting into a rich chocolate donut and not tasting it. That’s what happened to one woman when she lost her sense of smell. Discover what scientists have learned about how the brain expe...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8584835538.mp3?updated=1636086294

We all crave power: to run laptops, charge cell phones, and play Angry Birds. But if generating energy is easy, storing it is not. Remember when your computer conked out during that cross-country...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2479704498.mp3?updated=1636086338

Happy Birthday, World Wide Web! The 25-year-old Web, along with the Internet and the personal computer, are among mankind’s greatest inventions. But back then, who knew? A techno-writer reminis...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2550366194.mp3?updated=1636086373

One plus one is two. But what’s the square root of 64, divided by 6 over 12?* Wait, don’t run for the hills! Math isn’t scary. It helps us describe and design our world, and can be easier t...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8334756819.mp3?updated=1636086405

The machines are coming! Meet the prototypes of your future robot buddies and discover how you may come to love a hunk of hardware. From telerobots that are your mechanical avatars … to automat...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5903475165.mp3?updated=1636086440

It’s one of the biggest questions you can ask: has the universe existed forever? The Big Bang is supposedly the moment it all began. But now scientists wonder if there isn’t an earlier chapte...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1385993589.mp3?updated=1636086523

Computers and DNA have a few things in common. Both use digital codes and are prone to viruses. And, it seems, both can be hacked. From restoring the flavor of tomatoes to hacking into the presid...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1286834758.mp3?updated=1636086607

Zombies are making a killing in popular culture. But where did the idea behind these mythical, cerebrum-supping nasties come from? Discover why they may be a hard-wired inheritance from our Pleis...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9839690778.mp3?updated=1636086639

You can get your point across in many ways: email, texts, or even face-to-face conversation (does anyone do that anymore?). But ants use chemical messages when organizing their ant buddies for an...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV6523550018.mp3?updated=1636086724

Mooooove over, make way for the cows, the chickens … and other animals! Humans can learn a lot from our hairy, feathered, four-legged friends. We may wear suits and play Sudoku, but Homo sapien...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1192292838.mp3?updated=1636502488

If two is company and three a crowd, what’s the ideal number to write a play or invent a new operating system? Some say you need groups to be creative. Others disagree: breakthroughs come only ...

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We all may prefer the goldilocks zone – not too hot, not too cold. But most of the universe is bitterly cold. We can learn a lot about it if we’re willing to brave a temperature drop. A chill...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1101830630.mp3?updated=1636503854

Imagine a world without algebra. We can hear the sound of school children applauding. What practical use are parametric equations and polynomials, anyway? Even some scholars argue that algebra is...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4309875370.mp3?updated=1636503965

We’ve all had an “oops” moment. Scientists are no exception. Sometimes science stumbles in the steady march of progress. Find out why cold fusion is a premier example why you shouldn’t ho...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV6173680881.mp3?updated=1636504037

After the winds and water of Typhoon Haiyan abated, grief and hunger swept though the Philippines, along with the outbreak of disease. Are monster storms the new normal in a warmer world? Some sc...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5025937665.mp3?updated=1636504108

Time keeps on ticking, ticking … and as it does, evolution operates to produce remarkable changes in species. Wings may appear, tails disappear. Sea creatures drag themselves onto the shore and...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5470061891.mp3?updated=1636504133

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

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3952555409.mp3?updated=1636504163

It was the most famous invasion that never happened. But Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” broadcast sure sounded convincing as it used news bulletins and eyewitness accounts to descri...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8098587249.mp3?updated=1636504203

Your brain is made up of cells. Each one does its own, cell thing. But remarkable behavior emerges when lots of them join up in the grey matter club. You are a conscious being – a single neuron...

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Imagine: Your pint-sized pup is descended from a line of predatory wolves. We have purposefully bred a new species – dogs – to live in harmony with us. But interactions between species, known...

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The Day After. 2001. Prometheus. There are sci-fi films a’plenty … but how much science is in the fiction? We take the fact checkers to Hollywood to investigate the science behind everything ...

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Let there be light. Otherwise we couldn’t watch a sunset or YouTube. Yet what your eye sees is but a narrow band in the electromagnetic spectrum. Shorten those light waves and you get invisible...

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“Follow the water” is the mantra of those who search for life beyond Earth. Where there’s water, there may be life. Join us on a tour of watery solar system bodies that hold promise for bio...

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I need my space… but oh, how to get there? Whether it’s a mission to Mars or an ascent to an asteroid, we explore the hows of human spaceflight. Also, the whys, as in, why send humans to the ...

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What’s the world made of? Here’s a concrete answer: a lot of it is built from a dense, knee-scraping substance that is the most common man-made material. But while concrete may be here to sta...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9519670815.mp3?updated=1636504512

You may be unique, but is your home planet? NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has uncovered thousands of planetary candidates, far far beyond our solar system. Some may be habitable and possibly even Ea...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4088536830.mp3?updated=1636504539

It’s all about you. And you, and you, and you and you… that is, if we live in parallel universes. Imagine you doing exactly what you’re doing now, but in an infinite number of universes. Di...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7839151067.mp3?updated=1636504614

It’s a record we didn’t want to break. The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere hits the 400 parts-per-million mark, a level which some scientists say is a point of no return for st...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7010523254.mp3?updated=1636504659

Not all conversation is appropriate for the dinner table – and that includes, strangely enough, the subject of eating. Yet what happens during the time that food enters our mouth and its grand ...

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Just remember this: memory is like Swiss cheese. Even our recollection of dramatic events that seem to sear their images directly onto our brain turn out to be riddled with errors. Discover the r...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1579226259.mp3?updated=1636504856

There are always surprises when we sort through Seth’s wine cellar – who knows what we’ll find! In this cramped cavern, tucked between boxes of old fuses and a priceless bottle of 1961 Chat...

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What’s in a name? “Holocene” defines the geologic epoch we’re in. Or were in? Goodbye to “Holocene” and hello “Anthropocene!” Yes, scientists may actually re-name our geologic era...

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Calling all pessimists! Your brain is wired for optimism! Yes, deep down, we’re all Pollyannas. So wipe that scowl off your face and discover the evolutionary advantage of thinking positive. Al...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3080129711.mp3?updated=1636505009

The tools of forensics have moved way beyond fingerprint kits. These days, a prosecutor is as likely to wave a fMRI brain scan as a smoking gun as “Exhibit A.” Discover what happens when neur...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5476924420.mp3?updated=1636505053

Researchers have discovered life in a buried Antarctic lake. But we’re not surprised. Life is amazingly adaptive. Expose it to any environment – heat, ice, acid or even jet fuel – and it th...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5461740056.mp3?updated=1636505077

We’ve all had an “oops” moment. Scientists are no exception. Sometimes science stumbles in the steady march of progress. Find out why cold fusion is a premier example why you shouldn’t ho...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8299507350.mp3?updated=1636505115

We all talk about the weather. And now scientists are doing something about it: providing more accurate warnings before big storms hit. Discover how smart technology – with an eye on the sky �...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2943130609.mp3?updated=1636505145

Imagine moving things with your mind. Not with telekinesis, but with the future tools of brain science. Meet a pioneer in the field of computer-to-brain connection and discover the blurry boundar...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4064955178.mp3?updated=1636505184

Could you have had a past life? Is it possible that some part of you is the reincarnation of a person – or maybe an animal – that lived long ago? We’ll hear the story of a young boy who sta...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9945493197.mp3?updated=1636578090

You must remember this… wait, wait... I had it… on the tip of my tongue… (Memory is a tricky thing and most of us would like to improve it)… oh, yes: Discover the secrets of stupefying, k...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8460447340.mp3?updated=1636578133

It’s one of the biggest questions you can ask: has the universe existed forever? The Big Bang is supposedly the moment it all began. But now scientists wonder if there isn’t an earlier chapte...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8320443933.mp3?updated=1636578186

If there is only one show you hear about the end of the world, let it be this one. Recorded before a live audience at the Computer History Museum on October 27th, 2012, this two-part special bro...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5719939124.mp3?updated=1636578258

If there is only one show you hear about the end of the world, let it be this one. Recorded before a live audience at the Computer History Museum on October 27th, 2012, this two-part special broa...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5872994538.mp3?updated=1636578338

We all have to go sometime, and that final hour is the mother of all deadlines. But scientists are working to file an extension. Discover how far we can push the human expiration date. Plus, the ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9157713981.mp3?updated=1636595274

The Internet is not the only globally-uniting phenomenon. Viruses and bacteria can circle the globe as fast as we can, and the effects can be devastating. Discover what it takes for an animal dis...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2020305321.mp3?updated=1636595325

Indiana Jones meets Star Trek in the field of space archaeology. Satellites scan ancient ruins so that scientists can map them without disturbing one grain of sand. Discover how some archaeologis...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5828940969.mp3?updated=1636595355

If you’re itching it get away from it all, really get away from it all, have we got some exotic destinations for you. Mars … Jupiter’s moon Europa … asteroids . Tour some enticing worlds ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8423675766.mp3?updated=1636595397

By thinking different, scientists can make extraordinary breakthroughs. Learn about the creative cogitation that led to the discovery of dark matter and the invention of a.c. power grids, disinfe...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4661113441.mp3?updated=1636595502

Stuttering speech and facial tics are among the strange symptoms that swept through a New York high school. Discover what’s behind the odd outbreak, and why one sociologist sees parallels to Sa...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7207454868.mp3?updated=1636595529

It’s all in the numbers. The trick is, finding what you’re looking for. But that’s the name of the game with big data. We have a giga-gigabyte of information, and combing through it will le...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4001021252.mp3?updated=1636595572

"I feel your vibe!” Well, that describes a number of fabled locales that claim to pulse with mysterious energy – perhaps prompting books to fly across the room or airplanes to vanish into thi...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4780425112.mp3?updated=1636595613

Before you chase it with a broom, consider this – without the rat, we might miss critical insights into the nature of stress, cancer … and even love. These furry, red-eyed rodents have a uniq...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1983449088.mp3?updated=1636595663

To need air is human. Our lungs thank us for each breath we take. But air is more than a transporter of O2. It shapes our weather, keeps birds aloft and moves spores from here to there. A cubic ...

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If Bigfoot walks through a forest and no one sees him, does he exist? It’s the job of paranormal investigator Joe Nickell to find out! Discover whether eyewitness accounts are reliable when it ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1757094776.mp3?updated=1636595730

When the IBM computer, Watson, snatched the “Jeopardy” title from its human competition, that raised the question of just how smart are machines? Could artificial intelligence ever beat human...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci12-08-20.mp3

We dig the Red Planet! And so does Curiosity. After a successful landing, and a round of high-fives at NASA, the latest rover to land on Mars is on the move, shovel in mechanical hand. Discover h...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci12-08-13.mp3

You know the joke about the car and the snail. Look at that escargot? Well, snails may be the only thing not powering the automobiles of the future. Trees, grass, algae, even the garbage you toss...

https://chrt.fm/track/58B918/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/arewealone/BiPiSci12-08-06.mp3

Let the games begin! The mad dash to the phone … the sudden spring out of bed … the frantic juggling of car keys, grocery bags and a cell phone! Olympic athletes may have remarkable speed and...

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Mooooove over, make way for the cows, the chickens … and other animals! Humans can learn a lot from our hairy, feathered, four-legged friends. We may wear suits and play Sudoku, but Homo sapien...

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Think small to solve big problems. That, in a nutshell, is the promise of nanotechnology. In this barely visible world, batteries charge 100 times faster and drugs go straight to their targets in...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci12-07-02.mp3

Expect the unexpected when we go digging in Seth’s storm shelter – who knows what we’ll find! In this cramped never-never land, tucked between piles of dehydrated food packets and old civil...

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You are what you eat. But what does that mean if your food is genetically engineered? And the chances are good that it has been engineered if you munch down on corn or soybean. The prospect of ea...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci12-06-18.mp3

You can get your point across in many ways: email, texts, or even face-to-face conversation (does anyone do that anymore?). But ants use chemical messages when organizing their ant buddies for an...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8943060985.mp3?updated=1636598972

It’s the perennial dream: build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. We go to San Jose’s famed Tech Museum to learn what it takes to turn a good idea into a grand ...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci12-06-04.mp3

On June 5, our sister planet Venus will slowly slide across the face of the sun. This will be the last transit of Venus until 2117, so there’s no subsequent chance to observe this celestial spe...

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We are all Martians … or could be, if, billions of years ago, Red Plant microbes fell to Earth and eventually evolved to us. Okay, that one’s a big “if.” But microbes can survive space tr...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci12-05-21.mp3

Random is as random does… makes sense doesn’t even that anyway in tune hear to randomness how lives rules. Brain chaos the drives, restoration role of help insight ecology may into randomness...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV2872847564.mp3?updated=1636600067

The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah. So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV6937661923.mp3?updated=1636599490

You are one-of-a-kind, unique, indispensible… oh, wait, never mind! It seems that computer over there can do what you do … faster and with greater accuracy. Yes, it’s silicon vs. carbon as ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8203004447.mp3?updated=1636599549

So you weep at sappy commercials and give drivers the bird. Have no regrets: emotion is what makes us human! Discover the survival value in feeling disgust … why humans are terrible liars … a...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci12-04-09.mp3

If someone asks where you get off, you can now respond with precision. Satellites and computers spit out coordinates accurate to a few paces. And digital maps stand the Copernican principle on it...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci12-03-26.mp3

It’s always a surprise to sort through Seth's cabinet of wonders – who knows what we’ll find! In this cramped cupboard, tucked between shelves of worm gears and used clarinet reeds, we disc...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci12-03-12.mp3

The future is no mystery … according to psychics who say they have special access to tomorrow’s events. For example, adherents to the Mayan doomsday prophecy warn that when 2012 ends, so will...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1670940373.mp3?updated=1636599773

They’re here! About one-third of all Americans believe we’re being visited by extraterrestrial spacecraft. But wait, you want evidence? UFO sighting are as prevalent as flies at a picnic. But...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8388704865.mp3?updated=1636599852

Humans are pleasure-seekers – from food to sex to fine art. But do we know why we crave what we do? Discover the surprising motivation behind our desires. Also, why our hedonistic cousins, the ...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci12-02-13.mp3

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

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8864015098.mp3?updated=1636599961

What’s it all about? And we mean ALL. What makes up this vast sprawling cosmos? Why does it exist? Why do we exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Ow, my head hurts! For possible a...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4524736711.mp3?updated=1636599997

Wait! Before you step outside... is it Friday the 13th? Any black cats prowling around? Broken a mirror lately? Homo sapiens are a superstitious lot. Find out why our brains are wired for irratio...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-12-26.mp3

Have you lost your senses? You’ll find them everywhere you look. Sensors respond to external stimuli – light, sound, temperature and much else – to help us make sense (ha!) of our universe....

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-12-19.mp3

The term “bird flu” is a misnomer, scientists say, because almost all human influenza originates in our feathered friends. How it lands in you and spreads is another matter … Hear what it t...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-12-12.mp3

Mom and apple pie. Computers and silicon. Martians and death rays. Some things just go together naturally. But how about science and politics? Science and religion? Science and fiction? These pai...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8788392946.mp3?updated=1636680706

There’s no harm talking to your houseplant, but will your chatter really help it grow? We look at various biological claims, from whether plants feel pain to the ability of cats to predict eart...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-11-28.mp3

Wish you could ditch computers? There’s no escape button for that. Computers are not only a part of your daily grind, they may soon be a part of you. We’ll hear from the world’s first cybor...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3397098190.mp3?updated=1636680877

Think small! Microbes are tinier than the dot at the end of this sentence, yet they can make humans sicker than dogs, dogs sicker than humans, jump from animal to human and keep scientists guessi...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-11-14.mp3

“Making space for everyone” could be NASA’s motto. But as commercial spaceships get ready to blast off, that populist idea is being tested. Space cowboys in the private sector say they’re...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-11-07.mp3

What you can’t see … can make you sick. Humans have been battling viruses and bacteria since the beginning of time. The malaria parasite has been keeping deadly company with us for 500,000 ye...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-10-31.mp3

Calling all pessimists! Your brain is wired for optimism! Yes, deep down, we’re all Pollyannas. So wipe that scowl off your face and discover the evolutionary advantage of thinking positive. Al...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-10-17.mp3

Zombies, aliens, Bigfoot, oh my!! We've covered - or rather uncovered - them all and more on Skeptic Check, our monthly look of critical thinking. And now we've collected enough strange encounter...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-10-03.mp3

Shh - can you keep it down? Nope. Not unless you want to do away with civilization. Our buzzing, humming, whirling, machine-driven world is a poster child for technological progress, right? As is...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-09-26.mp3

Anyone who does gardening knows that life is tough. It’s also ancient – the first living things appeared on this planet nearly as soon as our world was habitable. We consider life on real wor...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-09-05.mp3

During the great age of exploration men risked their lives to set foot upon unknown lands, whether in the humid jungles of Peru or on the barren ice cap of the South Pole. We'll hear those dramat...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-08-29.mp3

The recipe for being a scientist was easy in the old days… just be born into a rich family, have an interest in nature and plenty of time to indulge yourself. But are the days of gentlemen scie...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9615546448.mp3?updated=1636681698

An ant … can’t … move a rubber tree plant… but the colony can. As a group, ants are an efficient, organized, can-do bunch. And a model for humans trying to manage complex systems. Find ou...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-08-22.mp3

It’s been ten years since the fall of the Twin Towers, but some still believe that the attack was an inside job. They’re not the only ones to buy into a conspiratorial view of world events. O...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3457758051.mp3?updated=1636681860

Genes – what are they good for? Absolutely… something. But not everything. Your “genius” genes need to be turned on – and your environment determines that. Find out how to unleash your ...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-08-08.mp3

Live forever? Both cancer cells and stem cells can make a claim to immortality. Left unchecked, tumors will grow indefinitely. And stem cells offer the promise of non-stop rejuvenation. We’ll f...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-08-02.mp3

Water, water everywhere. But most of it is sea water - you can’t drink it. Discover the most promising technologies for desalination and why solar cells are key. Also, how astronauts filter “...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/BiPiSci11-07-25.mp3

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It’s nearly impossible to fake a laugh. Yet, humans will laugh even if something isn’t funny. Discover the evolutionary function of cracking up and meet the other specie...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_11-07-18.mp3

How did life begin? What’s the universe made of, and what’s the nature of consciousness? These are truly some of the biggest puzzlers in science, but answers are in the offing. We consider th...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_11-07-11.mp3

They’re heeeere! Yes, aliens are wreaking havoc and destruction throughout the land. But these aliens are Arizona beetles, and the land is in California, where the invasive insects are a seriou...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_11-06-20.mp3

Physics means getting physical if you’re tackling the biggest, most mysterious questions in the universe. Stoic scientists endure the driest, darkest, coldest spots on the planet to find out ho...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_11-05-16.mp3

Memories are slippery things – some are crystal clear, others more like a muddy pool, and some… well, they seem to vanish completely. Scientists admit that memory is all very complicated, but...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_11-05-09.mp3

The end is nigh. Only, on which nigh should we rely? According to billboards, Judgment Day is in May and the end of the world follows months later. But other authorities claim 2012 as the apocaly...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9039941347.mp3?updated=1636682511

The universe is big – really big.* Galaxies, for instance, are often large enough to hold a trillion stars. But how did these heavenly heavyweights come to be? Hear how still-mysterious dark ma...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_11-04-18.mp3

Public distrust of science is higher than at any time since the Enlightenment. New Yorker writer Michael Specter argues how our anti-science bias and our irrationalism about everything from genet...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV6767763606.mp3?updated=1636682636

Birds do it. Bees do it. But no one sings about how they do it. And frankly, not even Cole Porter can make bedroom behavior that involves decapitating your mate sound romantic. And what rhymes wi...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8410904861.mp3?updated=1636682673

Being first counts in science. Land that coveted spot and you’ll make history, whether it’s with the first steam engine or the discovery of our earliest human ancestor. But what does “first...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5693110719.mp3?updated=1636682728

From the double-helix to the expansion of the universe, great scientific discoveries reshape our understanding of who we are and how things work. But great discoveries require more than just a gr...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7883643441.mp3?updated=1636682798

The weaker the mixture, the stronger the potency. That paradox is a central tenet of homeopathy. More than 200 years old and developed long before germ theory, the practice is the fastest growing...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7295808110.mp3?updated=1636682843

Earth may not be rare after all. New data from NASA’s Kepler mission suggests that the universe is chock-a-block with planets. More than a thousand new possible planets have just been found, an...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5647362161.mp3?updated=1636682890

You’re right: it’s a show about ESP. And, correct again: we’re excited about the publication of a paper that claims precognition exists. You’ve already divined what our paranormal investi...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV5892108190.mp3?updated=1636682968

We all hear about research discoveries, but what about what scientists don’t find? Tune in for a round-up of eureka moments that have yet to come, such as the hunt for the dark energy of the un...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV4072503518.mp3?updated=1636683013

It’s the star of our solar system, but much about the Sun is still mysterious. Find out what a new NASA mission to our favorite fireball might discover about its super-hot outer regions. Also, ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1143330877.mp3?updated=1636683059

Random is as random does… makes sense doesn’t even that anyway in tune hear to randomness how lives rules. Brain chaos the drives, restoration role of help insight ecology may into randomness...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV1774552085.mp3?updated=1636683096

The march of computer technology continues. But as silicon chips and search engines become faster and more productive – can the same be said for us? The creator of Wolfram Alpha describes how h...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV7877498420.mp3?updated=1636683146

It's always an adventure to go digging in Seth’s storage locker – who knows what we’ll find … In this imposing pile of paraphernalia, tucked between boxes of socket wrenches and old 45s, ...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-12-27.mp3

Every ten microseconds, someone places a cell phone call. These portable gadgets are ubiquitous, and increasingly a take-for-granted part of everyday life. But could cell phones be dangerous? Cou...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-12-20.mp3

The language of science is mathematics. As incredible as it seems, the universe seems to run according to laws we can write down on chalkboards. But it’s not just lab-coated researchers who wie...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-12-13.mp3

The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah. So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-12-06.mp3

We think of major geologic events as taking place a long time ago – but the Earth is just as active as it ever was. We’re a planet in motion. Discover why earthquakes might be increasing worl...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-11-29.mp3

You are one-of-a-kind, unique, indispensible… oh, wait, never mind! It seems that computer over there can do what you do … faster and with greater accuracy. Yes, it’s silicon vs. carbon as ...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-11-22.mp3

If a tree fell on another planet, would we be able to detect it? Not quite yet – but we might be able to tell if the planet was habitable. A living-planet is the promise of newly-discovered Gli...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-10-25.mp3

Humans have not gone unnoticed on this planet. We’ve left our mark with technology, agriculture, architecture, and a growing carbon footprint. But where is this trajectory headed? In the second...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-10-11.mp3

Humans have not gone unnoticed on this planet. We’ve left our mark with technology, agriculture, architecture, and a growing carbon footprint. But where is this trajectory headed? In the first ...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8878488505.mp3?updated=1637039914

Watch out, the moon is full… of intrigue. Our lovely satellite is blamed for all sorts of Earth-bound mischief – from robberies to shape-shifting to general nutty behavior. It’s also the se...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-09-26.mp3

Are humans unique or do we just do some things a little better than other species? In the second of our two-part series – how our ability to adapt has shaped our evolution. Find out how throwin...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-09-20.mp3

Are humans unique or do we just do some things a little better than other species? In the first of our two-part series on the nature of humanity: how the influence of others has shaped our evolut...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-09-13.mp3

There’s no escape from the chattering classes – they talk, squawk, squeal and sing all around us. Every animal communicates in some form – it’s essential for survival. They’ve evolved t...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-08-30.mp3

Medicine’s back.. and this time it’s personal. Get ready to have your genome read… your brain scanned… and undergo a chemical analysis so detailed, it’ll reveal the Twinkie you had for ...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-08-09.mp3

“Aspirin and Old Lace?” Okay, it would take a bottle full of pills in a glass of elderberry wine to really harm you, but aspirin can be deadly. So can too much of anything, including water. D...

https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/What_s_Your_Poison_

We could choose not to pay income tax and suffer the consequences. But we can’t avoid death. The biological functions of all organisms eventually cease. But why should this be? Find out why ani...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV9635156088.mp3?updated=1637015777

A new herbal supplements is on the shelf, and it claims to improve memory. Should you take it? It’s not easy to sort through the firehose of health and nutrition advice that comes at us daily. ...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-07-12.mp3

It’s always a surprise to go digging in Seth’s garage – who knows what we’ll find! In this impressive heap of paraphernalia, tucked between boxes of old radio tubes and hydraulic jacks, w...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV3428188667.mp3?updated=1637015675

We should award frequent travel miles to your brain. After all, it’s evolved a long way from the days of guiding brachiation from tree-to-tree to become the three pounds of web-surfing, Sudoku-...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_10-05-24.mp3

There are a lot of scientific claims out there – how do you separate the good from the bad and the outright fraudulent? Experts failed to do so for years in the case of a physicist whose publis...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-05-17.mp3

Dr. Robot, I presume? Your appendix may be removed by motor-driven, scalpel-wielding mechanical hands one day. Robots are debuting in the medical field… as well as on battlefields. And they’r...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-05-03.mp3

With more water than land on this planet, Earth is more aptly-named “Ocean” or “Water.” The oceans have been here for billions of years, and make all life possible. Yet, it’s taken less...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_09-05-11.mp3

We place sharks in aquariums and elephants in zoos – to observe and conserve. But what if aliens have done the same to us? We’ll hear from Stephen King on a doomed result of a domed experimen...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-04-19.mp3

It’s always a surprise to go digging in Seth’s crawl space – who knows what we’ll find! In this cramped never-never land, tucked between piles of spilled cat litter and old clarinet reeds...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-04-12.mp3

The Apollo moon landing is a hoax! 9-11 was an inside job! Our government keeps alien bodies racked and stacked in an underground bunker! And as for the evidence … well … put on your tin hats...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-04-05.mp3

Hello! Is anyone out there? As the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence marks its 50th anniversary, there’s been no contact as yet with alien beings. But SETI researchers maintai...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-03-29.mp3

Arctic ice is melting, atmospheric temperatures are climbing – yet climate change science is under attack. Detractors claim that researchers are manipulating data and hoodwinking the public. An...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-03-08.mp3

Hollywood horror flicks have captivated us with alien blobs, but the slime slithering on our own planet is as beguiling. From microscopic machines to life on ocean floors, new research reveals ho...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-03-01.mp3

It’s goodnight moon from President Obama, as he calls for canceling the program that would return astronauts to the moon by 2020. We’ll hear from the private sector, which might win in this d...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-02-22.mp3

The extra-solar planet count is more than 400 and rising. Before long we may find an Earth-like planet around another star. If we do, and can visit, what next? Stake out our claim on an alien wor...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-02-08.mp3

Love makes us feel warm and mushy, but the sweet sting of Cupid's arrow makes a compelling chemistry lesson, too. Research into animal mating and human courtship provides clues to an eternal myst...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-02-01.mp3

Ever since Einstein, we've known that time doesn't barrel willy-nilly into the future. Moving clocks tick at a different rates, and by riding a fast rocket, we can slow time to a crawl. Such tric...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_10-01-04.mp3

Time's a mystery, yet we've invented clever ways to capture it. From sundials to atomic clocks, trace the history of time-keeping. Also, discover the surprising accuracy of nature's dating scheme...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_09-12-28.mp3

A massive black hole lies at the center of our galaxy, a monster hunkered down in the Milky Way’s innermost sanctum. Here, the bizarre laws of General Relativity take over, as the physics we kn...

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/1E7F5E/traffic.megaphone.fm/ADV8902100927.mp3?updated=1637014776

While the Kepler spacecraft hunts for habitable planets beyond the solar system, we’ve let one of our own planets slip away! Find out why Pluto’s demotion to dwarf status created a public upr...

http://dlc.sun.com/seti/podcast/AWA_09-12-14.mp3

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http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/Skeptical_Sunday_The_Gospel_According_to_SETI