Category Archives: Science
Top New Science Podcasts: NIH Grant Diversity, Post-Traumatic Stress Memory Suppression (ScienceMag)
On this week’s show, senior correspondent Jeffrey Mervis joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant program that aims to encourage diversity at the level of university faculty with the long-range goal of increasing the diversity of NIH grant recipients.
Sarah also talks with Pierre Gagnepain, a cognitive neuroscientist at INSERM, the French biomedical research agency, about the role of memory suppression in post-traumatic stress disorder. Could people that are better at suppressing memories be more resilient to the aftermath of trauma?
Profiles: 71-Year Old Physicist And Author Alan Lightman’s “Creative Life”
From a New York Times online article (February 13, 2020):
“I love physics, but what was even more important to me was leading a creative life,” Dr. Lightman said. “And I knew that writers could continue doing their best work later in life.”
Lightman is best known in literary circles for his 1992 novel, “Einstein’s Dreams,” which is all about the vicissitudes – romantic, physical and otherwise – of time. It recounts the nightly visions of a young patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, as he struggles to finish his theory of relativity.
But before that, Dr. Lightman was an astrophysicist, a card-carrying wizard of space and time, with a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and subsequent posts at Cornell and Harvard In 1989, at the peak of his prowess as a physicist, he began to walk away from the world of black holes to enter the world of black ink and the uncertain, lonely life of the writer.
Recently he was in New York for the opening of “Einstein’s Dreams,” an off-Broadway play based on his book. There have been dozens of such stage adaptations over the last 30 years.
Science Podcast: Prussian Blue Structures, Extinct Rodents And Quantum Entanglement (Nature)
Hear the latest from the world of science, brought to you by Nick Howe and Shamini Bundell. This week, uncovering the structure of materials with useful properties, and quantum entanglement over long distances.
In this episode:
00:45 Analysing Prussian blues
Analogues of the paint pigment Prussian blue are used in a variety of chemical processes. Now, researchers have uncovered their atomic structure. Research Article: Simonov et al.; News and Views: Ordered absences observed in porous framework materials
08:17 Research Highlights
Teenagers’ natural sleep cycles impact on academic performance, and an extinct, giant rodent with a surprisingly tiny brain. Research Highlight: A teenager’s body clock can ring in school success; Research Highlight: Giant extinct rodent was all brawn and little brain
10:49 Distant entanglement
Researchers have demonstrated quantum entanglement between two points separated by 50 km of fibre optic cables. Research Article: Yu et al.
17:17 News Chat
The latest on the coronavirus outbreak, and gene editing gets an upgrade. News: Coronavirus: latest news on spreading infection; News: Super-precise CRISPR tool enhanced by enzyme engineering
Research: “What Is CRISPR?” (Penn Medicine Video)
Learn what CRISPR is, how it works, and how Penn Medicine is working to harness its power to help patients.
Science Podcasts: CRISPR & Immunotherapy, Ice Age Cave Art Dated With Wasp Nests (ScienceMag)
On this week’s show, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a Science paper that combines two hot areas of research—CRISPR gene editing and immunotherapy for cancer—and tests it in patients.
Sarah also talks with Damien Finch, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, about the Kimberly region of Australia and dating its ice age cave paintings using charcoal from nearby wasp nests.
Research: CalTech Scientists Target Cancer Cells With Ultrasound
From a CalTech news article (February 4, 2020):
The hope, Lee says, is that ultrasound will kill cancer cells in a specific way that will also engage the immune system and arouse it to attack any cancer cells remaining after the treatment.
A new technique could offer a targeted approach to fighting cancer: low-intensity pulses of ultrasound have been shown to selectively kill cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed.
Ultrasound waves—sound waves with frequencies higher than humans can hear—have been used as a cancer treatment before, albeit in a broad-brush approach: high-intensity bursts of ultrasound can heat up tissue, killing cancer and normal cells in a target area. Now, scientists and engineers are exploring the use of low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) in an effort to create a more selective treatment.
A study describing the effectiveness of the new approach in cell models was published in Applied Physics Letters on January 7. The researchers behind the work caution that it is still preliminary—it still has not been tested in a live animal let alone in a human, and there remain several key challenges to address—but the results so far are promising.
Top New Science Podcasts: Academics’ Out-Of-Office Emails, Greenest Oranges And Baby Talk (Nature)
Hear the latest from the world of science, brought to you by Benjamin Thompson and Nick Howe. This week, how setting an out-of-office email could help promote a kinder academic culture.
In this episode:
00:47 Being truly out of office
Last year, a viral tweet about emails sparked a deeper conversation about academics’ work-life-balance. Could email etiquette help tip the balance? Careers Article: Out of office replies and what they can say about you
09:35 Research Highlights
Finding the ‘greenest’ oranges, and the benefits of ‘baby talk’. Research Article: Bell and Horvath; Research Highlight: Babies benefit when Mum and Dad are fluent in ‘baby talk’
12:06 News Chat
Updates on the novel coronavirus, assessing Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and the potential impacts of Brexit on UK research. News: Coronavirus: latest news on spreading infection; News: How quickly can Iran make a nuclear bomb?; News: Brexit is happening: what does it mean for science?
Journals: Latest Research Articles In “Science Magazine” (Jan 31 2020)
Science Podcasts: Low-Cost Cryo-Electron Microscopes & Genetic Roots Of Schizophrenia
Structural biologists rejoiced when cryo–electron microscopy, a technique to generate highly detailed models of biomolecules, emerged. But years after its release, researchers still face long queues to access these machines. Science’s European News Editor Eric Hand walks host Meagan Cantwell through the journey of a group of researchers to create a cheaper, more accessible alternative.
Also this week, host Joel Goldberg speaks with psychiatrist and researcher Goodman Sibeko, who worked with the Xhosa people of South Africa to help illuminate genetic details of schizophrenia. Though scientists have examined this subject among Western populations, much less is known about the underlying genetics of people native to Africa.
Boomers Daily 