Big Picture Science

Imagine biting into a rich chocolate donut and not tasting it. That’s what happened to one woman when she lost her sense of smell. Discover what scientists have learned about how the brain experiences flavor, and the evolutionary intertwining of odor and taste.Plus a chef who tricks tongues into tasting something they’re not. It’s chemical camouflage that can make crabgrass taste like basil and turn bitter crops into delicious dishes – something that could improve nutrition world-wide.Meanwhile, are we a tasty treat for aliens? Discover whether we might be attractive snacks for E.T. And, out-of-this-world recipes from a “gAstronomy” cookbook!Guests: Bonnie Blodgett – Author of Remembering Smell: A Memoir of Losing—and Discovering—the Primal Sense Gordon Shepherd – Neurobiologist, Yale University School of Medicine, author of Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters Homaro Cantu – Chef and owner of restaurants Moto and iNG in Chicago, chairman and founder of Cantu Designs Firm Niki Parenteau – Astrobiologist, SETI Institute Markus Hotakainen – Astronomer, chef, author of gAstronomical Cookbook Descripción en españolFirst released March 11, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all crave power: to run laptops, charge cell phones, and play Angry Birds. But if generating energy is easy, storing it is not. Remember when your computer conked out during that cross-country flight? Why can’t someone build a better battery?Discover why battery design is stuck in the 1800s, and why updating it is key to future green transportation (not to mention more juice for your smartphone). Also, how to build a new type of solar cell that can turn sunlight directly into fuel at the pump.Plus, force fields, fat cells and other storage systems. And: Shock lobster! Energy from crustaceans?Guests: Dan Lankford – Former CEO of three battery technology companies, and a managing director at Wavepoint Ventures Jackie Stephens – Biochemist at Louisiana State University Kevin MacVittie – Graduate student of chemistry, Clarkson University, New York Nate Lewis – Chemist, California Institute of Technology Alex Filippenko – Astronomer, University of California, Berkeley Peter Williams – Physicist, San Francisco Bay Area Descripción en españolFirst released February 4, 2103. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Birthday, World Wide Web! The 25-year-old Web, along with the Internet and the personal computer, are among mankind’s greatest inventions. But back then, who knew?A techno-writer reminisces about the early days of the WWW and says he didn’t think it would ever catch on.Also, meet an inventor who claims his innovation will leave your laptop in the dust. Has quantum computing finally arrived?Plus, why these inventions are not as transformative as other creative biggies of history: The plow. The printing press. And… the knot?And, why scientific discoveries may beat out technology as the most revolutionary developments of all. A new result about the Big Bang may prove as important as germ theory and the double helix.Guests: Kevin Kelly – Senior maverick, Wired, author of What Technology Wants Eric Ladizinsky – Physicist, co-founder and the chief scientist of D-Wave Systems Palo Alto, California Aaron Gardner – Bakery manager, Hy-Vee Store, Chillicothe, Missouri George Dyson – Historian of technology, author of Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe and Darwin Among The Machines: The Evolution Of Global Intelligence Rob Shostak – Brother and founder of Vocera Communications, San Jose, California Jamie Bock – Physicist at the California Institute of Technology Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One plus one is two. But what’s the square root of 64, divided by 6 over 12?* Wait, don’t run for the hills! Math isn’t scary. It helps us describe and design our world, and can be easier to grasp than the straight edge of a protractor.Discover how to walk through the city and number-crunch simultaneously using easy tips for estimating the number of bricks in a building or squirrels in the park. Plus, why our brains are wired for finger-counting … whether aliens would have calculators … and history’s most famous mathematical equations (after e=mc2).*The answer is 16Guests: Ian Stewart – Emeritus professor of Mathematics, University of Warwick, U.K., author of In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World Michael Anderson – Psychologist and neuroscientist, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA Keith Devlin – Mathematician and Director of the Human Sciences and Technology Advanced Research Institute, Stanford University John Adam – Mathematician, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, and author of X and the City: Modeling Aspects of Urban Life Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The machines are coming! Meet the prototypes of your future robot buddies and discover how you may come to love a hunk of hardware. From telerobots that are your mechanical avatars … to automated systems for the disabled … and artificial hands that can diffuse bombs.Plus, the ethics of advanced robotics: should life-or-death decisions be automated?And, a biologist uses robo-fish to understand evolution.Guests: Illah Nourbakhsh – Professor of robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, author of Robot Futures. Check out his Robot Futures blog. Marco Mascorro – Vice President of Hardware, 9th Sense Robotics, Mountain View, California Curt Salisbury – Mechanical engineer, senior member, technical staff, Sandia National Laboratories Joe Karnicky – Retired engineer, Menlo Park, California. Videos of his gadgetry can be found at the bottom of this page. John Long – Professor of biology and cognitive science at Vassar College and the author of Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology Descripción en españolFirst released January 21, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s one of the biggest questions you can ask: has the universe existed forever? The Big Bang is supposedly the moment it all began. But now scientists wonder if there isn’t an earlier chapter to our origin story. And maybe chapters before that! What happened before the Big Bang? It’s the ultimate prequel.Plus – the Big Bang as scientific story: nail biter or snoozer?Guests: Roger Penrose – Cosmologist, Oxford University Sean Carroll – Theoretical physicist, Caltech, author of The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World Simon Steel – Astronomer, Tufts University Andrei Linde – Physicist, Stanford University Jonathan Gottschall – Writer, author of The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human Marcus Chown – Science writer and cosmology consultant for New Scientist magazine Descripción en españolFirst released December 17, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Computers and DNA have a few things in common. Both use digital codes and are prone to viruses. And, it seems, both can be hacked. From restoring the flavor of tomatoes to hacking into the president’s DNA, discover the promise and peril of gene tinkering.Plus, computer hacking. Just how easy is it to break into your neighbor’s email account? What about the CIA’s?Also, one man’s concern that radio telescopes might pick up an alien computer virus.Guests: George Weinstock – Microbiologist, geneticist, associate director at the Washington University Genome Institute, St. Louis Jim Giovannoni – Plant molecular biologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cornell University campus Andrew Hessel – Faculty member, Singularity University, research scientist at Autodesk, and co-author of “Hacking the President’s DNA” in the November 2012 issue of The Atlantic Dan Kaminsky – Chief scientist of security firm DHK Dick Carrigan – Scientist emeritus at Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois Descripción en españolFirst released December 10, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zombies are making a killing in popular culture. But where did the idea behind these mythical, cerebrum-supping nasties come from? Discover why they may be a hard-wired inheritance from our Pleistocene past.Also, how a whimsical mathematical model of a Zombie apocalypse can help us withstand earthquakes and disease outbreaks, and how the rabies virus contributed to zombie mythology.Plus, new ideas for how doctors should respond when humans are in a limbo state between life and death: no pulse, but their brains continue to hum.Meet the songwriter who has zombies on the brain …. and we chase spaced-out animated corpses in the annual Run-For-Your-Lives foot race.Guests: Guy P. Harrison – Science writer and author of 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True Jonathan Coulton – Singer and songwriter Robert Smith? – Mathematician and epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa, in Canada Dick Teresi – Science writer and author of The Undead: Organ Harvesting, the Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers—How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy – - Respectively Senior Editor at Wired Magazine and veterinarian, and the co-authors of Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus Descripción en españolFirst released November 12, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can get your point across in many ways: email, texts, or even face-to-face conversation (does anyone do that anymore?). But ants use chemical messages when organizing their ant buddies for an attack on your kitchen. Meanwhile, your human brain sends messages to other brains without you uttering a word.Hear these communication stories … how language evolved in the first place… why our brains love a good tale …and how Facebook is keeping native languages from going extinct.Guests: Mark Moffett – Entomologist, research associate at the Smithsonian Institution, author of Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions V.S. Ramachandran – Neuroscientist, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego Clare Murphy – Performance storyteller, Ireland Mark Pagel – Evolutionary biologist, University of Reading, U.K., and author of Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind Margaret Noori – Poet and linguist at the University of Michigan, specializing in Ojibwe, and director of the Comprehensive Studies Program Descripción en españolFirst released June 11, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mooooove over, make way for the cows, the chickens … and other animals! Humans can learn a lot from our hairy, feathered, four-legged friends. We may wear suits and play Sudoku, but Homo sapiens are primates just the same. We’ve met the animal, and it is us.Discover the surprising similarity between our diseases and those that afflict other animals, including pigs that develop eating disorders. Plus, what the octopus can teach us about national security … how monkeying around evolved into human speech … and the origins of moral behavior in humans.Guests: Rafe Sagarin – Marine ecologist, Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona, author of Learning From the Octopus: How Secrets from Nature Can Help Us Fight Terrorist Attacks, Natural Disasters, and Disease Barbara Natterson-Horowitz – Professor of cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, and co-author of Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing Kathryn Bowers – Writer, co-author of Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing Asif Ghazanfar – Neuroscientist, psychologist, Princeton University Christopher Boehm – Biological and cultural anthropologist at the University of Southern California, director of the Jane Goodall Research Center, author of Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame Descripción en españolFirst released July 9, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices