The surprising connections in science and technology that give you the Big Picture. Astronomer Seth Shostak and science journalist Molly Bentley are joined each...
After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn’t retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin’s voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems.
Guests:
Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean’s Microbiome.”
Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired December 18, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network.
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54:00
Night Flight
Owls are both the most
accessible and elusive of birds. Every child can recognize one, but you’ll be
lucky to spot an owl in a tree, even if you’re looking straight at
it. Besides their camouflage and silent flight, these mostly nocturnal
birds, with their amazing vision and hearing, are most at home in the dead of
night, a time humans find alien and scary. Ecologist Carl Safina got to
know an injured baby screech owl well. Their relationship saved the owl’s life
and gave Safina insider’s wisdom about these aerial hunters of the night.
Guests:
Carl Safina – ecologist at
Stony Brook University, head of the non-profit Safina Center, and author of “Alfie
& Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe”
Tom Damiami – natural resources
interpreter, singer on Long Island, NY and leader of the Shelter Island Owl Prowl
Gordy Slack – science writer, former senior editor
of California Wild, the science and natural history magazine published by the
California Academy of Sciences
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired November
6, 2023
Big Picture Science is
part of the Airwave Media podcast
network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about
advertising on Big Picture Science.
You
can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us
on Patreon. Thanks for your
support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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54:50
Skeptic Check: Naomi Klein
Our information age is increasingly the disinformation age. The spread of lies and conspiracy theories has created competing experiences of reality. Facts are often useless for changing minds or even making compelling arguments. In this episode, author Naomi Klein and science philosopher Lee McIntyre discuss why the goal – not simply the byproduct - of spreading disinformation is to polarize society. They also offer ideas about how we might find our way back to a shared objective truth.
Guests:
Naomi Klein - Associate professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia and a co-director at the Center for Climate Justice. Author of Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
Lee McIntyre - Philosopher of science and a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and the History of Science at Boston University, and author of Post-Truth and On Disinformation.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired December 11, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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55:32
Extraordinary Ordinary Objects*
“To live is to count and to count is to calculate.” But before we plugged in the computer to express this ethos, we pulled out the pocket calculator. It became a monarch of mathematics that sparked a computing revolution. But it’s not the only deceptively modest innovation that changed how we work and live. Find out how sewing a scrap of fabric into clothing helped define private life and how adding lines to paper helped build an Empire. Plus, does every invention entail irrevocable cultural loss?
Guests:
Keith Houston – author of “Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator.”
Hannah Carlson – teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, author of “Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.”
Dominic Riley – bookbinder in the U.K.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
*Originally aired October 30, 2023
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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54:00
Spotlight on SETI ep 4: Chenoa Tremblay
The SETI Institute’s search for alien biosignatures and technosignatures depends on radio telescopes. You may have seen the stunning photos of massive telescope arrays in the desert, but what types of alien signals might help researchers actually detect with those giant dishes?
In this fourth episode, Brian Edwards talks with physicist Chenoa Tremblay, a COSMIC Project Scientist who is based at the Very Large Array in New Mexico. They dig into the important role radio telescopes play in SETI, how powerful computers have supercharged the search for life off Earth, and imagine what kinds of biosignatures and technosignatures of alien life we are most likely to find.
Music by Jun Miyake
You can support the work of Big Picture Science by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The surprising connections in science and technology that give you the Big Picture. Astronomer Seth Shostak and science journalist Molly Bentley are joined each week by leading researchers, techies, and journalists to provide a smart and humorous take on science. Our regular "Skeptic Check" episodes cast a critical eye on pseudoscience.
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