Science, Spoken

2,361 episodes — Page 47 of 48

The Physics of Throwing a Starship Off a Cliff to Make It Fly

I want to analyze a scene from Star Trek Beyondbut don't want to spoil the movie. Let me set things upin the most generic way possible. If you are very allergic to spoilers, maybe you should just move along tothis nice post about radioactive bananas. You have been warned. Here is the scene: Some people have found an old starship at the top of a cliff. They want toget itflying andleave the planet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 24, 20168 min

Apple Pay Will Change the Way Your Brain Thinks About Buying Things

Drunk shoppers beware: Impulse buying online just got even easier. With Apple’s new MacBook Pro launched last month, all you have to do is tap your finger to the Touch ID scanner located on the Touch Bar to buy—no more searching through your wallet for the right card, no more typing in three-digit security codes and expiration dates. On the front end, the new method is faster and probably more secure than using stored credit card info online. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 23, 20164 min

China Used Crispr to Fight Cancer in a Real, Live Human

Do you remember President-elect Trump holding forth on the campaign trail about "China beating us at our own game"? Well, it's true, as long as the game in question is editing human DNA using Crispr/Cas9. China is now using Crispr-edited cells in living, breathing human beings. Last month, Chinese scientists at Sichuan University injected cancer-fighting, Crispr-modified white bloodcells into a patient suffering from metastatic lung cancer. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 22, 20168 min

The Biologist Trying to Make the First Pregnancy Test for Sharks

Earlier this year, James Gelsleichter got a call from the Bahamas. A group of researchers had been tracking the movements of some oceanic whitetip sharks off the coast of Cat Island, a long, thin stretch of land in the center of the Bahamas. Maybe, they thought, the sharks were moving certain directions because they were pregnant and looking for a place to give birth. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 21, 20168 min

You Can’t Just Link Batteries Willy Nilly and Expect Everything to Be OK

Anyone who has taken introductory physics will recognize this famous question: Why can't you start your car with 8 AAA batteries instead of one 12 volt car battery? Eight AAA batteries do add up to 12 volts, but they still can't provide enough electrical current to run the starter motor. But that's not the whole story. Any battery has a limit on the maximum current it can produce. To explain why, I'll make a model to represent a real battery. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 18, 20165 min

Can’t Imagine Shapes in 4 Dimensions? Just Print Them Out

Last spring, mathematician Henry Segerman found a peculiar post on Facebook. It was by a programmer who had could not conjure mental images—a condition called aphantasia. Segerman immediately recognized that he lives with the same limitation. “When I try to visualize something, I don’t see anything,” he says. Which is curious—because Segerman, 37, has made a career out of visualizing complex mathematical shapes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 17, 20165 min

Legal Weed Has Arrived. Get Ready for the Budweiser of Bud

Yesterday, four US states voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Casual smokers in Massachusetts, Nevada, and California are now free from the social stigma—and threat of jail time—that had clouded cannabis use for decades. (Maine is still up for grabs; Arizona voters kept the status quo.) In these states, downlow smokers will become legal consumers, and formerly clandestine growers and sellers will start responding to the demands of bona fide mass market. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 16, 20164 min

To Build A Viable HIV Vaccine, Start from the Molecule Up

An HIV diagnosis is a nightmare, but it is no longer a death sentence. Someday, vaccines might bat the virus out of your system without you ever knowing you’d been exposed. If successful, such a vaccine would effectively cure AIDS. Someday, maybe. So scientists are working on it. Like yesterday: Researchers published results to a promising study on primates infected with SIV, a monkey version of HIV. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 15, 201611 min

A Groundbreaking 30-Year Old Evolutionary Experiment Is Still Going Strong

Early in his career, the decorated biologist Richard Lenski thought he might be forced to evolve. After his postdoctoral research grant was canceled, Lenski began to look tentatively at other options. With one child and a second on the way, Lenski attended a seminar about using specific types of data in an actuarial context—the same type of data he had worked with as a graduate student. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 14, 201612 min

2016’s Election Data Hero Isn’t Nate Silver. It’s Sam Wang

Forget Nate Silver. There’s a new king of the presidential election data mountain. His name is Sam Wang, Ph.D. Haven’t heard of him just yet? Don’t worry. You will. Because Wang has sailed True North all along, while Silver has been cautiously trying to tack his FiveThirtyEight data sailboat (weighted down with ESPN gold bars) through treacherous, Category-Five-level-hurricane headwinds in what has easily been the craziest presidential campaign in the modern political era. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 11, 20169 min

How NASA Will Choose Astronauts for Its Incredible Journey to Mars

Christine Corbett Moran was in Antarctica when she got the news: NASA wanted to interview her, in person, for the next class of astronauts. Moran is a coder and theoretical astrophysicist, and she'd been holed up in the southernmost part of the world for 10 months, studying the echoes of the Big Bang. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 10, 20166 min

Physics Says This Is the Best Way to Deal With Hot Coffee

Like many people, I enjoy gettinga nice cup of coffee. Not that silly sugary stuff like a double-whip, non-fat, vanilla bean, espresso, iced with a twist of lime. No, I get plain old boring black coffee. But there's a problem: It's almost always too hot to drink right away. When life gives you coffee that's too hot, you must find the best way to cool it. I have two methods to cool off my coffee. Method No.1 is to remove the lid (coffee usually comes with a lidso you don't spill it). Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 9, 20163 min

A Material From Shapeshifting Planes Could Heal Human Flesh

What generates voltage when you warm it up, push on it, or blow on it? Get your mind out of the gutter. The correct answer is polyvinylidene fluoride, a material NASA researchers have refined for use in morphing aircraft that shapeshift in response to their environment. But wait! There’s more: It can also kickstart the human body’s healing process. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 8, 20165 min

The Dismal Science of the Standing Rock Pipeline Protests

The protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota are, on the surface, about water quality. The pipeline’s planned route—which closely mirrors the path of the would-be Keystone XL pipeline—goes right through the tribe’s water source. And like Keystone XL (which President Obama vetoed this February), the Dakota Access Pipeline has taken on larger significance as a conduit for worsened global climate change. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 7, 20165 min

Electron Microscopes Can Finally See in Wonderful Color

Imagine a Where’s Waldo book with nothing butblack and white pictures. Good luck using his candy-stripesweater as a visual cue. Now you know what it’s like trying to find a virus on a greyscale microscopic image. Microbiologists have dealt with this problem for decades, because when things get small, things go dark. Photons, bits of light essential to discerning color, are too clunky to resolve anything much smaller than say, a synapse connecting two neurons. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nov 4, 20163 min

How NASA Got Every Last Piece of Pluto Data Down From New Horizons

Last summer, as it sped through the Pluto system, the New Horizons spacecraft only had a few hours to pack its memory banks with as much data about the dwarf planetary system as possible. On October 25, the last few hundred bits of that data finally arrived in one of NASA‘s deep space radio dishes. For posterity’s sake, take a moment and remember that before the flyby—a mere 15 months ago—the dwarf planet was a pixellated blur. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 31, 20165 min

Molten Salt Reactors Could Soon Help Power Earth—And One Day Mars

If we get our way and really put humans on Mars in the coming decades, they’re going to need power. NASA has had concrete plants to send people to the Red Planet since 2010—with target dates in the 2030s, while Elon Musk thinks SpaceX can make it to Mars faster. But no matter who gets there first, the power problem remains. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 28, 20166 min

The Lava That Doesn’t Erupt Anymore

Volcanoes have been a persistent feature on Earth since the planet condensed out of the primordial nebula of our solar system. The scale and style of that volcanism has changed dramatically over that 4.5 billion years—heck, after Thera bumped into proto-Earth to form the Moon, we probably had a planet-wide lava lake as the molten Earth coalesced and cooled from the collision. However, we lack much of a record of that tumultuous time beyond a few zircon found in younger sediments. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 26, 20165 min

China wants a Moon base, but first it needs two people to survive 30 days in space

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Oct 21, 20166 min

Facing Climate Change, Tanzania Can’t Afford to Fear GM Crops

Last week, Tanzania planted its first ever genetically modified crop—a drought-resistant white corn hybrid. Government researchers will spend the next two to three years monitoring the plants for safety and effectiveness at growing in perilously dry conditions. It’s a notable milestone, given the nation’s longstanding lack of enthusiasm towards biotechnology. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 20, 20168 min

Obama Geeks Out Over a Brain-Controlled Robotic Arm That ‘Feels’

When Nathan Copeland got into a car accident in 2004, he suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed in both arms and both legs. Eventually, Copeland got a prosthetic-but one that is very different from most anyone else's out there. Copeland is the first person in the world to use a system created by DARPA and the National Science Foundation, which allows him to "experience" the sensation of touch via a special robotic prosthesis. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 19, 20165 min

If Billionaires Fund Your Research, Don’t Take Public Money

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's announcement in September that they will pour $3 billion into research, mainly at elite universities in California, with expressed interest to "cure all disease" within a century, was an endearing move from new money billionaires who have pledged to devote their phenomenal wealth to supporting biomedical research. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 19, 20169 min

MacGyver’s Body-Bag Freefall Might Actually Work. Physics Says So

Everyone knows MacGyver. He's the guy who gets out of sticky situations by cobbling stuff together. Here he is in the reboot, maybe four floors up, with a sudden need to jump from a window. Solution? Use a fire extinguisher and body bag to create an impromptu cushion. Could that really work? First, a disclosure. I'm the technical consultant for MacGyver, which means I check if MacGyver's hacks are legit. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 17, 20164 min

One Great Way to Reduce Gun Violence? A Whole Lot of Data

At their core, data tell stories. They reveal patterns, show changes over time, and confirm or challenge our theories. And in cities across the country, mayors, police chiefs, and other local leaders are turning to data to help them understand and address gun violence, one of the most persistent crises they face. Innovative, data-driven programs are showing encouraging results. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 16, 20165 min

Cholera in Haiti Isn’t Just Bad News—It’s Not Going Away

The odds are stacked against Haiti. Geologically, it's wedged between tectonic plates, where earthquakes happen. Meteorologically, it's in the center of hurricane alley, where massive storms roil. And historically, the country is forever fighting a colonial legacy that left it largely incapable of recovering from natural disasters. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 14, 20164 min

Japan’s Mount Aso Had a Yuge Eruption. Yuge!

It's been a busy week or so in the world of volcanoes. Japan's Mount Aso had its largest eruption in recent memory. Canada's Mount Meager might be rumbling to life. And the USGS and Global Volcanism Program released a great animation of 50 years of earthquakes and eruptions. Japan Mount Aso in Japan had a large explosive eruption last week (10/8), sending ash over 11 kilometers (36,000 feet) upwards. Although eruptions aren't rare at Aso, the scale of this one was larger than usual. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 13, 20164 min

Don’t Get Shaken Up Over California’s Newly Discovered Fault

People aren't doodling sea monsters over blank spots on the map anymore, but that doesn't mean scientists have Earth all figured out. Plenty of geological features have yet to be discovered and understood-especially where things get watery, or subterranean, or both. Case in point: a team of seismologists recently discovered what they believe is a fault line running along the the eastern shore of the Salton Sea in southern California. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 12, 20166 min

Florida’s Beaches Have a Problem, and Hurricane Matthew Ain’t Helping

Hurricane Matthew is already a tragedy. It killed hundreds battering through the Caribbean, and knocked out power, forced evacuations, and flooded beaches as it scoured the Florida coastline. But thinking long-term, the storm is a punctuation mark in the creeping erosion narrative playing out on many southeastern shorelines. Erosion is nothing new. Shorelines experience seasonal ebbing from winter, and typically regrow in the summer. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 11, 20165 min

Farmers Are Manipulating Microbiomes to Help Crops Grow

In the back of Indigo's Boston headquarters-past the gleaming new desks, past empty rooms awaiting new employees after a $100 million fundraising round-is a giant elevator. The elevator has one main purpose: to haul dirt up by the pallet load. Indigo is an agriculture company. But it doesn't sell seeds or fertilizer or pesticides or any of the typical products agriculture companies have made billions selling in the past century. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 10, 20164 min

Blue Origin’s Escape Pod Worked, and, Bonus! The Rocket Didn’t Go Kaboom

This morning, Jeff Bezos had predicted an explosion: His hard working little rocket, the New Shepard, would go up in flames during its fifth-and final-launch. That's because this launch, unlike previous ones testing the rocket's ability to land, was an experiment of its escape system. The New Shepard is, like all rockets, a carefully contained catastrophe. It is also topped by a crew capsule, which needs a way to get clear of the booster should anything go wrong. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 6, 20162 min

Hawaii’s Mysterious Coral Reefs Turn Out to Be Super Weird

The Hawaiian coral reefs you know-the brilliant blue waters and rainbow fishes and the occasional sea turtle-are just a facade. Sorry, but it's true: Science says so. Dive past these upper-ocean paradises, deeper and deeper, and you'll find even more incredible reefs-ones that, shrouded in near-total darkness, shouldn't exist at all. Hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface, the so-called deep reef-also known as the twilight zone-is just coming into view. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 5, 20165 min

An Ode to the Rosetta Spacecraft as It Flings Itself Into a Comet

Today, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will engage its thrusters for one final maneuver: a suicidal plunge toward the comet it has been orbiting for two years and chasing for a decade. After Rosetta collides with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, its systems will go dark. Scientists will never hear from it again. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oct 3, 20166 min