Big Picture Science

The light bulb needs changing. Edison’s incandescent bulb, virtually unaltered for more than a century, is now being eclipsed by the LED. The creative applications for these small and efficient devices are endless: on tape, on wallpaper, even in contact lenses. They will set the world aglow. But is a brighter world a better one?Discover the many ingenious applications for LEDs and the brilliance of the 19th century scientist, James Clerk Maxwell, who first discovered just what light is. But both biologists and astronomers are alarmed by the disappearance of dark.  Find out how light pollution is making us and other animals sick and – when was the last time you saw a starry night? Guests:• Ian Ferguson – Engineer, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing, Missouri University of Science and Technology• Jay Neitz – Professor, department of ophthalmology, University of Washington• Martin Hendry - Professor, gravitational astrophysics and cosmology, University of Glasgow• John Barentine  - Program manager, International Dark Sky Association  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The moon jellyfish has remarkable approach to self-repair. If it loses a limb, it rearranges its remaining body parts to once again become radially symmetric. Humans can’t do that, but a new approach that combines biology with nanotechnology could give our immune systems a boost. Would you drink a beaker of nanobots if they could help you fight cancer?Also, materials science gets into self-healing with a novel concrete that fixes its own cracks. Plus, why even the most adaptive systems can be stretched to their limit. New research suggests that the oceans will take a millennium to recover from climate change.  Guests:•  Lea Goentoro – Professor of biology, California Institute of Technology•  Michael Abrams - Biologist, California Institute of Technology•  Sarah Moffitt – Paleo-oceanographer, Bodega Marine Laboratory, University of California, Davis•  Mark Miodownik – Materials scientist, director of the Institute of Making, University College, London. Author of “Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape our Man-Made World”•  Shawn Douglas  - Computer scientist, assistant professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shhh. Is someone coming? Okay, we’ll make this quick. There are a lot of scary things going on in the world. Naturally you’re fearful. But sometimes fear has a sister emotion: suspicion. A nagging worry about what’s really going on. You know, the stuff they aren’t telling you. Don’t share this, but we have evidence that both our fear response and our tendency to believe conspiracy theories are evolutionarily adaptive. A sociologist who studies fear tells us why we’re addicted to its thrill when we control the situation, and how the media exploit our fear of losing control to keep us on edge. Plus, we examine some alien “cover-ups” and discover why it’s not just the tinfoil hat crowd that falls for outrageous plots.It’s Skeptic Check …. but you didn’t hear it from us!Guests: Margee Kerr – Sociologist who studies fear, author of Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear Rob Brotherton – Psychologist, adjunct assistant professor at Barnard College, and author of Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What you can’t see may astound you. The largest unexplored region of Earth is the ocean. Beneath its churning surface, oceanographers have recently discovered the largest volcano in the world – perhaps in the solar system.Find out what is known – and yet to be discovered – about the marine life of the abyss, and how a fish called the bristlemouth has grabbed the crown for “most numerous vertebrate on Earth” from the chicken.Plus, the menace of America’s Cascadia fault, which has the potential to unleash a devastating magnitude 9 earthquake. Follow Dr. Sager’s voyage back to Tamu Massif in Fall 2015. Guests • Bruce Robison – Deep sea biologist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute• William Sager – Marine geophysicist, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston• Chris Goldfinger  - Marine geologist, geophysicist, paleo-seismologist, Oregon State University  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earth may be the cradle of life, but our bodies are filled with materials cooked up billions of years ago in the scorching centers of stars. As Carl Sagan said, “We are all stardust.” We came from space, and some say it is to space we will return.Discover an astronomer’s quest to track down remains of these ancient chemical kitchens. Plus, a scientist who says that it’s in our DNA to explore – and not just the nearby worlds of the solar system, but perhaps far beyond.But would be still be human when we arrive? Hear what biological and cultural changes we might undergo in a multi-generational interstellar voyage. Guests: •   Timothy Beers – Astronomer, University of Notre Dame•  Chris Impey – Astronomer, University of Arizona, author of Beyond: Our Future in Space •  Cameron Smith – Archaeologist, Portland State University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Archaeologists continue to hunt for the city of Atlantis, even though it may never have existed. But, what if it did? Its discovery would change ancient history. Sometimes when we dig around in the past, we can change our understanding of how we got to where we are.We thought we had wrapped up the death of the dinosaurs: blame it on an asteroid. But evidence unearthed in Antarctica and elsewhere suggests the rock from space wasn’t the sole culprit.Also, digging into our genetic past can turn up surprising – and sometimes uncomfortable truths – from ancestral origins to genes that code for disease. But do we always want to know? Guests: •  Mark Adams – author, Meet Me in Atlantis: My Obsessive Quest to Find the Sunken City •  David Morrison – Senior scientist, NASA Ames Research Center•  Peter Ward – Paleontologist, University of Washington, author of A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth •  Christine Kenneally – Journalist and author of The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"If it bleeds, it leads” is the tried and true tenet of news. Indeed, headlines are often no more than a long list of moral atrocities. Yet one man argues that we’re living in the most civilized era in history. And he credits this to scientific thought and reason. Hang on! Our executive function isn’t enough to promote ethical behavior, says a psychologist. The real fuel behind our drive to be good? Anger, compassion, pride: your emotions!But whether or not you’re a pillar of the community, good intentions might all be for naught when future ethical decisions are made by our silicon successors. Get ready for moral machines. Or not. Guests:•  Michael Shermer - Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, author of The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom•  David DeSteno – Psychologist, Northeastern University, author of The Truth About Trust•  Colin Allen – Historian, philosopher of science and cognitive science, Indiana University. Co-author of Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year’s election is divisive, but one subject enjoys some consensus: science and technology policies are important. So why aren’t the candidates discussing these issues? The answers might surprise you.The organizer of Science Debate, who wants a live debate devoted to science and technology, describes one obstacle to meaningful discussion. He also shares how the candidates responded to probing questions about science. Communication expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson looks back to the televised debate of Kennedy and Nixon to discern trends that have made productive discussion about science nearly impossible today (it didn’t start out that way!)And, the unique situation in which the man at the top of one political ticket is flat out wrong about science: a physicist describes how Donald Trump’s anti-science position affects the election. Guests: Shawn Otto - co-founder of sciencedebate.org, and the author of “The War on Science: Who’s Waging It, Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It"   Lawrence Krauss - Professor of theoretical physics at Arizona State University, director of its Origins Project, and a member of sciencedebate.org Kathleen Hall Jamieson - Professor of communication, University of Pennsylvania, director of the university’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. Author of more than a dozen books on politics and the media, and co-founder of factcheck.org that has a separate page for science: scifact.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you skeptical? Sure, you raise an eyebrow when some Nigerian prince asks for your bank numbers, or when a breakfast cereal claims that it will turn your kid into a professional athlete overnight.But what do you really know about the benefits of organic milk? Or the power of whitening ingredients in your toothpaste? How credible is what you read on Twitter?Today, information overwhelms us, and the need to keep our skeptical wits about us has never been greater. We follow Seth around as he faces the daily onslaught of hype and hokum.It’s Skeptic Check, our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it! Guests: •  Steven Novella  – Assistant professor of neurology at Yale University School of Medicine and host of the “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” podcast•  Guy P. Harrison – journalist and author. His latest book, Good Thinking: What You Need to Know to be Smarter, Safer, Wealthier, and Wiser, will be in bookstores in October 2015. •  Andrew Maynard – Professor in the School for Innovation in Society, Arizona State University•  Peter Adams – Senior vice president for educational programs with the News Literacy Project•  Daniel Armistead – Dentist, Palo Alto, California Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Darwinian evolution is adaptive and slow … millennia can go by before a species changes very much. But with the tools of genetic engineering we can now make radical changes in just one generation. By removing genes or inserting new ones, we can give an organism radically different traits and behaviors. We are taking evolution into our own hands.It all began with the domestication of plants and animals, which one science writer says created civilization. Today, as humans tinker with their own genome, is it possible we will produce Homo sapiens 2.0?Also, what happens to those species who can’t control their destiny? How climate change is forcing the biggest genetic reshuffling in recorded history. Guests:•  Richard Francis – Science writer, author of Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World •  Juan Enriquez – Academic, businessman, author, founding director of the Life Sciences Project, Harvard Business School, managing director, Excel Venture Management, and author of Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth•  Jessica Hellmann – Biologist, University of Notre Dame Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices