Big Picture Science

Everyone knows that a big rock did in the dinosaurs, but smaller asteroids are millions of times more common and can also make a violent impact.  Yet unlike the bigger asteroids, we’re not tracking them. Find out what we’d need to keep an eye on the size of space rocks such as that which exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia.  And how an asteroid whizzed by Earth in late August 2016, only hours after it had been spotted.Asteroids are the one natural disaster we can defend against, but an economist explains why humans are reluctant to invest in protection against “low probability, high impact” threats. Also, how to authenticate that chunk of asteroid that you found in a field and NASA’s first ever return mission to an asteroid. It plans to bring some fresh samples back to Earth. Guests: Peter Jenniskens – Senior Research Scientist, SETI Institute David Morrison – Senior Scientist of the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, NASA Ames Research Center Alex Tabarrok – Economist, George Mason University Sharon Cisneros – Mineralogical Research Company, San Jose, California J. L. Galache – Astronomer, Minor Planet Center, Harvard Center for Astrophysics Christina Richey – NASA Planetary scientist, deputy program scientist, OSIRIS-Rex mission Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’re a private person. But as long as you’re on-line and have skin and hair, you’re shedding little bits of data and DNA everywhere you go. Find out how that personal information – whether or not it’s used against you – is no longer solely your own. Are your private thoughts next?A security expert shares stories of ingenious computer hacking … a forensic scientist develops tools to create a mug shot based on a snippet of DNA … and from the frontiers of neuroscience: mind reading may no longer be the stuff of sketchy psychics. Guests:•  Marc Goodman – Global security advisor, founder, Future Crimes Institute, author of Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It •  Susan Walsh – Forensic geneticist, Indiana University – Purdue University in Indianapolis•  Marvin Chun – Psychologist, Yale University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When astronaut Gene Cernan stepped off the moon in 1972, he didn’t think he’d be the last human ever to touch its surface. But no one’s been back. Hear astronaut Cernan’s reaction to being the last man on the moon, the reasons why President Kennedy launched the Apollo program, and why Americans haven’t returned.Now other countries – and companies – are vying for a bigger piece of the space pie. Find out who – or what – will be visiting and even profiting. Will the moon become an important place to make money?  Plus, the moon landing was a great step for “a man,” and “men not machines” make space history. But what about women? More than a dozen were qualified for space flight in the early 1960s. Hear from one of these original “Mercury 13,” and find out why NASA grounded them. Guests: Gene Cernan – Retired American naval officer, former NASA Astronaut.  John Logsdon – Professor emeritus, Space Policy Institute, George Washington University Al Hallonquist – Aerospace historian Robert Richards – Founder and CEO of Moon Express Sarah Ratley – Former pilot, member of the "Mercury 13" Dan Durda – Planetary scientist, Southwest Research Institute.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are few enduring truths, but one is that no one gets out of life alive. What’s less certain is what comes next. Does everything stop with death, or are we transported to another plane of existence? First-hand accounts of people who claim to have visited heaven are offered as proof of an afterlife. Now the author of one bestseller admits that his story was fabricated.We’ll look at the genre of “heaven tourism” to see if it has anything to say about the possible existence of the hereafter, and why the idea of an afterlife seriously influences how we live our lives on Earth.Also, a neurologist describes what is going on in the brain during near-death and other out-of-body experiences.It’s Skeptic Check, our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it! Guests:•  Ben Radford – Paranormal investigator, research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and deputy editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, and author of the Discovery News article, “Why People Believed Boy’s ‘Visit to Heaven’ Story”•  Greg Garrett – Professor of English at Baylor University, writer on books, culture and religion for the Huffington Post, and author of Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination •  Steven Novella – Professor of neurology at Yale University School of Medicine and host of the “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” podcastOriginally Aired May 24, 2015 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all try to fight it: the inexorable march of time. The fountain of youth doesn’t exist, and all those wrinkle creams can’t help. But modern science is giving us new weapons in the fight against aging. So how far are we willing to go?Hear when aging begins, a summary of the latest biotech research, and how a lab full of youthful worms might help humans stay healthy.Also, a geneticist who takes a radical approach: collect the DNA that codes for longevity and restructure our genome. He finds inspiration – and perhaps genes as well – in the bi-centenarian bowhead whale.But what if age really is mind over matter? A psychologist’s extraordinary thought experiment with septuagenarian men turns back the clock 20 years. Will it work on diseases such as cancer as well? Guests: Gordon Lithgow – Geneticist, Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, California Manish Chamoli – Post-doctoral researcher, Buck Institute for Research on Aging George Church – Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, author of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves Ellen Langer – Professor of Psychology, Harvard University and author of Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility First released April 6, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You are what you eat. Whether you dine on kimchi, carnitas, or corn dogs determines which microbes live in your stomach. And gut microbes make up only part of your total micro biome. Find out how your microbes are the brains-without-brains that affect your health and even your mood. Also, why you and your cohorts are closer than you thought: new research suggests that you swap and adopt bugs from your social set.Plus, the philosophical questions that are arise when we realize that we have more microbial DNA than human DNA.And a woman who skipped soap and shampoo for a month to see what would grow on her.Guests: Bill Miller – Physician and author of The Microcosm Within: Evolution and Extinction in the Hologenome Beth Archie – Biologist at the University of Notre Dame Nada Gligorov – Assistant professor of medical education at Mount Sinai Hospital Julia Scott – Freelance reporter working in San Francisco. Her article, “A Wash on the Wild Side” appeared in the May 22, 2014 issue of the New York Times Magazine. of the New York Times Magazine. First released  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don’t believe everything you see on TV or the movies. Science fiction is just a guide to how our future might unfold. It can be misleading, as anyone who yearns for a flying car can tell you. And yet, sometimes fantasy becomes fact. Think of the prototype cellphones in Star Trek.We take a look at science that seems inspired by filmic sci-fi, for example scientists manipulating memory as in Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And despite his famous film meltdown, Charleton Heston hasn’t stopped the Soylent company from producing what it calls the food of the future.Plus, why eco-disaster films have the science wrong, but not in the way you might think. And, what if our brains are simply wired to accept film as fact?Guests: Steve Ramirez -Neuroscientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Rob Rhinehart – CEO and founder of Soylent Jason Mark – Editor of Earth Island Journal Jeffrey Zacks – Cognitive Neuroscientist, Washington University, St. Louis, and author of Flicker: Your Brain on Movies First released December 22, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wondering whether to vaccinate your children? The decision can feel like a shot in the dark if you don’t know how to evaluate risk. Find out why all of us succumb to the reasoning pitfalls of cognitive and omission bias, whether we’re saying no to vaccines or getting a tan on the beach.Plus, an infectious disease expert on why it may take a dangerous resurgence of preventable diseases – measles, whooping cough, polio – to remind us that vaccines save lives.Also, a quaint but real vaccine fear: that the 18th century smallpox vaccine, made from cowpox, could turn you into a cow!It’s our monthly look at critical thinking … but don’t take our word for it!Guests: Paul Offit – Infectious disease specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Neil deGrasse Tyson – Astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City Adam Korbitz – Lawyer specializing in space law Andrew Maynard – Professor of environmental health science, director, Risk Science Center, University of Michigan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world is hot, and getting hotter. But higher temperatures aren’t the only impact our species is having on mother Earth. Urbanization, deforestation, and dumping millions of tons of plastic into the oceans … these are all ways in which humans are leaving their mark.So are we still in the Holocene, the geological epoch that started a mere 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age? Some say we’ve moved on to the age of man – the Anthropocene.It’s the dawn of an era, but can we survive this new phase in the history of our planet?Guests: Pat Porter - Relative Jonathan Amos – Science writer for the BBC in London Gaia Vince – Writer, broadcaster, former editor for New Scientist, news editor of Nature, and author of Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made David Grinspoon – Astrobiologist, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona Francisco Valero – Emeritus physicist and research scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego Originally aired February 23, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Dear E.T. …” So far, so good. But now what? Writing is never easy, but what if your task was to craft a message to aliens living elsewhere in the universe, and your prose would represent all humankind? Got writer’s block yet?What to say to the aliens was the focus of a recent conference in which participants shifted their attentions away from listening for extraterrestrial signals to transmitting some. In this show, we report on the “Communicating Across the Cosmos” conference held at the SETI Institute in December 2014. Find out what scientists think we should say. Also, how archeology could help us craft messages to an unfamiliar culture. Plus, why journalists might be well-suited to writing the message. And, a response to Stephen Hawking’s warning that attempting to contact aliens is too dangerous.Guests: Douglas Vakoch – Director of interstellar message composition, SETI Institute Paul Wason – Archaeologist, anthropologist and vice president for the life sciences and genetics program at the Templeton Foundation Al Harrison – Emeritus professor of psychology, University of California, Davis Morris Jones – Journalist and space analyst in Sydney, Australia Shari Wells-Jensen – Professor of English, Bowling Green State University First released January 12, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices