Science Friday Podcast

Ira Flatow, science journalist and host of NPR's Science Friday discusses why Science is Sexy in his acceptance address for the 2010 Nierenberg Prize. Series: Frontiers of Knowledge [1/2011] [Science] [Show ID: 19862]

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Leighann Lord answer fan questions about pseudoscience, from creationism, ouija boards, healing cristals, tarot, and alternative medicine.

Cosmic Queries: Pseudoscience
Startalk Radio.

This is an episode of Science Friday, a podcast on iTunes. This explains exactly what fire is and all the scientific terms and processes that are associated with it. It's a little weird, but way cool, none the less.

'Science and art often seem to develop in separate silos, but many thinkers are inspired by both. Novelist Cormac McCarthy, filmmaker Werner Herzog, and physicist Lawrence Krauss discuss science as inspiration for art and Herzog's new film on the earliest known cave paintings.'

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Link to Part 2 (of 2):

The Origins Project at ASU presents the final night in the Origins Stories weekend, focusing on the science of storytelling and the storytelling of science. The Storytelling of Science features a panel of esteemed scientists, public intellectuals, and award-winning writers including well-known science educator Bill Nye, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, theoretical physicist Brian Greene, Science Friday's Ira Flatow, popular science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, executive director of the World Science Festival Tracy Day, and Origins Project director Lawrence Krauss as they discuss the stories behind cutting edge science from the origin of the universe to a discussion of exciting technologies that will change our future. They demonstrate how to convey the excitement of science and the importance helping promote a public understanding of science.

Video by Black Chalk Productions

Get the most recent updates from the Origins Project by following us on Facebook /ASUOriginsProject and Twitter @asuORIGINS. Contact [email protected] questions.

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*Correction May 1, 2017: At 2:06, a graphic in the video incorrectly wrote the formula for the golden ratio. It should be B/A = A/(A+B). We regret the error.

John Edmark's sculptures are both mesmerizing and mathematical. Using meticulously crafted platforms, patterns, and layers, Edmark's art explores the seemingly magical properties that are present in spiral geometries. In his most recent body of work, Edmark creates a series of animating “blooms” that endlessly unfold and animate as they spin beneath a strobe light.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Christian Baker
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Video by
John Edmark
Charlie Nordstrom
Shutterstock

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE! Researchers believe they can replicate the human brain with computer algorithms. The problem is they admit they have no idea how neural networks -- the core of artificial intelligence -- actually work.

The world's roundest object helps solve the longest running problem in measurement -- how to define the kilogram.
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A kilogram isn't what it used to be. Literally. The original name for it was the 'grave', proposed in 1793 but it fell victim to the French Revolution like its creator, Lavoisier. So begins the tale of the most unusual SI unit. The kilogram is the only base unit with a prefix in its name, and the only one still defined by a physical artifact, the international prototype kilogram or IPK.

But the problem with this definition has long been apparent. The IPK doesn't seem to maintain its mass compared to 40 similar cylinders minted at the same time. The goal is therefore to eliminate the kilogram's dependence on a physical object. Two main approaches are being considered to achieve this end: the Avogadro Project and the Watt Balance.

The Avogadro project aims to redefine Avogadro's constant (currently defined by the kilogram -- the number of atoms in 12 g of carbon-12) and reverse the relationship so that the kilogram is precisely specified by Avogadro's constant. This method required creating the most perfect sphere on Earth. It is made out of a single crystal of silicon 28 atoms. By carefully measuring the diameter, the volume can be precisely specified. Since the atom spacing of silicon is well known, the number of atoms in a sphere can be accurately calculated. This allows for a very precise determination of Avogadro's constant.

Special thanks to Katie Green, Dr. David Farrant, the CSIRO, and the National Measurment Institute for their help. Thanks also to Nessy Hill for filming and reviewing earlier drafts of this video.

There is debate as to whether this is truly the roundest object ever created. The Gravity Probe-B rotors are also spherical with very low tolerances such that they may in fact be rounder.

Music by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com) Decision, Danse Macabre, Scissors

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In the Leidenfrost Effect, a water droplet will float on a layer of its own vapor if heated to certain temperature. This common cooking phenomenon takes center stage in a series of playful experiments by physicists at the University of Bath, who discovered new and fun means to manipulate the movement of water.

Researchers test ridged surfaces in order to control the movements of hot water.

No copyright claim...just sharing.

September 2012 - Real Science Friday Radio Show

Speakers: Ira Flatlow, Lawrence Krauss, Michael Turner, Brian Greene, Steven Weinberg, Ariel Anbar, Barry Blumberg, Peter Ward, Paul Davies

Topics: Astrobiology, Big Bang, Evolution, Extraterrestrial Life, Large Hadron Collider, Microbiology, String Theory, Theoretical Physics

CORRECTED VERSION: The 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake occurred on Good Friday, March 27th. It and rocked the state with strong ground shaking for 4.5 minutes. At magnitude 9.2, it was the second largest quake ever recorded by seismometers. This animation shows the underlying causes of that earthquake, and tells how research done on the ground deformation contributed to confirmation of early theories of plate tectonics.

Animation & graphics by Jenda Johnson, geologist, Earth Sciences Animated
Directed by Robert F. Butler, University of Portland
U.S. Geological Survey consultants:
Robert C. Witter, Alaska Science Center
Peter J. Haeussler, Alaska Science Center
Narrated by Roger Groom, Mount Tabor Middle School

Earthquake locations from UAF Alaska Earthquake Center. Maps from Google Earth. Video from US Army Corps of Engineers. Tsunami animation from National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. Photographs from US Geological Survey.
Funded by the National Science Foundation

Why do your fingers get pruney after a swim? Only a handful of researchers, including Einar Wilder-Smith, Mark Changizi, and Tom Smulders, have looked into the phenomenon. Publishing in Biology Letters, Smulders lends a hand to the hypothesis, set forth by Changizi and colleagues, that finger wrinkles improve our grip of wet objects.

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Josh Peck sits in for Sharon Gilbert and explains why quantum physics tells us the temperature can never hit absolute zero.

I did not make and do not own this video. BUT it was really cool and I wanted to upload it to my blog, and they had download availability on their blog post.

Here's the post, if you'd like to read! There are pictures!



All rights, credit, etc. should go to NPR's Science Friday.

sciencefriday.com
Why Spiders Don't Stick to The Web

William Eberhard, of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of Costa Rica, and colleague Daniel Briceno film spiders in the lab, in the field and under a dissecting microscope to untangle this longstanding arachnological mystery. The secret to not getting stuck? Oily, hairy legs and delicate movements.

Produced by Flora Lichtman
Video footage: Daniel Briceno and William Eberhard.
Additional: archive.org, prelinger archives

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE! The new live-action production of 'Beauty and the Beast' highlights a strange type of ancient myth: Stories of humans falling in love with gods who appear in the form of animals.

This is manifesting in our age as a weird type of emotional disorder where sufferers believe they're trapped inside the wrong body -- or wrong species. It's also selling our kids and grandkids on the idea of loving the beast.

Reporting in the journal Nature Physics, William Irvine and Dustin Kleckner, physicists at the University of Chicago, describe the knotted fluid vortex they created in the lab -- a scientific first, they say. The knots resemble smoke rings -- except these are made of water, and they're shaped like pretzels, not donuts. Understanding knottiness has extra-large applications, including untangling dynamics of the sun.

More SciFri videos

Untangling the Hairy Physics of Rapunzel:
Dive Into the Physics of Splashing:
Cracking the Egg Sprinkler Mystery:

On October 10, 2003, on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland Ohio, I got to attend an onsite broadcast of NPR's Science Friday. It was in conjuction with the opening of The Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics (CERCA), started by Lawrence Krauss, and had in attendance over 70 of the worlds most renowned physicist. This was a 3 day event which started with a talk the previous night, by Stephen Weinberg, and ended the following Monday night with a sold out talk by Stephen Hawking (I didn't have a ticket at the time). I took my video camera with me, and this video is from that camera.
I got to ask the 1st question from the audience in attendance (I am off camera, to the right, though I can be seen on Case Western Reserve University's video which they shot and is archived on their website. Good luck trying to view it though). As I was asking the question, Saul Perlmutter quickly came down the isle and sat to my right. After the question was answered, I shook his hand and went back to my seat. So in effect, though he had not yet won his Nobel Prize, with the shaking of Steven Weinberg's hand after this event, I got to shake the hand of 2 Nobel laureates.
When I got back to my seat, a representive from the city introduced himself to me and gave me his card. That jesture, 3 days later, lead to my attending the sold out Stephen Hawking talk. But before that Monday evening talk, after the NPR broadcast, as I was leaving the building, who do I bump into but Stephan Hawking, so I turned my video camera back on and taped it. That was the cherry on the top of what was a great day for me, and It's at the end of this program. I hope you enjoy it.

From the mandibles of a creepy crawly to your body comes a revolution in biomedical engineering. It's worm spit, from the silk worm moth caterpillar, although you may know it by its more common name, silk. Dr. David Kaplan explains how bioengineers at Tufts University are crafting this versatile protein into a myriad of medical materials.

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In 1957 at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Dr. Karl P. Schmidt, famed snake expert and herpetologist, made a detailed scientific account of the effect of venom from a snake bite in the human body—his body. Schmidt made the record while he was dying. The newspapers called his notes a “death diary.”

