Big Picture Science

Electricity is so 19th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not the opinion of the Nobel committee that awarded its 2014 physics prize to scientists who invented the blue LED.Find out why this LED hue of blue was worthy of our most prestigious science prize … how some bacteria actually breathe rust … and a plan to cure disease by zapping our nervous system with electric pulses.Guests: Siddha Pimputkar – Postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Department of the Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center under Shuji Nakamura, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara Jeff Gralnick – Associate professor of microbiology at the University of Minnesota Kevin Tracey – Neurosurgeon and president of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York First released December 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the most dramatic technical development of recent times: Teams of people working for decades to produce a slow-motion revolution we call computing. As these devices become increasingly powerful, we recall that a pioneer from the nineteenth century – Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and Lord Byron’s daughter – said they would never surpass human ability. Was she right?We consider the near-term future of computing as the Internet of Things is poised to link everything together, and biologists adopt the techniques of information science to program living cells.Plus: What’s your favorite sci-fi computer?Guests: Walter Isaacson – President and CEO of the Aspen Institute and the author of The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution Christopher Voigt – Bioengineer at MIT Andy Ihnatko – Technology journalist André Bormanis – Writer, screenwriter, Star Trek John Barrett – Electronic engineer, NIMBUS Centre for Embedded Systems Research at the Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland First released December 7, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You think your life is fast-paced, but have you ever seen a bacterium swim across your countertop? You’d be surprised how fast they can move.Find out why modeling the swirl of hurricanes takes a roomful of mathematicians and supercomputers, and how galaxies can move away from us faster than the speed of light.Also, what happens when we try to stop the dance of atoms, cooling things down to the rock bottom temperature known as absolute zero.And why your watch doesn’t keep the same time when you’re in a jet as when you’re at the airport. It’s all due to the fact that motion is relative, says Al Einstein.Guests: William Phillips – Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Joint Quantum Institute, a partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland. Bob Berman – Astronomy writer and author of Zoom: How Everything Moves: From Atoms and Galaxies to Blizzards and Bees Michael Smith – Meteorologist, senior vice president of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions, and author of Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather First released August 18, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the century and a half since Charles Darwin wrote his seminal On the Origin of the Species, our understanding of evolution has changed quite a bit. For one, we have not only identified the inheritance molecule DNA, but have determined its sequence in many animals and plants.Evolution has evolved, and we take a look at some of the recent developments.A biologist describes the escalating horn-to-horn and tusk-to-tusk arms race between animals, and a paleoanthropologist explains why the lineage from chimp to human is no longer thought to be a straight line but, instead, a bush. Also, New York Times science writer Carl Zimmer on the diversity of bacteria living on you, and which evolutionary concepts he finds the trickiest to explain to the public.Guests: Douglas Emlen – Biologist, University of Montana and author of Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle Bernard Wood – Paleoanthropologist, George Washington University Carl Zimmer – Columnist for the New York Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all have at least some musical talent. But very few of us can play the piano like Vladimir Horowitz. His talent was rarefied, and at the tail end of the bell curve of musical ability – that tiny sliver of the distribution where you find the true outliers. Outliers also exist with natural events: hurricane Katrina, for example, or the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Such events are rare, but they often have outsized effects.In this hour we imagine the unimaginable – including the unexpected events labeled “black swans” – and how we weigh the risk for any of them. Also, how a supervolcano explosion at Yellowstone National Park could obliterate the western U.S. but shouldn’t stop you from putting the park on your vacation itinerary.Guests: Donald Prothero – Paleontologist, geologist, author of many books, among them, Catastrophes!: Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Tornadoes, and Other Earth-Shattering Disasters Dawn Balmer – Ornithologist at the British Trust for Ornithology Jake Lowenstern – Geologist, USGS, Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory Hank Heasler – Yellowstone National Park geologist Andrew Maynard – Director of the Risk Science Center at the University of Michigan First released October 19, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A single ant isn’t very brainy. But a group of ants can do remarkable things. Biological swarm behavior is one model for the next generation of tiny robots. Of course, biology can get hijacked: a fungus can seize control of an ant’s brain, for example. So will humans always remain the boss of super-smart, swarming machines?We discuss the biology of zombie ants and how to build robots that self-assemble and work together. Also, how to guarantee the moral behavior of future ‘bots.And, do you crave cupcakes? Research suggests that gut bacteria control what we eat and how we feel.Guests: David Hughes – Biologist, entomologist, Penn State University Mike Rubenstein – Roboticist, Self-Organizing Systems Research Group, Harvard University Wendell Wallach – Bioethicist, chair, Technology and Ethics Study Group, Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics Athena Aktipis – Cooperation theorist, Arizona State University and director of Human and Social Evolution, Center for Evolution and Cancer, University of California, San Francisco First released October 13, 2014 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hang on to your globe. One day it’ll be a collector’s item. The arrangement of continents you see today is not what it once was, nor what it will be tomorrow. Thank plate tectonics.Now evidence suggests that the crowding together of all major land masses into one supercontinent – Pangaea, as it’s called – is a phenomenon that’s happened over and over during Earth’s history. And it will happen again. Meet our future supercontinent home, Amasia, and learn what it will look like.Meanwhile, as California waits for the Big One, geologists discover that major earthquakes come in clusters. Also, our planet is not the only solar system body with tectonic activity. Icy Europa is a mover and shaker too.And why is land in the western part of the U.S. literally rising up? Mystery solved!Guests: John Dvorak – Geologist, author of Earthquake Storms: The Fascinating History and Volatile Future of the San Andreas Fault Adrian Borsa – Geophysicist, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego Ross Mitchell – Geologist and post-doctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology Simon Kattenhorn – Structural geologist and a planetary geologist who did his work on Europa while at the University of Idaho First released September 29, 2014 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Germs can make us sick, but we didn’t know about these puny pathogens prior to the end of the 19th century. Just the suggestion that a tiny bug could spread disease made eyes roll. Then came germ theory, sterilization, and antibiotics. It was a revolution in medicine. Now we’re on the cusp of another one. This time we may cure what ails us by replacing what ails us.Bioengineers use advancements in stem cell therapy to grow red and white cells for human blood. Meanwhile, a breakthrough in 3D printing: scientists print blood vessels and say that human organs may be next.Plus, implanting electronic grids to repair neural pathways. Future prosthetics wired to the brain may allow paralyzed limbs to move.We begin with the story of the scientist who discovered the bacteria that caused tuberculosis, and the famous author who revealed that his cure for TB was a sham.Guests: Thomas Goetz – Author of The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis Jose Carmena – Neuroscientist and biomedical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley; co-director of the Berkeley-UCSF Center for Neural Engineering and Prostheses William Murphy -Bioengineer and co-director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison Ali Khademhosseini – Bioengineer, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Woman’s Hospital Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you move with the times, you might stick around long enough to pass on your genes. And that is adaptation and evolution, in a nutshell.But humans are changing their environment faster than their genes can keep pace. This has led to a slew of diseases – from backache to diabetes – according to one evolutionary biologist. And our technology may not get us out of the climate mess we’ve created. So just how good are we at adapting to the world around us?Find out as you also discover why you should run barefoot … the history of rising tides … why one dedicated environmentalist has thrown in the towel … and an answer to the mystery of why Hawaiian crickets suddenly stopped chirping.Guests: Daniel Lieberman – Professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, author of The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease Brian Fagan – Emeritus professor of anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels Paul Kingsnorth – Environmental journalist and author of Real England: The Battle Against the Bland and The Wake. The profile of his retreat from environmentalism appeared in the “New York Times Magazine”. Marlene Zuk – Evolutionary biologist, University of Minnesota First aired June 11, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The stars are out tonight. And they do more than just twinkle. These boiling balls of hot plasma can tell us something about other celestial phenomena. They betray the hiding places of black holes, for one. But they can also fool us. Find out why one of the most intriguing discoveries in astrobiology – that of the potentially habitable exoplanet Gliese 581g – may have been just a mirage.Plus, the highest levels of ultraviolet light ever mentioned on Earth’s surface puzzles scientists: is it a fluke of nature, or something manmade?And a physicist suggests that stars could be used by advanced aliens to send hailing signals deep into space.Guests: Paul Robertson – Postdoctoral fellow, Penn State Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds Mike Joner – Research professor of astronomy at Brigham Young University Nathalie Cabrol – Planetary scientist, SETI Institute Anthony Zee – Theoretical physicist at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara First aired July 23, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices