Big Picture Science

ENCORE Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Not that they haven’t tried. History is replete with attempts to control the weather, but we’d settle for an accurate seven-day forecast.Find out how sophisticated technology might improve accuracy, including predicting the behavior of severe storms. Plus, the age when “weather forecast” was a laughable idea, but why 19th century rebel scientists pursued it anyway.Also, a meteorologist who was falsely claimed to have “solved” the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, and a climate scientist recounts the history of trying to control the weather, and the potential future of geoengineering.Guests: Cliff Mass – Professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. Peter Moore – Author of “The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future.” Steven Miller – Meteorologist, Colorado State University Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. Alan Robock – Meteorologist and climatologist, Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University, IPCC lead author. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ENCORE Got aches and pains? Critters in the Cretaceous would have been sympathetic. A new study reveals that painful arthritis plagued a duck-billed dinosaur. Scientists impressively diagnosed the animal’s condition without a house call by examining its 70 million-year old bones.The technology we use for health diagnoses are becoming so sophisticated, some people are prompted to bypass doctors and do it themselves. Meet a man who had his genome sequenced and then had all 70 gigabytes delivered directly to him so that he could gauge his genetic health.  Also, practitioners who are trying to improve cognitive function using a battery and a few wires.  Find out the possible risks and benefits of DIY brain stimulation. Guests: Jennifer Anne - Recent graduate, University of Manchester, studies injuries and diseases in dinosaurs. Carl Zimmer - Science writer, author. National correspondent for STAT, an online magazine that reports on the frontiers of science and medicine. His weekly column “Matter,” appears in the New York Times. Peter Simpson-Young - A graduate student at the University of Sydney studying neuroscience. Anna Wexler - Neuroethicist and PhD candidate in the History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society program at MIT. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ENCORE You are not alone. You can’t see ‘em, but your face is a festival of face mites. They’ve  evolved with us for millennia. And a new study finds that hundreds of different tiny spiders, beetles, and – our favorite - book lice make your home theirs. But before you go bonkers with the disinfectant, consider: eradicating these critters may do more harm than good. Some are such close evolutionary partners with humans that they keep us healthy and can even reveal something about our ancestry.But then there are bed bugs. Pests without redemption. However, their newly-sequenced genome may help us end their nightly nuisances. And of course some microscopic critters are deadly. So when it comes to bugs: when do we accommodate and when do we attack?  Guests: Michelle Trautwein – Curator of entomology, California Academy of Sciences Matt Bertone – Entomologist, North Carolina State University Joshua Benoit -- Insect molecular biologist, University of Cincinnati  Thomas McDade – Biological anthropologist, Northwestern University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, let’s meet last week for coffee. Okay, we can’t meet in the past … yet. But could it be only a matter of time before we can? In an attempt to defy the grandfather paradox, scientists try sending a photon back in time to destroy itself. Also, find out how teleportation allows particles to instantaneously skip through space-time and why sending humans wouldn’t violate the laws of physics. But before you pack your bags for that instantaneous trip to Paris, we need to understand the nature of time. A physicist offers a testable theory and ponders how it bears on free will.Plus, feel as if time comes to a standstill when you’re standing in line? Tricks for altering your perception of time while you wait. Some businesses already use them on you.  Guests: Richard Muller – Physicist, University of California Berkeley, author of “Now: The Physics of Time”  Seth Lloyd – Professor of quantum mechanical engineering, M.I.T.  Emma Bentley – contributor  David Andrews – Author of, “Why Does the Other Line Always Move Faster?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will your calendar entry for November 19th be your last? Some people say yes, predicting a catastrophic collision between Earth and planet Nibiru on that date and the end of the world. But it won’t happen, because this hypothesized rogue world doesn’t exist. Nibiru’s malevolent disruptions have been foretold many times, most dramatically in 2012 and three times so far in 2017. But this year NASA issued a rare public assurance that doomsday was not in the offing.Find out why the agency decided to speak out. Meanwhile, hoaxes and alarmist stories from the 19th century demonstrate that we have a long history of being susceptible to hooey. Also, an astronomer who doesn’t believe that Nibiru is hiding in the outer Solar System, but that Planet X is.  Guests: David Morrison – Astronomer and space scientist, NASA Ames Research Center Robert E. Bartholomew – Medical sociologist at Botany College, Auckland, New Zealand, and author of “A Colorful History of Popular Delusions” Michael Brown – Astronomer at the California Institute of Technology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all get defensive sometimes. For some animals, evolution has provided a highly effective mechanism for saying “back off!”. A puncture by a pair of venom-filled fangs gets the point across nicely. But one animal’s poison may be another’s cure. Some dangerous critters churn out compounds that can be synthesized into life-saving drugs.Meet the spiny, fanged, and oozing creatures who could help defend us against such illnesses as hypertension and kidney disease. Plus, the King of Pain - a scientist who has been stung by more than 80 species of insects in his pursuit of a better understanding of venom’s biochemistry. Find out which winged stinger scored the highest on his pain index.  And, why the drug we need most may come from the quietest members of the biosphere: turning to plants for a new generation of antibiotics. Guests: Owen Maercks – Co-owner, East Bay Vivarium, Berkeley, California  Justin Schmidt – Entomologist, University of Arizona, author of “The Sting of the Wild: The Story of the Man Who Got Stung for Science” Christie Wilcox – author of “Venomous: How Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry”  Cassandra Quave – Ethnobotanist, assistant professor of dermatology, herbarium curator, Emory University  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Birds do it, bees do it, but humans may not do it for much longer. At least not for having children. Relying on sex to reproduce could be supplanted by making babies in the lab, where parents-to-be can select genomes that will ensure ideal physical and behavioral traits.Men hoping to be fathers should act sooner rather than later. These same advancements in biotechnology could allow women to fertilize their own eggs, making the need for male sperm obsolete. Meanwhile, some animals already reproduce asexually. Find out how female African bees can opt to shut out male bees intent on expanding the hive. Will engineering our offspring have a down side? Sex creates vital genetic diversity, as demonstrated by evolution of wild animals in urban areas. Find out how birds, rodents and insects use sex in the city to adapt and thrive.Guests: Menno Schilthuizen  – Biologist and ecologist, at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Leiden University in The Netherlands.  His New York Times op-ed, “Evolution is Happening Faster Than We Thought,” is here. Matthew Webster – Evolutionary biologist, Uppsala University, Sweden Hank Greely – Law professor and ethicist, Stanford University, who specializes in the ethical, legal and social implications of biomedical technologies. His book is “The End of Sex and The Future of Reproduction.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The military is a dangerous calling. But technology can help out, so researchers are constantly trying to make soldiers safer. Writer Mary Roach investigates how scientists studying so-called human factors are protecting troops from such aggressive foes as heat, noise, and fatigue. She also learns how bad odors were once considered a secret weapon.And while soldiers have long used camouflage to help them blend in, insects may be the original masters of disguise. A discovery in fossilized amber shows that a variety of bugs employed D.I.Y. camouflaging tricks 100 million years ago.But where is the defense race headed? The top-secret branch of the Pentagon whose job is to make tomorrow happen today has some ideas. A reporter shares DARPA’s plan for augmented super-soldiers.Plus, do we always need a technological boost to stay safe? Find out how your innate chemical defense system protects you. It’s an adrenaline rush!Guests: Mary Roach  - Science reporter, author of “Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War” Michael Engel – Entomologist, invertebrate paleontologist, University of Kansas, and senior curator of its Natural History Museum Annie Jacobsen – Journalist, author of The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency Brian Hoffman – Professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, author of Adrenaline Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once again the aliens have landed … in theaters. It’s no spoiler to say that the latest cinematic sci-fi, Arrival, involves extraterrestrials visiting Earth. But for some folks, the film’s premise is hardly shocking. They’re convinced that the aliens have already come. But is there any proof that aliens are here now or that they landed long ago to, for example, help build the Egyptian pyramids?Meanwhile, SETI scientists are deploying their big antennas in an effort to establish that extraterrestrials exist far beyond Earth.Find out why – even if E.T. is out there – one scientist says making contact is a long shot, while another pioneering scientist involved in SETI remains hopeful … and could aliens be responsible for the peculiar behavior of two star systems now making the news?Guests: Ben Radford– Research Fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and managing editor of “Skeptical Inquirer Science Magazine” Paul Davies– Physicist, Director of the Beyond Center at Arizona State University, and author of The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence Jill Tarter– Scientist, Board member, and Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI, SETI Institute Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We know how the stars shine, but how do you make a star? We take an all-night ride on a high-flying jet – an airborne observatory called SOFIA – to watch astronomers investigate how a star is born.As for how the universe was born, we know about the Big Bang but modern physics suggests that similar cosmic explosions may be happening all the time, and even hint that we could – in principle – create a new universe in a laboratory. What does this mean, and how could we do it?From stars to universes, how it all came to be.Guests: Zeeya Merali– Journalist and editor for the Foundational Questions Institute, author of A Big Bang in a Little Room: The Quest to Create New Universes Nick Veronico– Manager of SOFIA Communications for NASA Ames Research Center and Universities Space Research Association Felix Reimann– Freelance photographer Huub Rottgering– Director of Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands Dietmar Lilienthal– Manager, DLR SOFIA Institute, Germany Cornelia Pabst– Astronomer, Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands Charlie Kaminski– Engineering and Maintenance Manager, SOFIA David McAllister– Deputy Program Manager for Operations, SOFIA, NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices