Big Picture Science

It’s elementary, Watson. Things are in flux – from the elements in the air you breathe to party balloons.  We investigate the massive, historic loss of nitrogen from the atmosphere and meet the culprits behind a modern-day helium shortage. But it’s not all a disappearing act: be thankful that oxygen showed up in our atmosphere a few billion years ago. Meanwhile, atom smashers have recently produced some new elements. Their appearance was brief, but long enough to fill out the periodic table.And perhaps the tastiest use of an element – one that gives Seth a chilly reception.Guests:  Inna Vishik – Postdoctoral fellow in physics at MIT Roland Pease – Science reporter in the U.K.  Mark Stoyer – Nuclear chemist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In space, no one can hear you scream, but, using the right instruments, scientists can pick up all types of cosmic vibrations – the sort we can turn into sound. After a decade of listening, LIGO, a billion-dollar physics experiment, has detected gravitational waves caused by the collision of massive black holes, a brief shaking of spacetime that can be translated into a short squeal. We listen to the chirp of black holes crashing into each other and wonder: could the universe contain more than individual sounds, but have actual musical structure? A theoretical physicist and jazz saxophonist updates the ancient philosophical concept of the Music of the Spheres to probe the most vexing questions confronting modern cosmology. Find out how the evolution of the universe resembles an improvisational jazz piece, and the musical inspiration John Coltrane drew from Albert Einstein. Guests: Janna Levin – Physicist, astronomer, Barnard College at Columbia University, author of “Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space” Stephon Alexander - Professor of physics, Brown University, author of “The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can an opera singer’s voice really shatter glass? Can you give your car a rocket-assisted boost and survive the test drive? How do you protect yourself from a shark attack?  Those are among the many intriguing questions and urban legends tested by the MythBusters team in front of the camera.Now that the series has ended after a 16 year run, co-host Adam Savage tells us how it all began, how he and Jamie Hyneman walked the line between science and entertainment, and why he considers himself a scientist but not a “skeptic.”Also, he reveals the location of the episode, “Duct Tape Island.”Guests: Adam Savage - Former co-host and executive producer of MythBusters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Locked and loaded” is how one scientist recently described the San Andreas fault. Find out when this famous west-coast rift might cause “the big one;” also, the state of early earthquake warning systems.Plus, another sign of our planet’s unceasing turmoil: volcanos! Could the eruption that produced the Deccan Traps, and not a rock from space, have been the nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs? One seismologist shares new evidence about some suspicious timing.And, the man who was the first to take the temperature of lava, established the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and essentially pioneered the field of volcanology a century ago is nearly lost to history. A scientist rescues fellow volcanologist Thomas Jagger from obscurity. Guests: Tom Jordan – Seismologist, director, Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California  Mark Richards – Professor of earth and planetary science, University of California, Berkeley John Dvorak - Volcanologist who worked with the United States Geological Survey for 16 years, author, “The Last Volcano: A Man, A Romance, and the Quest to Understand Nature’s Most Magnificent Fury” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They say that the experience of watching a total eclipse is so profound, you’re not the same afterward. If life-changing events are your thing and you’re in the lower 48 states on August 21st, let us help you make the most of viewing the Great American Solar Eclipse.Learn the basics of where to be and what to bring, even on short notice. No eclipse glasses? Find out why a kitchen colander is an excellent Plan B.Also, the strange behavior of animals and private jet pilots during an eclipse. The latter is making the FAA sweat.Plus, how 1878 eclipse fever inspired Thomas Edison and astronomer Maria Mitchell, and what was at stake for them scientifically. And today, with astronauts able to view the Sun from space, what new science can we still learn by eclipse expeditions on Earth?And, NASA turns up the heat on solar studies with a probe to within a hair’s breadth of the Sun. Guests: David Baron - Author of “American Eclipse: A Nation’s Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World.”   Andrew Fraknoi - Chair of the Astronomy Department, Foothill College. His latest book, for children: “When the Sun Goes Dark.”  Jay Pasachoff - Professor of Astronomy, Williams College, chair of the International Astronomical Union Working Group on Solar Eclipses.  Madhulika Guhathakurta - Astrophysicist, NASA Heliophysics Science Division and Program Scientist for the Solar Probe Plus mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Baby, it’s cold outside… but you still might want to be there. Some people claim that chilly temperatures are good for your health, and proponents of cryotherapy suggest you have a blast – of sub-zero air – to stave off wrinkles and perhaps halt aging altogether. Meanwhile the field of cryonics offers the ultimate benefit by suggesting that you put future plans – and your body – on ice when you die. That way you might be revived when the technology to do so is developed.So, will a chill wind blow you some good? Possibly, as scientists are discovering that the body can endure colder temperatures than previously thought. We examine the science of extreme cold and claims of its salubrious benefits.It’s our monthly look at critical thinking, Skeptic Check … but don’t take our word for it! Guests:  Seth Abramovitch - Senior writer at the Hollywood Reporter Gordon Giesbrecht - Professor of thermal physiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada Grant Shoffstall - Sociologist, Williams College Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No one knows what the future will bring, but science fiction authors are willing to take a stab at imagining it. We take our own stab at imagining them imagining it. Find out why the genre of science fiction is more than a trippy ride through a bizarre, hi-tech world, but a way to assess and vote on our possible shared future. Also, an astronomer learns how many rejection slips it takes before becoming a published science fiction author …. what author Bruce Sterling wants to get off his chest … and what the joke about the neutron walking into a bar to ask the price of beer has in common with H.G. Wells, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ridley Scott.Oh, and the price of beer? Bartender: “For you, no charge.”Guests: Ed Finn - Director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University Andrew Fraknoi – Chair of the astronomy department at Foothill College. His story, "The Cave in Arsia Mons", is in "Building Red", here. His list of astronomically correct science fiction is here. Bruce Sterling - Science fiction author, journalist, and editor Brian Malow - Science comedian, science communication officer, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can’t pick your parents. But soon you may be able to change the DNA they gave you. CRISPR technology is poised to take DNA editing to new levels of precision and speed. Imagine deleting genes from your body that you don’t like and inserting the ones you want. The swap might not even require a fancy lab. Biohackers are already tinkering with genes in their homes. Find out how CRISPR technology might change everything when the genetic lottery is no longer destiny. Plus, a cardiologist identifies the troublesome genes that once gave us evolutionary advantages but today are fueling obesity, depression and other modern illness.Guests: Lee Goldman – Cardiologist, dean of Columbia University Medical Center, author of “Too Much of a Good Thing; How Four Key Survival Traits Are Now Killing Us”  Jacob Corn – Scientific director, Innovative Genomics Initiative, University of California, Berkeley Katelynn Kazane – Research assistant, Innovative Genomics Initiative, University of California, Berkeley Josiah Zayner - Biohacker, former NASA synthetic biologist. His biohacking store. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was “one giant leap for mankind,” but the next step forward may require going back. Yes, back to the moon. Only this time the hardware may come from China. Or perhaps Europe. In fact, it seems that the only developed nation not going lunar is the U.S.Find out why our pockmarked satellite is such hot real estate, and whether it has the raw materials we’d need to colonize it. A new theory of how the moon formed may tell us what’s below its dusty surface.But – before packing your bags – you’ll want to skim Article IX of the U.N. treaty on planetary protection. We can’t go contaminating any old planetary body, can we?  Guests: James Oberg - Former Space Shuttle Mission Control engineer and space policy expert Clive Neal - Geologist, University of Notre Dame Edward Young - Cosmochemist, geochemist, UCLA Margaret Race - Biologist and research scientist at the SETI Institute Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In astronomy, the rule of thumb was simple: If you can’t see it with a telescope, it’s not real. Seeing is believing. Well, tell that to the astronomers who discovered dark energy, or dark matter … or, more recently, Planet 9.  And yet we have evidence that all these things exist (although skepticism about the ninth – or is it tenth? – planet still lingers).Find out how we know what we know about the latest cosmic discoveries – even if we can’t see them directly. The astronomer who found Planet 9 – and killed Pluto – offers his evidence. And, a speculative scenario suggests that dark matter helped do away with the dinosaurs. Plus, the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics explains why neutrinos that are zipping through your body right now may hold clues to the origin of the universe. Guests: Michael Brown - Astronomer, California Institute of Technology Michael Lemonick - science writer and an editor at Scientific American magazine Lisa Randall - Theoretical physicist, Harvard University, author of Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe Arthur McDonald - Astrophysicist emeritus, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, and winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices