Big Picture Science

If someone asks where you get off, you can now respond with precision. Satellites and computers spit out coordinates accurate to a few paces. And digital maps stand the Copernican principle on its head – putting you at the center of everything (how does it feel?).Find out how today’s maps are shuffling our world view. Also, how does a rat navigate a maze without GPS? Hear of the plotting that goes on in that tiny rodent brain.Plus, mapping the universe and pinpointing just where we are in cosmic time – lucky for us, human evolution is right on schedule.Guests: Josh Winn - Astronomer, MIT David Redish - Neuroscientist, University of Minnesota Mario Livio - Astrophysicist, Space Telescope Science Institute and author of Is God a Mathematician? Mike Goodchild - Professor of Geography, Center for Spatial Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s always a surprise to sort through Seth's cabinet of wonders – who knows what we’ll find!In this cramped cupboard, tucked between shelves of worm gears and used clarinet reeds, we discover a forgotten U.S. sea floor laboratory … copies of the new Cosmos TV series … evidence of science fiction’s predictive powers … software that may replace scientists … and tips on surviving a deadly poison (hint: it helps to be a snake).Tune in, find out and grab a duster, will you?Guests: Neil deGrasse Tyson - Astrophysicst at the American Museum of Natural History and author of Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier Robert J. Sawyer - Hugo award-wining science fiction author; his newest title is Triggers Ben Hellwarth - Author of Sealab: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor Hod Lipson - Roboticist at Cornell University Chris Feldman - Biologist, University of Nevada, Reno Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The future is no mystery … according to psychics who say they have special access to tomorrow’s events. For example, adherents to the Mayan doomsday prophecy warn that when 2012 ends, so will the world.Discover what’s behind claims of prognostication, and why – if it really works – no one is making a killing in Las Vegas.Also, could science divine the future? Programmers with the Living Earth Simulator say that with sufficient data, their billion-dollar computer project can predict world events.It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!Guests: Phil Plait - Skeptic and keeper of Discover Magazine’s blog, badastronomy.com Christopher French - Psychologist, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London Guy Harrison - Writer and business owner, author of 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True Alessandro Vespignani - Physicist, Northeastern University Ken Caldeira - Climate scientist in the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology, Stanford University Sue Wilhite - Master Tarot card reader at East West Bookstore in Mountain View, California Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They’re here! About one-third of all Americans believe we’re being visited by extraterrestrial spacecraft. But wait, you want evidence?UFO sighting are as prevalent as flies at a picnic. But proof of visitation – well, that’s really alien.Hear why belief in extraterrestrial UFOs persists … and why military sightings that “can’t be explained” don’t warrant rolling out a welcome mat for ET.Plus, the most fab UFOs in the movies!It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!Guests: Phil Plait - Keeper of the skeptical website badastronomy.com Benjamin Radford - Research Fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and managing editor of “Skeptical Inquirer Science Magazine” Leslie Kean - Journalist, and author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record Susan Clancy - Psychology Researcher, Harvard University and author of Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens Thomas Bullard - Folkorist at Indiana University and author of The Myth and Mystery of UFOs FIrst aired November 15, 2010.Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Humans are pleasure-seekers – from food to sex to fine art. But do we know why we crave what we do? Discover the surprising motivation behind our desires. Also, why our hedonistic cousins, the bonobos, may hold the secret to world peace.Plus, self-awareness in monkeys: can they really pass the mirror test? Can bacteria, for that matter? Nope! But since you are, cell for cell, more microbe than human, you’ll want to know just how cognitively aware these critters are.Guests: Paul Bloom - Psychologist at Yale University and author of How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like Julie Neiworth - Psychologist, Carleton College Vanessa Woods - Research scientist at Duke University and author of Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo. Find out more about helping bonobos. Jim Shapiro - Bacterial geneticist, University of Chicago First aired November 1, 2010.Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A cup of coffee can leave you wired for the day. But a chip in your brain could wire you to a machine forever. Imagine manipulating a mouse without moving a muscle, and doing a Google search with your mind. Welcome to the future of the brain-machine interface.Don your EEG thinking-cap, and discover a high-tech thought game that may be the harbinger of machine relationships to come.Plus, the ultimate mapping project: the Human Connectdome Project aims to identify all the neural pathways in the human brain. It may help us understand what makes us human, but could it also point the way to making us smarter?And, what all this brain research reveals about the mind and free will – who, or what, is really in charge?Guests: Jan Rabaey - Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), University of California, Berkeley Arthur Toga - Neurologist at the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, and researcher on the Human Connectome Project Michael Gazzaniga - Neuroscientist, director of the University of California Santa Barbara’s SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, and author of Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain Bradley Voytek - Neuroscientist, University of California, San Francisco Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s it all about? And we mean ALL. What makes up this vast sprawling cosmos? Why does it exist? Why do we exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Ow, my head hurts!For possible answers, we travel to the moment after the Big Bang and discover all that came into being in those few minutes after the great flash: time, space, matter, and light. Plus, the bizarre stuff that makes up the bulk of the universe: dark energy and dark matter.Also, what we set in motion with the invention of the light blub. How artificial light lit up our homes, our cities and – inadvertently – our skies.Guests: Sean Carroll - Theoretical physicist at California Institute of Technology Leonard Susskind - Theoretical physicist, Stanford University Jane Brox - Author of Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light Peter Fisher - Physicist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Descripción en españolFirst aired September 6, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wait! Before you step outside... is it Friday the 13th? Any black cats prowling around? Broken a mirror lately? Homo sapiens are a superstitious lot. Find out why our brains are wired for irrational belief. Plus, from the 2012-end-of-the-world prophesy to colliding planets - why some people believe the universe is out to get ‘em.Also, Brains on Vacation takes on a challenge to relativity and our Hollywood skeptic has doubts about exorcism. It’s enough to make your head spin on Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!Guests: Bruce Hood - Cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and author of The Science of Superstition: How the Developing Brain Creates Supernatural Beliefs David Morrison - Director of the Carl Sagan Center for The Study of Life in The Universe at the SETI Institute and keeper of the NASA website Ask an Astrobiologist Martin Snow - Research Scientist, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder Jim Underdown - Executive Director, Center for Inquiry, West - Los Angeles Phil Plait - Astronomer, keeper of badastronomy.com, and author of Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End . . . Descripción en españolFirst aired August 16, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you lost your senses? You’ll find them everywhere you look. Sensors respond to external stimuli – light, sound, temperature and much else – to help us make sense (ha!) of our universe. And more are on their way. “Ubiquitous sensing” is the term that describes a world blanketed by tiny sensors: on bridges, in paint and medicine bottles, and even in our brains!Discover where you’ll find sensors next. And, has the world’s largest detection device found the elusive particle that will help explain the universe? Where are you, Higgsy-wiggsy?Also, out-of-this world sensors have detected a possibly Earth-like planet. What’s next for the Kepler planet-hunters?Plus, DIY sensor kits, and, if computers can do all that, why can’t we send the odor of, say, freshly-baked bread over the Internet? The case for a smell-o-meter.Guests: Frank Close - Physicist at Oxford University, author of The Infinity Puzzle: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe Jan Rabaey - Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), University of California, Berkeley Barry Shell - Writer in Vancouver, Canada Andy Huntington - Interaction designer, based in London Sara Seager - Professor of planetary science and physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Planet hunters - Daryll LaCourse and Tom Jacobs, citizen scientists with Planet Hunters Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The term “bird flu” is a misnomer, scientists say, because almost all human influenza originates in our feathered friends. How it lands in you and spreads is another matter …Hear what it takes for a virus to go global, from a virus hunter who plans to stop epidemics in their tiny DNA tracks with an innovative global surveillance system.Also, why your genome is littered with fossil viruses of the past … the two largest viruses discovered so far, Mimi and Mega, square off … and, what it takes for ideas to “go viral.”Guests: Nathan Wolfe - Viral Ecologist, Director of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative Robert Gifford - Evolutionary virologist, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Rockefeller University Vincent Racaniello - Virologist at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, host of the podcast, “This Week in Microbiology,” and author of the “Virology Blog” Bill Wasik - Senior Editor at Wired, author of And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture Descripción en español Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices