Strange New Worlds: A Science & Star Trek Podcast

Guest: Ray Wong In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lt. Worf practices and teaches a form of Klingon martial arts called the Mok'bara, which is strikingly similar to the Chinese martial art tai chi. Mike sits down with his dad, Ray Wong, who has studied tai chi and other forms of kung fu for nearly 40 years, to examine the parallels between the Klingon and Earthly traditions. Ray Wong's tai chi and kung fu YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmF0FwnRI9E90MaJVeLjq1g Follow Mike on Twitter: @Miquai

As the Black Lives Matter movement sweeps across the United States and the world in the wake of George Floyd's tragic death at the hands of the police, Mike takes a moment to reflect on racial injustice and social inequity in America, academia, and Star Trek. "Race and racism in the geosciences" by Kaheli Dutt, 2020: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0519-z "Double jeopardy in astronomy and planetary science: Women of color face greater risks of gendered and racial harassment" by Kathryn B. H. Clancy et al., 2017: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017JE005256 "Making Black Women Scientists under White Empiricism: The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics" by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, 2020: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/704991 Follow Mike on Twitter: @Miquai

Guest: Dr. Andy Howell In the 2009 Star Trek movie, Romulus is destroyed by a supernova that exploded 500 lightyears away, a cataclysm that is said to threaten the entire galaxy. But on Star Trek: Picard, the star that goes supernova is Romulus' own star, and there's no mention of galactic destruction. Why the change? There's no one better to ask than Dr. Andy Howell, an astronomer who leads the Global Supernova Project and also produces and hosts a YouTube series called Science vs. Cinema. Science vs. Cinema's Star Trek: Picard episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmvRvFqqTCw Follow us on Twitter! Mike: @Miquai Andy: @d_a_howell Science vs. Cinema: @ScienceVsCinema

Guest: Desun Oka History is not just a list of facts, but a process of memory making; we get to decide how and why certain events from the past are remembered today. On this episode of Strange New Worlds, Mike is joined by historian Desun Oka to discuss the memory-inducing alien memorial from the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Memorial" and how real-life memorials—from the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. to the recently built comfort women memorials in California—transmit their meanings. Finally, how should the Coronavirus pandemic be remembered? Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Guests: Aditi Narayanan & Dr. Stuart Bartlett How do viruses shape life on Earth? Well, the Coronavirus pandemic is just the tip of the iceberg. Using the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Macrocosm" as our launchpad, Caltech scientists Aditi Narayanan & Stuart Bartlett join me to discuss how the tiniest biological entities leave huge and truly unexpected imprints on life at the levels of individual cells, entire ecosystems, and the biosphere as a whole. Check out Aditi's podcast, Biosphere: https://caltechletters.org/podcasts/biosphere/

Guests: Dr. Peter Gao & Dr. James T. Keane Which TNG characters appeared in Picard? Who dies in the show? Were there any facepalms? Dr. James T. Keane and Dr. Peter Gao join Mike to recap Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard through their "Picard Bingo" game and chat about the science tidbits that stuck out to them. Be warned: spoilers aplenty! More information on the octonary star system: Ethan Siegel, Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/03/19/is-star-trek-picards-hypothesized-octuple-star-system-really-possible/ Phil Plait, Syfy Wire: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/octonary-stars-and-broken-pieces-can-the-eight-star-system-from-star-trek-picard-actually Rhett Allain, Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/that-8-star-system-really-could-exist/ Follow us on Twitter! Mike: @Miquai James: @jtuttlekeane Peter: @PlanetaryGao

Guest: Jon Wong Aspiring medical doctor Jon Wong returns to Strange New Worlds to discuss the intertwining ethical predicaments in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Ethics" as well as medical ethics dilemmas that real-life doctors are facing during the Coronavirus pandemic. Some additional Coronavirus readings: "Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of Covid-19" in The New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2005114 "Search for Coronavirus Vaccine Becomes a Global Competition" in The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/coronavirus-vaccine-competition.html "How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic" in National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/ Follow Mike on Twitter: @Miquai

We are living in a strange new world. The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19) has disrupted every aspect of daily life. On this episode of Strange New Worlds, Mike explains why doctors, scientists, and public officials are instructing us to stay at home and the math behind the concept of social distancing. As a special treat, Elise Cutts, Prof. Alex Evans, Dr. James T. Keane, Dr. Peter Gao, Alex Rodriquez, Dr. Sharon Newman, and Desun Oka give their recommendations for Star Trek episodes to binge-watch in self-isolation. For more detailed simulations of the effect of social distancing, check out this article in The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/ For an elegant scientific illustration of how the SARS-CoV-2 works, check out this article from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/11/science/how-coronavirus-hijacks-your-cells.html Follow Mike on Twitter: @Miquai

Guest: Amy Nelson "This is the power of math, people!" —Ensign Silvia Tilly Mike is joined by math teacher Amy Nelson, who, like Tilly, is passionate about both doing math and sharing its power with others. Amy describes how she incorporates Star Trek into her classroom at every opportunity. Then, she recounts her adventures on the Star Trek Cruise that sailed earlier this year. Amy is also a podcast host on the TrekFM and United Federation of Podcasts networks. Follow us on Twitter! Mike: @Miquai Amy: @MissAmyNelson

Hear Mike talk about one of his favorite planets in Star Trek: The Next Generation (and the science behind it, of course!) as a guest on TrekFM's Earl Grey podcast, hosted by Justin Oser, Joe Keegan, and Amy Nelson. Listen to the entire episode of Earl Grey 316, titled "Andorians on Enceladus," here: http://www.trek.fm/earl-grey/316 Earl Grey is a TrekFM podcast: http://www.trek.fm/