Category Archives: Science

Top Science Podcasts: Lab Monkey Retirement, Near-Earth Asteroids

scimag_pc_logo_120_120 (2)After their life as research subjects, what happens to lab monkeys? Some are euthanized to complete the research, others switch to new research projects, and some retire from lab life. Should they retire in place—in the same lab under the care of the same custodians—or should they be sent to retirement home–like sanctuaries? Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss recently penned legislation that pushes for monkey retirements and a new collaboration between universities and sanctuaries to create a retirement pipeline for these primates.

Sarah also talks with Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) and a professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, about the latest news from the asteroid Bennu. Within 1 week of beginning its orbit of the asteroid, OSIRIS-REx was able to send back surprising images of the asteroid ejecting material. It’s extremely rocky surface also took researchers by surprise and forced a recalculation of the sample return portion of the craft’s mission.

To read more: https://www.sciencemag.org/podcast/debating-lab-monkey-retirement-and-visiting-near-earth-asteroid

 

Top Science Podcasts: Sequencing Genomes, Genetic Surveillance And Solar Winds (Nature)

Nature PodcastHear the latest science news, brought to you by Benjamin Thompson and Shamini Bundell. This week, exploring two very different issues surrounding genomic sequencing, and the latest results from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.

In this episode:

00:45 The GenomeAsia 100k project

Researchers have released the first data from an ambitious project to sequence the genomes of 100,000 people from populations across Asia. Research Article: GenomeAsia100K Consortium

08:56 Research Highlights

Bare riverbanks make meanders move, and human activity affects picky penguins. Research Highlight: The meandering rivers that speed across barren landscapesResearch Highlight: Climate change splits two penguin species into winners and losers

11:18 Curbing the rise in genetic surveillance

Concerns are growing around the use of commercial DNA databases for state-level surveillance. Comment: Crack down on genomic surveillance

20:02 News Chat

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has sent back the most detailed information yet about the birthplace of solar wind. News: Sun-bombing spacecraft uncovers secrets of the solar wind

Science Profiles: 97-Year Old Professor John B. Goodenough Becomes Oldest Nobel Prize Winner In Chemistry

From a UChicago News online article:

Univ of Chicago Professor John Goodenough Wins 2019 Nobel Prize in ChemistryThree-quarters of a century later, at age 97, Goodenough will become the oldest person to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. At a Dec. 10 ceremony in Sweden, he will be honored for pioneering breakthroughs that led to the widespread use of the lithium-ion battery—and helping spark the wireless revolution. The descendants of his batteries now power modern smartphones and hold the potential to one day sustainably harvest solar and wind power.

John B. Goodenough can still remember, word for word, what a University of Chicago professor told him when he arrived on campus following World War II: “I don’t understand you veterans,” said John A. Simpson, a new UChicago instructor who had just helped achieve the first nuclear reaction. “Don’t you know that anyone who has ever done anything significant in physics had already done it by the time he was your age—and you want to begin?”

To read more: http://news.uchicago.edu/story/uchicago-nobel-how-john-goodenough-sparked-wireless-revolution?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UChicago_News_Dec_3_2019

Podcasts: “LabGenius” CEO James Field On AI/Machine Learning Discovering New Medicines (Babbage)

Babbage PodcastsResearchers are using artificial intelligence techniques to invent medicines and materials—but in the process are they upending the scientific method itself? The AI approach is a form of trial-and-error at scale, or “radical empiricism”. But does AI-driven science uncover new answers that humans cannot understand? Host Kenneth Cukier finds out with James Field of LabGenius…

Website: https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2019/11/27/the-end-of-the-scientific-method

Science Podcasts: NIH Scientist Loan Repayment Conflicts, Undersea Cables As Seismic Sensors

The National Instituscimag_pc_logo_120_120 (2)tes of Health’s largest loan repayment program was conceived to help scientists pay off school debts without relying on industry funding. But a close examination of the program by investigative correspondent Charles Piller has revealed that many participants are taking money from the government to repay their loans, while at the same time taking payments from pharmaceutical companies. Piller joins Host Sarah Crespi to talk about the steps he took to uncover this double dipping and why ethicists say this a conflict of interest.

Sarah also talks with Nate Lindsey, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, about turning a 50-meter undersea fiber optic cable designed to move data into a sensor for activity in the ocean and the land underneath. During a 4-day test in Monterey Bay, California, the cable detected earthquakes, faults, waves, and even ocean-going storms.

For this month’s books segment, Kiki Sandford talks with Dan Hooper about his book At the Edge of Time: Exploring the Mysteries of Our Universe’s First Seconds.

Top Science Podcasts: 2019 PhD Survey, Older Women In Sci-Fi And Mummified Remains In Egypt (Nature)

Listen to the latest science updated, brought to you by Nick Howe and Shamini Bundell. This week, delving into the results of the latest graduate student survey, and assessing ageism in science fiction literature.

In this episode:

00:45 The graduate student experience

The results of Nature’s 2019 PhD survey are in. David Payne, Nature’s Chief Careers Editor, takes us through them. Nature’s PhD survey collection

06:45 Research Highlights

Giant tortoises are quick learners, and colour-changing magic mushrooms. Research Article: Gutnick et al.Research Highlights: Why magic mushrooms turn dark blue when picked

08:52 Where are the older women in sci-fi?

Author Sylvia Spruck Wrigley has been looking into the number of older women that appear in sci-fi novels, and the roles they play. Essay: Space ageing: why sci-fi novels shun the badass older woman

16:45 News Chat

A trove of mummified remains causes excitement in Egypt, and Italy plans a new science funding body. News: Rare mummified lions add to Egyptology buzzNews: Italy’s plan to create €300-million research agency draws fire

Health Infographics: Harnessing “Innate Immunity” To Treat Cancer

Cisbio-Harnessing Innate Immunity to Treat Cancer-page-0

Website: https://go.technologynetworks.com/harnessing-innate-immunity-to-treat-cancer?utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TN_Breaking%20Science%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=79929068&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–ty7bQqqE59QchUxLDf8dobyKGn6xuBbMimHky4x8fwAR2VD9njUGTWl6rnVLXsO2r9f6QeP9n6X4TiEvSEgMxvfCrUw&_hsmi=79929068

Brain Science Podcasts: MRI Scans Now Reveal “Thoughts And Feelings” (60 Minutes)

60 Minutes logoWho among us hasn’t wished we could read someone else’s mind, know exactly what they’re thinking? Well that’s impossible, of course, since our thoughts are, more than anything else, our own. Private, personal, unreachable. Or at least that’s what we’ve always, well, thought. 

Advances in neuroscience have shown that, on a physical level, our thoughts are actually a vast network of neurons firing all across our brains. So if that brain activity could be identified and analyzed, could our thoughts be decoded? Could our minds be read? Well, a team of scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has spent more than a decade trying to do just that. We started our reporting on their work 10 years ago, and what they’ve discovered since, has drawn us back.

To read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging-computer-analysis-read-thoughts-60-minutes-2019-11-24/

Top Science Podcasts: Tracking Landslides In Taiwan, The Universality Of Music (ScienceMag)

scimag_pc_logo_120_120 (2)You may have seen the aftermath of a landslide, driving along a twisty mountain road—a scattering of rocks and scree impinging on the pavement. And up until now, that’s pretty much how scientists have tracked landslides—roadside observations and spotty satellite images. Now, researchers are hoping to track landslides systematically by instrumenting an entire national park in Taiwan. The park is riddled with landslides—so much so that visitors wear helmets. Host Sarah Crespi talks with one of those visitors—freelance science journalist Katherine Kornei—about what we can learn from landslides.

In a second rocking segment, Sarah also talks with Manvir Singh about the universality of music. His team asked the big questions in a Science paper out this week: Do all societies make music? What are the common elements that can be picked out from songs worldwide? Sarah and Manvir listen to songs and talk about what love ballads and lullabies have in common, regardless of their culture of origin.

To read more: https://www.sciencemag.org/podcast/building-landslide-observatory-and-universality-music

 

Profiles: Stanford Physicist Robert Byer, 77, Helped Develop “Most Stable Laser In The World”

From a Stanford University News article:

Robert Byer uses an infrared viewing device to check the alignment of a near-IR laser through a linear crystal. Image credit Misha BrukByer also helped develop the quietest, most stable laser in the world, called the diode-pumped YAG laser. YAG lasers are today found in everything from communications satellites to green handheld laser pointers, which Byer co-developed with two of his graduate students and cites as one of his favorite inventions (he had joined Stanford in 1969). YAG lasers also form the main beams of the gravitational wave-detecting instrument, LIGO, which in 2015 achieved the most precise measurement ever made by humans when its antenna detected the tenuous spacetime fluctuations generated by two colliding black holes 1.3 billion light-years away.

Robert Byer was 22 years old when he first saw the light that changed his life.

Stanford NewsOne summer morning in 1964, Byer drove the hour from Berkeley down to Mountain View for a job interview at a California company called Spectra Physics. He walked in to find an empty lobby but could hear clapping and cheering in the back of the building. After politely waiting for several minutes, he followed the commotion to a darkened room filled with men whose jubilant faces were illuminated by a rod of red-orange light that seemed to float above an instrument-strewn table

To read more: https://news.stanford.edu/2019/11/19/life-changing-first-glimpse-laser/