The deep sea is the largest habitat on Earth, but it’s also one of the least understood. As mining companies eye the mineral resources of the deep sea—from oil and gas, to metal deposits—marine biologists like London’s Natural History Museum’s Diva Amon are working to discover and describe as much of the deep sea as they can. Amon has been on dozens of expeditions to sea , where she’s helped characterize ecosystems and discover new species all over the world. And she says we still don’t know eno...
Jun 01, 2018•47 min•Ep. 35
This year’s midterm elections have seen an upswing in the number of scientists running for office. There are approximately 60 candidates with STEM backgrounds in the races for federal offices, and 200 for state positions, according to 314 Action, an advocacy organization that helps scientists run for office. But why would a scientist want to leave the lab for the Hill ? According to volcanologist and Congressional candidate Jess Phoenix, “Science by definition is political because the biggest fu...
Jun 01, 2018•47 min•Ep. 34
Should autonomy be the holy grail of artificial intelligence? Computer scientist Justine Cassell has been working for decades on interdependence instead—AI that can hold conversations with us, teach us, and otherwise develop good rapport with us. She joined Ira live on stage at the Carnegie Library of Homestead Music Hall in Pittsburgh to introduce us to SARA, a virtual assistant that helped world leaders navigate the World Economic Forum last year. Cassell discusses the value of studying relati...
May 25, 2018•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 33
What’s the difference between being fatigued and sleepy? Do melatonin and other sleeping aids work? And what can you do if you just can’t sleep?Neurologist and sleep specialist W. Chris Winter, author of the book The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It , talks about how the brain and body regulate sleep . He also gives ideas for controlling your behavior to improve your “sleep hygiene.” Science museums can be a fun and educational way to spend a day—but what if you don’t h...
May 25, 2018•47 min•Ep. 32
In his latest book, How to Change Your Mind , Michael Pollan writes of his own consciousness-expanding experiments with psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin, and he makes the case for why shaking up the brain’s old habits could be therapeutic for people facing addiction, depression, or death. Pollan and psychedelics researcher Robin Carhart-Harris discuss the neuroscience of consciousness, and how psychedelic drugs may alter the algorithms and habits our brains use to make sense of the worl...
May 18, 2018•47 min•Ep. 31
In HBO’s series Westworld , human-like robots populate a theme park where human guests can have violent, gory adventures in the Wild West without the repercussions. The robots are so lifelike that they fool the visitors and themselves. They bleed, die, grieve, and love—thinking themselves human. But as Westworld’s robots grow increasingly independent of their repetitive, programmed loops, the show incites viewers to question whether AI can truly be autonomous or conscious—and who in this story d...
May 18, 2018•47 min•Ep. 30
How do you think about time? Most people experience it as Newton described it—as something that passes independent of other events, that’s the same for everyone, and moves in a straight line. Still, others have come to embrace Einstein’s view that time instead forms a matrix with space and acts like as a substance in which we are submerged. But physicist and author Carlo Rovelli has an even different approach to time . He’s working on a way to quantify gravity in which time doesn’t exist . An ad...
May 11, 2018•47 min•Ep. 29
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano—located on the Big Island—has been continuously erupting for the past 30 years. But on May 3, magma began spewing through fissures in the Puna district, forcing nearly 2,000 residents to flee. Reporter Ku`uwehi Hiraishi of Hawaii Public Radio spoke to residents in the area of these 15 fissures and describes what type of evacuation efforts have been happening on the ground. Ten years ago, Dr. Gautam Dantas had one of those rare moments you hear about in science—a serendip...
May 11, 2018•47 min•Ep. 28
Genetic testing sites are nothing new. They’ve grown enough in popularity over the past decade that the idea of spitting into a tube and sending it in the mail to a website to find out more about your family tree—or even your risk of certain inherited diseases—doesn’t seem all that strange to most people. But the case of the Golden State Killer has brought to light many questions about the direct-to-consumer genetic testing market that still need answering . Dr. Amy McGuire, professor of biomedi...
May 04, 2018•47 min•Ep. 27
In July of 2015, the world was stunned to learn that Pluto, a tiny, distant dot that some didn’t even consider a planet, was a dynamic, complex, and beautiful world. But for scientists in pursuit of Pluto’s secrets since the late 1980s, it was a long wait. The mission faced political hurdles, budget battles, technical challenges, and near-disaster even as it was days away from speeding past Pluto. Alan Stern, the mission’s dogged principal investigator, and astrobiologist David Grinspoon have wr...
May 04, 2018•47 min•Ep. 26
When winter comes, animals have several options for survival . They can leave their habitats entirely for warmer environments, search for a cozy cave, or even find insulation under a toasty snowbank. And if you’re a wood frog in chilly Ohio or Alaska, or the larvae of a certain wingless midge in Antarctica, you might also just stay put, and freeze solid until the sun returns. But to survive such extreme low temperatures, the bodies of these animals have made some special adaptations: sugars that...
Apr 27, 2018•46 min•Ep. 25
It’s not uncommon these days to hear scientists and journalists say that our planet is experiencing record-setting temperatures due to climate change. But they’re talking about a small part of Earth’s history—human history. The story of the earth’s climate contains much more than what human beings have recorded. In their new book, Weather: An Illustrated History , longtime climate reporter Andrew Revkin and co-author Lisa Mechaley track the incredible range of climate history . They condense tha...
Apr 27, 2018•47 min•Ep. 24
Every night, the largest migration on Earth happens underwater, as jellies, crustaceans and fish swim up hundreds of meters towards the surface to feed. Those daily pilgrimages might also create propulsive jets behind the animals capable of stirring ocean waters, according to research in the journal Nature . Stanford engineer John Dabiri and his team investigated that phenomenon in the lab using brine shrimp (commonly known as sea monkeys). He joins Ira to discuss the theory. Plus: Consider the ...
Apr 20, 2018•47 min•Ep. 23
The 1783 eruption of Laki in Iceland lasted eight months, blanketing parts of the island in lava flows 50 feet deep, and spewing noxious gases that devastated crops and poisoned livestock. Tens of thousands died in Iceland, but the eruption killed millions more around the world, when ash from the eruption cooled the Earth, ushering in an icy winter, and weakening monsoons across Africa and Asia. In her new book The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them), s...
Apr 20, 2018•47 min•Ep. 22
Tumors are masters of disguise. The field of immunotherapy—teaching our immune system to recognize cancer—is burgeoning with solutions to this problem. The eyes may be the window to the soul, but it’s our eyebrows that are doing all the talking. The ability to wiggle those two hairy features around isn’t just some party trick, it’s almost like a secret language —one that even our ancient ancestors used to their advantage. One of the first signs of spring are the sounds of birds chirping in searc...
Apr 13, 2018•47 min•Ep. 21
Some private citizens, scientists, and entrepreneurs are sending some focused messages through the cosmos, which could theoretically be intercepted by any technologically advanced civilizations among the stars, essentially advertising the existence and location of Earth. Is it ethical to do that—or could it needlessly put humanity at risk? Beach nourishment, the process of dredging up sand from the seafloor to replenish eroding beaches and protect coastal ecosystems, has a history that goes back...
Apr 13, 2018•47 min•Ep. 20
The mighty Mississippi is shackled and constrained by a series of channels, locks, and levees. The height of those levee walls is regulated by the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that riverside districts equally bear the risk of flooding. But some districts have piled more sand atop their levees to protect against imminent flood risk during emergency conditions—and then left those sandbags there after the danger passed, leaving a system of levees with irregular heights. A team of investigative...
Apr 06, 2018•46 min•Ep. 19
On April 3, 1968, hundreds of audience members walked out of the theatrical premier of a strange, long, dialogue-sparse science fiction film. Now regarded as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was first met with harsh reviews from critics. Writer and filmmaker Michael Benson, author of the new book Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, reflects on the film’s 50-year legacy , painstaking hand-...
Apr 06, 2018•46 min•Ep. 18
According to CDC data, more than 13,000 people die from gun homicides every year—and most of them are people of color who live in urban areas. Many of them are children. But as scientists seek to understand the causes and solutions for gun deaths, can we also learn to predict them…and even intervene before they happen? One researcher may have the answer : social media analysis. Friendly neighbors. Olympic divers. Little horses with wings. No matter what you call the commonly misunderstood bat, t...
Mar 30, 2018•47 min•Ep. 17
Planting tomatoes in the garden this year? Better hope you have bumblebees too, because tomato flowers need a good shaking to get the pollen out. “What the bumblebee does is grab a tomato flower, curve its abdomen around the bottom of the tomato flower, and then shiver its wing muscles at a specific frequency, shaking pollen out of the holes like a salt shaker,” says Paige Embry , author of Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them . This week, a panel of...
Mar 30, 2018•47 min•Ep. 16
Guns kill more people in the United States than alcohol —from homicides and suicides, to mass shootings like the one that left dead 17 high school students in Parkland, Florida last month. But public health researchers will tell you that studying alcohol-related deaths is much easier. Gun research is so fraught politically that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t fund it (though the National Institutes of Health did for three years during the Obama presidency), and a pair of C...
Mar 23, 2018•47 min•Ep. 15
A report issued last week by the Department of Homeland Security said that throughout 2016 and 2017, Russian hackers had worked to gain access to control systems at unidentified power plants and were in a position to shut them down. Their actions have finally given Washington the political will to address vulnerabilities in the U.S. power grid. A new bill sponsored by Senator Angus King of Maine will establish a two year pilot program to develop techniques and technologies to better secure the g...
Mar 23, 2018•47 min•Ep. 14
Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking died this week at the age of 76. Hawking challenged and inspired a generation of physicists, and we remember his life and legacy. Plus, blockchain is the technology that makes possible every transaction made with Bitcoin—or any digital currency, for that matter. And when Bitcoin skyrocketed on the stock market last year, it turned average Joes into millionaires. Why just Joes? Most surveys show that 95 percent of blockchain enthusiasts and cr...
Mar 16, 2018•48 min•Ep. 12
Scientists have been trying for a long time to piece together a question: When did traits of modern humans—like complex thinking and behaviors—first develop? Anthropologists have uncovered tools in Kenya that date to 280,000 years ago that contained non-local materials, indicating that early humans developed social networks and advanced technology tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought. What would daily life be like on the Red Planet? We called a couple experts from NASA, MIT...
Mar 16, 2018•46 min•Ep. 13
In the history of male-dominated computer science, there are a few women who have gotten attention and credit for their contributions. Famously, Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm designed for a computer, and foresaw that such machines could do much more than math alone. Grace Hopper, after programming Harvard’s Mark 1 computer during World War II, went on to develop the first program compiler and helped make software programming accessible to more people. But as Claire Evans writes in her n...
Mar 09, 2018•47 min•Ep. 11
Overuse of antibiotics has lead to bacteria becoming resistant to the drugs. In the United States, at least two million people become infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria each year, according to the Center for Disease Control. While some researchers are looking for new sources of antibiotics, other scientists are looking for new strategies to treat bacterial infections. One strategy is the use of bacteriophages— viruses that infect and kill bacteria . In 2013, the Food and Drug Administra...
Mar 09, 2018•47 min•Ep. 10
If you like to read about the psychology around food and eating, you’ve probably come across stories based on research from Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab, directed by Brian Wansink. In an article published this week by Buzzfeed News , science reporter Stephanie Lee reports on a history of shoddy research practices in the lab, and a chain of emails that indicates a practice of “p-hacking”—a statistical wrangling of data aimed at making a borderline result appear to be statistically significant. Le...
Mar 02, 2018•47 min•Ep. 9
Currently, the International Space Station is the only destination for astronauts traveling into lower-earth orbit. It’s also the only way for scientists to conduct experiments in microgravity. After two decades, it’s still proving to be incredibly useful to researchers. But time is running out. President Trump has indicated he wants to defund the station as scheduled by 2025, it’s nearing the end of its expected lifetime, and private companies have indicated that they, too, want to invest in th...
Mar 02, 2018•47 min•Ep. 8
The gentle curve of a beam. The particular shape of a clay brick. The sharp angles of a series of trusses. You might view these elements of buildings, bridges, and structures as part of the aesthetic and artistic design, or maybe you have overlooked them completely. But for London-based structural engineer Roma Agrawal, these visual charms play an important role not only in the beauty of a building, but in the physics that keep a structure from tumbling down. Agrawal reveals the hidden engineeri...
Feb 23, 2018•47 min•Ep. 7
A group of engineers are building softer, squishier robots—ones you might knowingly invite into your home to hang out. Instead of sporting bodies of rigid plastic and metal, biohybrid robots often consist of 3D-printed scaffolds laced with lab-grown muscles, sourced from the cells of mice, insects, and even sea slugs. Some "bio-bots" can even heal themselves after an injury, and get back to work. A roundup of engineers talk about the growing fleet of biohybrid robots . Plus, since the first foss...
Feb 23, 2018•47 min•Ep. 6
