Big Picture Science

A thousand years ago, most people didn’t own a single book. The only way to access knowledge was to consult their memory. But technology – from paper to hard drives – has permitted us to free our brains from remembering countless facts. Alphabetization and the simple filing cabinet have helped to systematize and save information we might need someday.But now that we can Google just about any subject, have we lost the ability to memorize information? Does this make our brains better or worse?Guests: Judith Flanders – Historian and author, most recently of A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order Craig Robertson – Professor of Media Studies, Northeastern University and author of The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information David Eagleman – Neuroscientist and author, Stanford University Originally aired October 11, 2021Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com 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

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe has ignited fierce debate about bodily autonomy. But it’s remarkable how little we know about female physiology. Find out what studies have been overlooked by science, and what has been recently learned. Plus, why studying women’s bodies means being able to say words like “vagina” without shame ... a researcher who is recreating a uterus in her lab to study endometriosis … and an overdue recognition of medical pioneer Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler.Guests:Melody T. McCloud - Obstetrician Gynecologist and Founder and Medical Director of Atlanta Women's Health Care; co-author of “Black Women's Wellness: Your ‘I've Got This!’ Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living”Victoria Gall - Volunteer with the Friends of the Hyde Park Library and the Hyde Park Historical SocietyRachel E. Gross - Science journalist and author of “Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage”Linda Griffith - Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T., Director of the Center for Gynepathology Research, and author of the Boston Globe article, “‘FemTech’ and a moonshot for menstruation science”Roshni Babal - Pediatric Asthma and Chronic Disease Program Coordinator at Boston Medical CenterPerri Klass - Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University and Author of “The Best Medicine: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future”Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com 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

When a Google software engineer claimed that a piece of chatbot software was sentient, it was a major story. Just like your dog is sentient, could it be that some computer code – a chatbot system called LaMDA – has feelings?But was it truly sentient, or was it pulling algorithmic wool over our eyes? Were we simply being fooled by high-tech mimicry? In this, our regular look at critical thinking: Skeptic Check, we ask what is the evidence that this system is sentient. Also, even A.I. that’s not sentient can still be powerful – and that has serious implications. Guests:Blake Lemoine – Software engineer and artificial intelligence researcherOren Etzioni – Emeritus Professor at the University of Washington, and former CEO at the Allen Institute for AI in SeattleMark Coeckelbergh – Professor of Philosophy of Media and Technology, University of Vienna, and author of “Robot Ethics“Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake*Free 1-Year NordVPN Subscription*Click the link and enter the code to activate your free account! https://nordvpn.com/order/activate/ CODE: nord12mm5eytjnaAL2GJZSgLBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com 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

T-Rex is having an identity crisis. Rocking the world of paleontology is the claim that Rex was not one species, but actually three. It’s not the first time that this particular dino has forced us to revise our understanding of the past. The discovery of the first T-Rex fossil in the 19th century taught humanity a scary lesson: species eventually go extinct. If it happened to this seemingly invincible apex predator, it could happen to us too.Hear how the amateur fossil hunter Barnum Brown’s discovery of T-Rex changed our understanding of ourselves, and the epilogue to the dinosaur era: how our mammalian relatives survived the potential extinction bottleneck of an asteroid impact.Guests:Thomas Carr - Vertebrate paleontologist and Professor of Biology, Carthage CollegePeter Makovicky - Vertebrate paleontologist and Professor of paleontology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of MinnesotaDavid Randall - Author of “The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T Rex and How It Shook Our World”Steve Brusatte - Personal Chair of Paleontology and Evolution, University of Edinburgh. Author of “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs” and, most recently, “The Rise and Reign of The Mammals”Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com 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

They’re cute and cuddly. But they can also be obnoxious.Science writer Mary Roach has numerous tales about how our animal friends don’t always bow to their human overlords and behave the way we’d want. The resulting encounters, such as when gulls disrupt the Vatican’s Easter mass, make for amusing stories. But others, such as wolves threatening farmers’ livestock, can be tragic.We hear what happens at the messy crossroads of human and wildlife encounters.Guest:Mary Roach – Author of bestselling nonfiction books, most recently “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.”Originally aired September 13, 2021Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com 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

It was a radical idea a century ago, when Einstein said space and time can be bent, and gravity was really geometry. We hear how his theories inspire young minds even today.At small scales, different rules apply: quantum mechanics and the Standard Model for particles. New experiments suggest that muons – cousins of the electron – may be telling us that the Standard Model is wrong. Also, where the physics of both the large and small apply, and why black holes have no hair.Guests: Hakeem Oluseyi – Astrophysicist, affiliated professor at George Mason University, and author of “A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars” Janna Levin – Professor of physics and astronomy, Barnard College at Columbia University Mark Lancaster – Professor of particle physics, University of Manchester Originally aired August 16, 2021Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com 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

Sexist snow plowing? Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender. In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.” Human bias also infects artificial intelligence, with speech recognition triggered only by male voices and facial recognition that can’t see black faces. We question the assumptions baked into these numbers and algorithms.Guests: Caroline Criado-Perez - Journalist and author of “Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men” Kade Crockford - Director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts Amy Webb - Futurist, founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute, and author of “The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and There Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity” Originally aired September 2, 2019Featuring opening theme by Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Above the Arctic Circle, much of the land is underlaid by permafrost. But climate change is causing it to thaw. This is not good news for the planet. As the carbon rich ground warms, microbes start to feast… releasing greenhouse gases that will warm the Earth even more.Another possible downside was envisioned by a science-fiction author. Could ancient pathogens–released from the permafrost’s icy grip–cause new pandemics? We investigate what happens when the far north defrosts.Guests: Jacquelyn Gill – Associate professor of paleoecology at the University of Maine. Jim Shepard – Novelist and short story writer, and teacher of English at Williams College, and author of “Phase Six.” Scott Saleska – Global change ecologist, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, and co-founder of IsoGenie. Originally aired September 6, 2021Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com 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

Every second, lightning strikes 50 to 100 times somewhere. It can wreak havoc by starting wildfires and sometimes killing people. But lightning also produces a form of nitrogen that’s essential to vegetation. In this episode, we talk about the nature of these dramatic sparks. Ben Franklin established their electric origin, so what do we still not know? Also, why the frequency of lightning strikes is increasing in some parts of the world. And, what to do if you find someone hit by lightning.Guests:Thomas Yeadaker – Resident of Oakland, CaliforniaChris Davis – Medical doctor and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Wake Forest University and Medical Director for the National Center for Outdoor Adventure EducationJonathan Martin – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, MadisonSteve Ackerman – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, MadisonPeter Bieniek – Professor of Atmospheric and Space Science, University of Alaska, FairbanksFeaturing music by Dewey Dellay and Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are not restricted to vision: Elephants can hear subsonic sounds, birds navigate by magnetism, and your dog lives in a world marked by odors. In this episode, we speak to science journalist Ed Yong about how other creatures sense the world. Could we ever understand what it’s like to have the hearing of a bat or the sight of a hawk? Guest:Ed Yong – Science writer for The Atlantic whose coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned him a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism. He is the author of, “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.” Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun MiyakeBig Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices