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AbSciCon stands for Astrobiology Science Conference, and Seth was there, talking to researchers about progress in puzzling out how life began on Earth, and where it might have gained a claw-hold elsewhere. Could there be certain parts of our Galaxy that are off-limits for life? Also, hear whether our universe has special properties that render it just dandy for life, and whether we should be looking for viruses on Mars.
Guests:
- Diana Valencia - Planetary physicist at Harvard University
- Charley Lineweaver - Cosmologist at the Australian National University
- David Deamer - Research scientist at the University of California at Santa Cruz
- Baruch Blumberg - Scientist at the Fox Chase Cancer Institute, Nobel Prize winner, and Trustee at the SETI Institute
- Matthew Kenworthy - Astronomer at the University of Arizona
- Eric Korpela - Research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley
- Richard Muller - Physicist, University of California, Berkeley
- Kathryn Denning - Anthropologist at York University
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Plus, enter the locked vaults that hold extinct and newly-discovered animal species. And why B-movie critters steal the show.
A new species? This is a grey-faced sengi.
Click here for another photo.
Guests:
- Neil Shubin - Anatomist and Associate Dean at the University of Chicago, and author of Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
- Galen Rathbun - Biologist, California Academy of Sciences
- Jack Dumbacher - Curator, Birds and Mammals, California Academy of Sciences
- Virginia Morell - Science writer. Her cover story Inside Animal Minds is in the March, 2008 issue of National Geographic
- Alex Kacelnik - Behavioral Ecologist at Oxford University
- Lori Marino - Behavioral Biologist at Emory University
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Hear how sex began and where it's headed: if you think your love life is mechanical now, just wait until you're cozying up to titanium skin and the latest emotion software.
Plus, everything you always wanted to know about modern sex research, but were afraid to ask.
Guests:
- Mary Roach - Author of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
- David Levy - Artificial intelligence researcher and the author of Love and Sex with Robots
- Mary Droser - Professor of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside
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Meanwhile, how do we back up our written and pictorial heritage, most of which is on (ultimately perishable) paper? Not to mention the torrent of info in the form of Internet bits. That's the challenge at the Library of Congress, where a new digital initiative is trying to keep our intellectual inheritance intact. And IBM may soon help out in storing it all, as they develop magnetic beads that could increase the amount of memory on a chip by hundreds of times.
Guests:
- Cary Fowler - Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust
- Stuart Parkin - Physicist at IBM's Almaden Research Center
- David Harrison - Director of Research for the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and author of When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge
- William LeFurgy - Digital Initiative Project, Library of Congress
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Hear why America has contempt for nerds, while other countries treat them as rock stars. Also, how to solve a Rubik's Cube in seconds, and a Geeksta Rap sing-along.
Guests:
- David Anderegg - Author of Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them
- Jessica Fridrich - Electrical and computer engineer at Binghamton University in New York
- Sun Kwok - Physicist and astronomer at the University of Hong Kong
- Peter Hartlaub - Pop Culture Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle
- Christian Ternus - Sophomore at MIT
- Fred Hall - Space Physicist
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We'll hear how chemicals in the brain conspire to produce certainty and why even death and taxes are not foregone conclusions. Also, Sam Harris on the biology of belief... Phil Plait on vacationing brains and our Hollywood skeptic raises an eye at sure-fire, tinseltown blockbusters.
Guests:
- Phil Plait - Astronomer and keeper of the website www.badastronomy.com
- Sam Harris - Neuroscientist and author of The End of Faith
- Robert Burton - Neurologist and author of On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not
- James Underdown - Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry West in Los Angeles
Encore Presentation
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Also, the surprising patterns of organization around us - find out why you behave with the mathematical logic of an atom and why you can't outwit the crowds at your favorite bar. Also, happy 300th birthday to Carl Linneaus. Without him, you and your neighbors wouldn't be in the members-only club Homo sapiens.
Guests:
- David Quammen - award-winning science, nature, and travel writer. His article about botanist Carl Linneaus, "A Passion for Order," appears in the June 2007 issue of National Geographic magazine
- Lawrence Krauss - physicist and cosmologist, Case Western Reserve University
- Mark Buchanan - physicist and author of The Social Atom
- Alex Bentley - anthropologist at the University of Durham, U.K.
- Virginia Trimble - professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine
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We'll talk about the current best estimates for the terms in Drake's famous formulation - from the number of Earth-size planets to the life expectancy of advanced civilizations. Also, with all this number crunching, why haven't we yet heard from ET?
Guests:
- Frank Drake - Senior Scientist, SETI Institute
- Charley Lineweaver - Astrobiologist at the Australian National University
- Lori Marino - Behavioral Biologist at Emory University
- J. Richard Gott - Physicist at Princeton University
- Natalie Batalha - Professor of Physics and Astronomy, San Jose State University, and science team member, Kepler Mission
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We'll hear how the insights of French writer Marcel Proust anticipated modern neuroscience. Also, a debate over the evolutionary function of art. Does it have survival value? We meet a robot whose painting talents have garnered it a job in one of America's top museums. And, hear - or don't hear - why some of our relatives don't monkey around with music.
Guests:
- Jonah Lehrer - science journalist, editor-at-large, Seed magazine and author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist
- David Sloan Wilson - evolutionary biologist at Binghamton University, and author of Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives
- Ellen Dissanayake - independent scholar and author of Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began
- Leonel Moura - conceptual artist
Find out more about RAP, including a picture, at the American Museum of Natural History website!
Whip up some madeleines (click here for a recipe) and savor your own remembrance of things past.
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We'll get reaction from a physicist and science-fiction fans to the movie "Jumper," that explores the idea of teleportation, and find out whether a wormhole commute is really possible.
Also, futuristic modes of transportation that have yet to crowd the skies: jet packs and flying cars. Whatever happened to them? And, what travel will be like in the year 2050.
Guests:
- Max Tegmark - physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Christian Ternus - MIT sophomore and member of the MIT Science Fiction Society
- Carrie Keach - MIT sophomore and member of the MIT Science Fiction Society
- Doug Hecox - Spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration
- Tom Frey - Executive Director, The DaVinci Institute
Have you read the books mentioned in this show?
- Steven Gould / Jumper
- Carl Sagan / Contact
- Robert Heinlein / The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- Connie Willis / To Say Nothing of the Dog
- Lois McMaster Bujold / The Warrior's Apprentice
- Isaac Asimov / Foundation Trilogy: Foundation; Foundation and Empire; Second Foundation
Encore presentation
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In this hour, a look at high and low-tech visions of dinner time... whether E.T. would ever get a hankering to snack on Homo sapiens... what percentage of a Twinkie is mined... and growing meat in the lab. Plus, food fights of the past and future.
Guests:
- Steve Ettlinger - author of Twinkie Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats
- Warren Belasco - Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, and author of Meals To Come
- Jason Matheny - Director of New Harvest, a non-profit which funds research on in-vitro meat
- Tori Hoehler - astrobiology researcher at NASA Ames Research Center
Encore presentation
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Also, how your Blackberry may be changing the brains of future generations. And, are we engineering our own successors through robotics?
Guests:
- Lynne Isbell - anthropologist, University of California, Davis
- Timothy Taylor - archeologist, the University of Bradford in the U.K.
- Nicholas Wade - science writer, New York Times, author of Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
- Lee Gutkind - author of Almost Human: Making Robots Think
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Also, release yourself from the limits of your biology: from bionic limbs to infrared vision; join humans of the future who are enhanced with super-senses.
Now that you have a feel for the taste of this show by nosing about this blurb, you can see that it's worth a listen. Make sense?
Guests:
- Tom Finger - Cell and Developmental Biologist at University of Colorado Medical School and Co-Director of the Rocky Mountain Taste and Smell Center.
- Ken Salisbury - Computer Scientist in the Bio-Robotics Laboratory, Stanford.
- James Hughes - Sociologist and Bioethicist at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and Executive Director of the Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
- Nina Jablonski - Anthropologist at Penn State University and author of Skin: A Natural History.
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Also, how to recognize a message from E.T. And, making the case for letting that library card lapse: the extinction of the written word.
Guests:
- Bernie Krause - Bio-acoustics researcher and director of Wild Sanctuary
- William Crossman - Author of VIVO: the Coming Age of Talking Computers and the director of the CompSpeak 2050 Institute for the Study of Talking Computers and Oral Cultures
- Laurance Doyle - Astronomer at the SETI Institute
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Also, the Amazing Randi's last chance for all mind readers, levitation experts and other masters of the paranormal: you have two years to prove your stuff before the $1,000,000 challenge ends.
Plus, a recent Harvard study scans brains for neurological evidence of ESP... unfolding the origins of the fortune cookie... And Phil Plait rounds up the latest skewed cogitations of lazy brains: is a recent Rover photo evidence of Bigfoot on Mars?
It's Skeptical Sunday... but don't take our word for it.
Guests:
- Phil Plait - Author of badastronomy.com
- James Randi - Stage magician, paranormal skeptic, and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation
- Sam Moulton - Psychologist at Harvard University
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Also, the surprising story of how aviator Charles Lindbergh helped develop a medical device that prolonged lives - all in support of the Nazi cause.
Guests:
- Aubrey de Grey - Biogerontologist and author of Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime
- Michael Rose - Ecologist and Evolutionary Biologist at the University of California - Irvine
- David M. Friedman - author of The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever
- Al Wanamaker - Researcher at Bangor University's School of Ocean Sciences
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Plus - the four forces are governed by fundamental laws, but are these laws made to be broken? Find out whether you could zip through space at faster than light speed.
Guests:
- Freeman Dyson - Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
- Andrew Fraknoi - Chair of the Astronomy Department at Foothill College, Trustee at the SETI Institute, and author of Wonderful World of Space
- Peter Jenniskens - Meteor expert/astronomer at the SETI Institute
- David Morrison - Senior Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center
- Mario Livio - Physicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute
- Laurance Doyle - Astronomer at the SETI Institute
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Find out how a biologist helped international police pinpoint elephant poaching in Africa. Also, astronomers who can decipher when and where Vincent van Gogh painted his famous nighttime works by examining the position of the stars. And, how some archeologists and paleontologists willingly deal with some very old dung to learn secrets of the distant past.
Guests:
- Samuel K. Wasser - Professor of conservation biology, University of Washington
- Jacob Berkowitz - Author of Jurassic Poop
- Russell L. Doescher - Physicist and astronomer, Texas State University
- James Oberg - Rocket scientist and media consultant
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Meet the new space race(s). Private companies are gearing up to go where only governments have gone before, and the launch of a Chinese lunar probe signals a new turf war over Earth's natural satellite. We'll hear these stories, plus meet a "Sputnut" who owns two copies of the pioneering orb and is looking forward to a Sputnik-eye-view of Earth as a passenger on board the International Space Station next fall.
Also, why the space elevator biz is looking up.
Guests:
- Richard Garriott - Executive Producer at online game company NC Soft and a space enthusiast who is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station in October, 2008
- Peter Swan - Partner, Teaching Science and Technology, Inc.
- Simon "Pete" Worden - Center Director, NASA Ames Research Center
- Peter Diamandis - Chairman and CEO of the X-Prize Foundation
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We can help. Tune in and find out why it's bad news if our frozen frontiers turn to mush and slush, as we talk with scientists who are breaking the ice as part of the International Polar Year, a collaboration to expand research and raise awareness of the Arctic and Antarctic, and the global climate system.
Check out the Polar Palooza and International Polar Year websites.
Guests:
- Ralph Harvey - Geologist, Case Western Reserve University and Principal Investigator for the Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET)
- Michael Castellini - Biologist, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
- Kathy Licht - Geologist, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis
- Darlene Lim - Limnologist at NASA Ames and the SETI Institute
- Charles Bentley - Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Wisconsin at Madison
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Find out why we worry about all the wrong things and don't fret enough about things that really are a threat, as we examine the science - and psychology - of risk.
Also, why sword-swallowing is bad for your health... and how well lab rats can recognize Dutch spoken backwards: meet the winners of this year's Ig Nobels.
Plus, our Hollywood skeptic raises an eyebrow at monkey feng shui, and Phil Plait investigates claims that the world is on "tilt". It's Skeptical Sunday... but don't take our word for it!
Guests:
- Phil Plait - author of badastronomy.com
- David Ropeik - consultant in risk communication, co-author of Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What's Really Safe and What's Dangerous
- John Adams - Emeritus Professor, Geography Department, University College London
- Marc Abrahams - editor, Annals of Improbable Research
- James Underdown - Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry, Los Angeles
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Tour the National Atomic Museum with a former Manhattan Project physicist as he shares the secrets of the atom's power, and of the desperate race to harness that power to win a war. Also, discover the job duties of a 1950s euphemistically-termed "health physicist" in Los Alamos.
Plus, find out why a former protester against nuclear energy now sees this technology as the best approach to solving environmental problems.
Guests:
- D. Ellett - Manhattan Project veteran and retired physicist from Sandia National Laboratories and now a docent at the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque.
- John Taschner - former health physicist from the U.S. Air Force and Los Alamos National Labs and now a docent at the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque.
- Gwyneth Cravens - journalist and author of Power to Save the World; The Truth About Nuclear Energy
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Meanwhile, how do we back up our written and pictorial heritage, most of which is on (ultimately perishable) paper? Not to mention the torrent of info in the form of Internet bits. That's the challenge at the Library of Congress, where a new digital initiative is trying to keep our intellectual inheritance intact. And IBM may soon help out in storing it all, as they develop magnetic beads that could increase the amount of memory on a chip by hundreds of times.
Guests:
- Cary Fowler - Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust
- Stuart Parkin - Physicist at IBM's Almaden Research Center
- David Harrison - Director of Research for the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and author of When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge
- William LeFurgy - Digital Initiative Project, Library of Congress
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Our foray into the latest space research takes us from coast to coast. Molly reports from the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in Florida on the upcoming missions to the outer solar system, and Seth is at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in California, at the dedication of the new Allen Telescope Array.
Guests:
- Kevin Baines - principal scientist in the Planetary Science and Life Detection Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Chris Parkinson - research scientist at the University of Michigan
- Hunter Waite - Institute Scientist at Southwest Research Institute
- Bob Pappalardo - principal scientist in the Planetary Ices Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Paul Allen - technologist and co-founder of Microsoft
- Ron Ekers - radio astronomer, former President of the International Astronomical Union
- Leo Blitz - radio astronomer, University of California Berkeley
- Jill Tarter - Director of SETI Research, SETI Institute
- Steve Trimberger - engineer and technologist
- Greg Papadopoulos - Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development, Sun Microsystems
- Alex Filippenko - astronomer, University of California Berkeley
- Bill Oxley - radio host
- Mel Wright - astronomer, University of California Berkeley
- John Andersen - President of Andersen Manufacturing
- Gerry Harp - scientist, SETI Institute
- Judith Golub - computer industry entrepreneur
- David Liddle - technologist and futurist
- Frank Drake - Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute
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Also, hearty microbes that thrive in extreme environments beyond your body... how the discovery of novel bacteria - archaea - has added a branch to the tree of life... and whoops - dropped that yummy cheese doodle on the floor? Find out why it's best left for the broom: new research that challenges the 5-second rule.
Guests:
- George Weinstock - microbiologist and co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center in Houston, Texas
- Tim Friend - science journalist and author of The Third Domain: The Untold Story of Archaea and the Future of Biotechnology
- John Moreau - geomicrobiologist with the US Geological Survey
- Paul Dawson - microbiologist at Clemson University
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But what takes place next? Can we stop the machines from turning us into protoplasmic peons in a world in which they are the top intellectual dogs?
Seth and Molly go to the Singularity Summit in San Francisco, and talk to some far-sighted humans who are preparing for the next generation of brainiacs - and they won't be your offspring!
Guests:
- Eliezer Yudkowsky - Research fellow and co-founder of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
- Everett Sherwood - Former research member at Motorola Labs
- Brad Templeton - Board member, Foresight Nanotech Institute, and Chair, Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Charles Harper - Senior Vice President, John Templeton Foundation
When the Smoke Clears
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Also, why mass extinctions are helpful to evolution, and if a few people do survive Armageddon, how do they begin to put human culture back together?
Guests:
- Alan Weisman - author of The World Without Us
- Peter Ward - Paleontologist at the University of Washington, Seattle and author of Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future
- Carol Tavris - Social psychologist and author of Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)
- Hugh Gusterson - Anthropologist, George Mason University
Listen to Doomsday Part I: The Early Hours (January 24, 2007).
Take Eye of Newt and Call Me in the Morning
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Sorting through the medical zeitgeist is enough to have you reaching for the aspirin, which, last we heard, is still used to treat headaches.
Join us as we separate sound medical science from the snake oil. Also, talk about getting away from it all: scientists induce out-of-body experiences in the lab. Plus, our Hollywood skeptic prepares us for television prognostication this fall with a "Viewer's Guide to Seers." And, Phil Plait finds out just what vacationing brains are up to.
It's Skeptical Sunday... but don't take our word for it!
Guests:
- Ben Goldacre - Medical doctor and author of the column "Bad Science" in The Guardian as well as the badscience.net website
- Susan Blackmore - Psychologist and visiting lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol
- Phil Plait - Astronomer and keeper of the web site badastronomy.com
- Jim Underdown - Executive Director, Center for Inquiry West in Hollywood
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Guests:
- Peter Jenniskens - Astronomer at the SETI Institute
- Mark Showalter - Astronomer at the SETI Institute
- Nick Bostrom - Philosopher at Oxford University, Director of the Future of Humanities Institute in the U.K.
- Timothy Ferris - Science writer and author of Seeing in the Dark. The PBS special based on this book airs in September.
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Also, how to recognize a message from E.T. And, making the case for letting that library card lapse: the extinction of the written word.
Guests:
- Bernie Krause - Bio-acoustics researcher and director of Wild Sanctuary
- William Crossman - Author of VIVO: the Coming Age of Talking Computers and the director of the CompSpeak 2050 Institute for the Study of Talking Computers and Oral Cultures
- Laurance Doyle - Astronomer at the SETI Institute
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Also, how your Blackberry may be changing the brains of future generations. And, are we engineering our own successors through robotics?
Guests:
- Lynne Isbell - anthropologist, University of California, Davis
- Timothy Taylor - archeologist, the University of Bradford in the U.K.
- Nicholas Wade - science writer, New York Times, author of Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
- Lee Gutkind - author of Almost Human: Making Robots Think
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Plus, he believed all significant advances in rocketry germinated in his workshop - and was probably right; the life of Robert H. Goddard. And, Dr. Dolittle's farm takes flight: a history of animals in space.
Guests:
- John Marshall - co-investigator on the Phoenix Mission
- Katherine Trinidad - public affairs spokesperson, NASA HQ
- Dave Morrison - senior scientist at NASA Ames Research Center
- David Clary - author of Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age
- Colin Burgess and Chris Dubbs - authors of Animals in Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle
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Also, so your grilled cheese sandwich looks like Elvis, does that mean that messages are encoded in your lunch, or could this simply be a consequence of our hard-wired ability, as a social species, to be adept at facial recognition?
Plus, Brains on Vacation squares off against the Bermuda Triangle... and, a round-up of the latest alien exploits from the checkout line press. It's Skeptical Sunday... but don't take our word for it!
Guests:
- Phil Plait - Astronomer and keeper of the website badastronomy.com
- Kathryn Denning - Professor of Anthropology at York University
- Simcha Jacobovici - Director of The Lost Tomb of Jesus
- Craig Evans - New Testament Scholar at Acadia Divinity College
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Also, the surprising patterns of organization around us - find out why you behave with the mathematical logic of an atom and why you can't outwit the crowds at your favorite bar. Also, happy 300th birthday to Carl Linneaus. Without him, you and your neighbors wouldn't be in the members-only club Homo sapiens.
Guests:
- David Quammen - award-winning science, nature, and travel writer. His article about botanist Carl Linneaus, "A Passion for Order," appears in the June 2007 issue of National Geographic magazine
- Lawrence Krauss - physicist and cosmologist, Case Western Reserve University
- Mark Buchanan - physicist and author of The Social Atom
- Alex Bentley - anthropologist at the University of Durham, U.K.
- Virginia Trimble - professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine
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In this hour, a look at high and low-tech visions of dinner time... whether E.T. would ever get a hankering to snack on Homo sapiens... what percentage of a Twinkie is mined... and growing meat in the lab. Plus, food fights of the past and future.
Guests:
- Steve Ettlinger - author of Twinkie Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats
- Warren Belasco - Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, and author of Meals To Come
- Jason Matheny - Director of New Harvest, a non-profit which funds research on in-vitro meat
- Tori Hoehler - astrobiology researcher at NASA Ames Research Center
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A physicist makes the scientific case for no God - a NASA scientist says gazing at Saturn's rings is a religious experience - Adam meets Dino in Kentucky's new Creation Museum - and anthropologist Lewis Wolpert explains why the emergence of religion is inevitable.
Guests:
- Lewis Wolpert - Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology of University College, London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society
- Victor Stenger - Professor Emeritus of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii and a philosopher at the University of Colorado. His most recent book is God: the Failed Hypothesis
- Frank Tipler - Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University and author of The Physics of Christianity
- Carolyn Porco - Imaging Team Leader of NASA's Cassini Mission
- Gordy Slack - science writer in Oakland, California. He is the author of The Battle over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design and a School Board in Dover, PA. His article on the Creationist Museum can be found at salon.com
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As we consider why today's folk give science the big yawn, we'll talk to people whose job it is to bring lab findings to the public. Also, a new study traces to childhood our psychological aversion to science. Plus, Seth re-lives his childhood at the San Francisco Exploratorium.
BONUS: sing along with Seth! Click here for the lyrics to "The Maunderer".
Guests:
- Natalie Angier - New York Times reporter and author of The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science
- Charlie Petit - veteran science reporter and Head Tracker of the Knight Science Journalism Tracker
- Paul Bloom - Psychologist at Yale University
- Paul Doherty - Senior Scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco
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The Jamestown settlement may have kicked off the colonization of the New World. But, you'll hear how it also left an indelible mark on its ecosystem and the human landscape. Plus, why the Galapagos Islands haven't been the same since their most celebrated visitor set foot on their rocky shores more than a century ago.
Also: how a spider led the re-population of Krakatau after a devastating volcanic eruption... the "raining" threat of alien microbes... and one man's emergency plan for when Mars attacks.
Guests:
- Charles C. Mann - author and journalist. His article "America Found and Lost" is in the May issue of National Geographic Magazine
- Travis Taylor - author of An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extraterrestrial Invasion
- Robert Whittaker - Professor of Biogeography at the University of Oxford
- John Rummel - Senior Scientist for Astrobiology at NASA
- Timothy Silcott - Director for Information and Development for the Charles Darwin Foundation based in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos Islands
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Also, the contributions of amateur astronomers and the unexpected tragedy that gave rise to modern astronomy.
Guests
- Vikki Meadows – scientist at the California Institute of Technology and NAI member
- Stuart Clark - author of The Sun Kings
- William Phelps- astronomy enthusiast
- Jascin Leonardo Finger curator, Mitchell House
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In 1947, aliens intent on visiting our planet are said to have crashed into the New Mexico desert near Roswell. According to several witnesses, the U.S. military not only recovered the saucer debris (together with some dead, extraterrestrial passengers), but secreted away the evidence. There are also claims that the crumpled alien technology was reverse-engineered, providing us with hi-tech products we otherwise wouldn’t have. Could it be true? Most scientists have a one-word reaction to Roswell: “Phooey!” They point to a perfectly reasonable and historically supported non-extraterrestrial explanation for the debris recovered in New Mexico.
In this special Skeptical Sunday report, Seth and Molly travel to Roswell to check out the fabled city which, even after sixty years, is still best known for this putative interstellar fender-bender.
The UFO Museum
Guests:
- Julie Schuster - Director of the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico
- Kal Korff - Lecturer, journalist, author and editor of criticalthinkers.org
- Michael Shermer - Founder of Skeptic Magazine, Executive Director of the Skeptic's Society, and the author of Why People Believe Weird Things
- Bryan Temmer - Founder and President of the Alien Apex Resort
Road Trip to Roswell Part I
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In 1947, aliens intent on visiting our planet are said to have crashed into the New Mexico desert near Roswell. According to several witnesses, the U.S. military not only recovered the saucer debris (together with some dead, extraterrestrial passengers), but secreted away the evidence. There are also claims that the crumpled alien technology was reverse-engineered, providing us with hi-tech products we otherwise wouldn’t have.
Could it be true? Most scientists have a one-word reaction to Roswell: “Phooey!” They point to a perfectly reasonable and historically supported non-extraterrestrial explanation for the debris recovered in New Mexico.
In this special Skeptical Sunday report, Seth and Molly travel to Roswell to check out the fabled city which, even after sixty years, is still best known for this putative interstellar fender-bender.
Also, the alien invasion that’s underway: how exotic plant and animal species are threatening ecosystems nationwide.
- Thomas Stohlgren - Ecologist, National Institute of Invasive Species Science, U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins, Colorado
- Stan Friedman - Nuclear physicist
- Dennis Verstynen - Staff member at the National Atomic Musuem in Albuquerque and a retired U.S. history teacher
- John Taschner - Retired from the U.S. Air Force and a former health physicist from Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Although SETI experiments have not yet picked up a signal from another world, there’s plenty of optimism among the scientists looking for ET’s pings. That’s because new telescopes, both radio and optical, will soon greatly speed up our cosmic reconnaissance. As example, the Allen Telescope Array, scheduled to begin observing this summer, will eventually accelerate the search by hundreds of times.
Join us as we talk to SETI glitterati Frank Drake and Jill Tarter about their life-long efforts to find extraterrestrials. We’ll also chat about the new Harvard optical SETI telescope, how we might converse with aliens, and join in a debate about, well, whether SETI is worth the effort.
Guests
- Frank Drake - Senior Scientist, SETI Institute
- Jill Tarter - Director of SETI Research, SETI Institute
- Doug Vakoch - Director of Interstellar Message Composition, SETI Institute
- Ben Zuckerman - Professor of astronomy and physics, UCLA
- Dave Itzkoff - writer for New York Times Book Review
- Robert Sawyer - science fiction writer and author of Rollback
- Andrew Howard - optical SETI researcher, Harvard University physics department
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The origin of life on Earth is a mystery - there are no fossils of the earliest life forms. But, fast-forward a few hundred million years, and - voila! - we see traces of life, from microbes to - zip ahead another billion years - creatures with six legs, a tail, and a thorax. But how did these early life forms develop?
Join us for a journey to Mexico where pools of microbes could tell us about life’s earliest moments. Also, the turning point in the history of animals on Earth: the Cambrian explosion. Finally, he may not be a mad scientist, but we’ll meet a chemist who is trying to reproduce early life in the lab.
Looking for early life in Mexico - Click for larger images
Guests:
- Valeria Souza - microbial evolutionary ecologist at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico
- Janet Siefert - theoretical biologist (what is that?) at Rice University
- David Hollander - bio-geochemist at the University of South Florida
- Mya Breitbart - marine microbiologist at the University of South Florida
- James Elser - biologist at Arizona State University
- Michael Travisano - microbial ecologist at the University of Minnesota
- Max Bernstein - chemist at NASA Ames Research Center
- Bruce Lieberman - geologist at the University of Kansas
- Bertha Shostak
- Charles Bentley - glaciologist at the University of Wisconsin - Madison
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You think, therefore… what? We can’t be sure of much when it comes to consciousness. Not only do scientists not agree on what consciousness is – they don’t agree on whether they ever will be able to agree! What if you’re not you, but a self-aware supercomputer? Could you tell the difference? Is consciousness an emergent phase transition? What does that even mean? Grab the aspirin and help us explore these questions, together with a little help from A.I. expert Marvin Minsky.
Also, put down that can of Raid! He may be small and repulsive, but that cockroach in your pantry just might be contemplating its own existence. (Okay, now blast ‘m).
Guests:
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Marvin Minsky – Founder of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and author of The Emotion Machine
- Patricia S. Churchland – Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
- Susan Clancy - Psychologist at Harvard University and author of Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens
- Jaron Lanier –
computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. He writes a monthly column for Discover Magazine
- John R. Searle – Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Freedom and Neurobiology; Reflections of Free Will, Language, and Political Power
- Nicholas Strausfeld – Neurobiologist at the University of Arizona at Tucson
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A, C, G and T – you can thank these four nucleotides for your auburn hair, lack of hand-eye coordination, and sparkling wit. The procession of these base pairs accounts for all human diversity, and as we crack its code, we’re changing our understanding of what it means to be human.
From tracing the evolution of Homo sapiens to the modern – and contested - debate over creating a national DNA database, find out how a tiny double helix is turning the nucleotide of science. Also, radiated microbial DNA that stitches itself back together… Seth and Molly extract DNA from a banana…. and swing your partner in the DNA hoe down!
Guests:
- Nicholas Wade – Science writer, New York Times
- Erin Murphy – Assistant professor of law, University of California - Berkeley
- Frederick Bieber – Medical geneticist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School
- Karla Heidelberg – Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Southern California
Vampires, Freaks, and Superstition
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Resume in hand, new suit pressed and buttoned – you’re all set for that job interview. But before sitting down, you rub your lucky quarter – just to be sure. People often fall back on superstitious habit when the pressure’s on. But can we really nudge fate by wearing our favorite shirts and avoiding ebony cats?
Speaking of high stakes – how to ward off vampires and why Vlad the Impaler was not the inspiration for the original Type O gourmet. Also: how carnival freaks stay in show business…Brains on Vacation… and a reality check from Hollywood.
It’s Skeptical Sunday… but don’t take our word for it!
Guests:
- Joe Nickell – Investigator for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, columnist for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and author of Secrets of the Sideshows
- Kathryn Denning- Professor of anthropology, York University
- Bruce Hood – Experimental Psychologist, University of Bristol, U.K.
- Emily Pronin – Professor of psychology, Princeton University
- Phil Plait – Astronomer at Sonoma State, and author of the web site and book badastronomy.com
- Jim Underdown - Executive Director of Center for Inquiry – West and member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
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Modern physics isn’t for the faint of heart. From explorations of the mysterious dark matter that holds the galaxies together, the bizarre dark energy pulling the universe apart, and the attempts by scientists to recreate the Big Bang in a laboratory, contemporary physics is nothing if not extreme. We’ll investigate the latest on all these fronts, and find out what we’re learning about a universe that’s stranger than we could have imagined. Also, cosmologist Paul Davies on what physics may reveal about the meaning of life. And, the SETI Institute Players go to extremes!
Guests:
- Paul Davies - Physicist and cosmologist at Arizona State University and author of Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe is Just Right for Life
- Adam Reiss - Physicist and astronomer at Johns Hopkins University
- Joel Primack - Physicist at the University of California at Santa Cruz and co-author of The View From the Center of the Universe
- Timothy Hallman - Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory
- Alex Vilenkin - Physicist at Tufts University and author of Many Worlds in One
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Are science and technology leading us to Elysian Fields of prosperity, happiness, and unblemished health? Or have two centuries of industrialization and materialism accomplished just the opposite - ripping us from the nurturing bosom of our pastoral past? Is our future bright, or will environmental degradation, genetic engineering, or nanotechnology cause mass disruption and destruction?
Join us for a lively discussion with experts who will consider whether the world is heading to Nirvana, or to a place that's overheated and sulphurous.
Guests:
- Gregory Cochran - physicist and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah
- Diane Halpern - Professor of Psychology, Claremont McKenna College in California
- Karl Sabbagh - science writer and television producer living in England. His most recent book is The Riemann Hypothesis: The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics
This is part one of a two-part series.
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The iconic Doomsday clock has been moved two minutes closer to midnight, symbolizing the growing international threat of nuclear disaster. Find out what led the directors at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to inch the hand closer to this ominous hour, and why – for the first time - they’ve included climate change in their forecast of imminent threats to humanity.
From asteroids to wandering black holes to gamma-ray bursts – the cosmic catastrophes that lurk outside our world. Plus, your chance to design a mission to stop a killer asteroid… some of the nuttier end-of-world prophesies… and, how Hollywood blockbusters get contemporary doomsday scenarios wrong.
Guests:
- Kennette Benedict, Executive Director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
- Josh Schollmeyer, assistant editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. His article “Lights, Camera, Armageddon,” appeared in the January/February 2006 issue.
- Bruce Betts, Director of Projects, the Planetary Society
- Phil Plait, astronomer at Sonoma State, and author of www.badastronomy.com
- David Morrison, scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute
- Craig Wheeler, astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin and President of the American Astronomical Society
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Without doubt, the five thousand-year old Egyptian pyramids are major feats of engineering. But pointy piles of rock are one thing; quite another is the engineering effort required to combat global warming. As Earth’s atmosphere continues to be filled with greenhouse emissions, some see geoengineering as the only path to a cooler planet. But are lofting sulphur into the air or launching a giant sunshade into orbit wise moves, or even ethical ones?
Also, from cloning to space elevators – why today’s science fiction may be tomorrow’s science fact. And, would you like to give your love life a boost? And if so, are you willing to be launched 62 miles straight up for it? Discover the challenges – technical and otherwise – of sex in space.
Guests:
- Ken Caldeira, climate specialist at the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution on the Stanford Campus
- Gregory Benford, author of science fiction and physicist at the University of California, Irvine
- Laura Woodmansee, writer about space and the author of Sex In Space
- Robert Dahl, graduate student in chemistry at the University of California Berkeley
- Bob Bly, writer, and the author of The Science in Science Fiction
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As scientists discover ever more extrasolar planets whizzing around stars and high-tech orbiters beam back evidence of water on alien moons, the idea that the universe is a life-friendly place is more promising than ever. But are those other-Earthly creatures a colony of scuttling microbes or a society of brainy technophiles - or both?
On the tiny front, we report on the recent discovery of life’s chemical building blocks on Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Comet Wild 2. And scaling up: Seth debates Rare Earth author Peter Ward before a live audience about whether intelligent beings could exist elsewhere in the universe.
Guests:
- Chris McKay, Research Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center
- Scott Sanford, Research Astrophyicist at NASA Ames Research Center and a co-investigator on the Stardust Mission
- Rocco Mancinelli, Microbe expert, SETI Institute/NAI
- Peter Ward, Paleontologist, University of Washington and co-author of Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe
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