What can't 3D printers do? We've all heard news stories about 3D-printed food and medical prostheses—even cars and entire houses. But how does additive manufacturing, as it's also known, really work? And how can an at-home hobbyist get started? Ira teams up with Makerbot's Bre Pettis to present the ultimate beginner's guide to 3D printing.
Produced by Annie Minoff
Video by Luke Groskin

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With their ornately-colored bodies, rhythmic pulsations, and booty-shaking dance moves, male peacock spiders attract the attention of spectating females as well as researchers. One such animal behavior specialist, Madeline Girard, collected more than 30 different peacock spider species from the wilds of Australia and brought them back to her lab at UC Berkeley. Under controlled conditions, she recorded their unique dances in the hopes of deciphering what these displays actual say to a female spider and how standards differ between species.
All lab spider footage ©Madeline Girard

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Cuttlefish change the patterns on their body for courtship rituals, when they eat a snack, and most famously when they want to blend in. How they change their skin patterns may tell us something about how they see the world, says Duke biologist Sarah Zylinski. Her work suggests that when cuttlefish see incomplete shapes, they fill in the visual blanks -- much like humans do. Can't get enough saltwater camouflage? Watch: Where's The Octopus?
photographs, footage: sarah zylinski, archival: archive.org, produced by flora lichtman

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This video is part of Science Friday's #CephalopodWeek 2015! Join the cephaloparty starting Friday, June 19th.

What do you call an tiny octopus with big eyes, gelatinous skin and is cute as a button? Nobody knows quite yet! Stephanie Bush of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute aims to classify and name this presently undescribed deep-sea cephalopod using preserved specimens and a clutch of eggs hatch housed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

**DISCLAIMER** from Dr. Stephanie Bush: The Opisthoteuthis eggs depicted in this video are preserved specimens, not the eggs laid at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (which are still being lovingly incubated at MBARI's Cold Storage Facility!)

Photographer Roman Vishniac is perhaps best-known for documenting Jewish communities in Eastern Europe before World War II, but he also was a science buff. In the 1950s-1970s, with funding from the Educational Testing Service, the National Science Foundation and others, he made educational science films, featuring footage he shot through his microscope. Vishniac was a pioneer of cinemicroscopy (as he called it). The craft has changed with digital photography, says Dutch photographer Wim van Egmond, who has won numerous awards for his photomicrographs. van Egmond explains some of the techniques he uses to capture the micro-world in action

Its Latin name translates as the vampire squid from hell. And while its crimson skin and glowing eyes support its title, deep sea ecologists like Bruce Robison of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute have come to see the vampire squid as the antithesis of a bloodsucking predator. In fact, studies have shown that Vampyroteuthis infernalis is actually a gentle steward of the ocean's depths, gracefully foraging on marine detritus.

Produced by Christian Baker
Music by Audio Network
Additional Footage Provided by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Noam Chomsky on thought, consciousness and free will.

This video is part of Science Friday's #CephalopodWeek 2015! Join the cephaloparty starting Friday, June 19th.

Crawling, swimming, squeezing, jetting—the range of movement available to an octopus is impressive. Yet some species occasionally choose to stand up on two arms and run backwards. Chrissy Huffard, a Senior Researcher at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, explains the pros and cons of this seemingly silly behavior and why an octopus might find looking foolish useful.

Tardigrades - NPR Science Friday video (Jan 23, 2009)
Behold The Mighty, Microscopic Water Bear


Microscopic water bears, also known as tardigrades, can withstand boiling, freezing, radiation, the vacuum of space and years of dehydration. Biologist Bob Goldstein of the University of North Carolina describes the creatures and why he studies them.

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE! A new study shows that constantly checking social media, which is true of way too many of us, literally causes mental and emotional health issues.

Special thanks to the Ahuva Mishpochah Messianic Congregation on Prince Edward Island, Canada for today's SCIENCE!

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE! Hacking tools built by the NSA have been stolen and released into the wild, infecting nearly half a million computers around the world in a few days. This begs the question: Why do transhumanists think it's a good idea to network our brains to the Internet?

This is how live radio looks! Watch Ira Flatow talk to scientist turned playwright Carl Djerassi, actor Simon Jones and chemist Alfred Vendl talk about Djerassi's new play Phallacy.

A few years ago, Science Friday, in collaboration with microbiologist Vince Fischetti and his lab at The Rockefeller University, conducted an experiment looking into a perennial holiday concern: will alcohol kill bacteria in homemade eggnog? We bring you the results. Please note: the sample size in this study is rather small, a single batch of nog.

A parade of sponsors from the show's whole history!

Science Friday hopes to provide all our listeners, subscribers, readers, and supporters the joy of discovery and knowledge. But this year, we want to give you a little bit more... Watch the video to find out what Science Friday is giving ... to you!


(No puppies were harmed in the making of the video. In fact, if you feel so inclined you can actually adopt one at

Drift HD Athlete: Luke Hively joins NPR's Science Friday to discuss the physics of wingsuit BASE jumping & why time seems to slow down. Join Science Friday's Multimedia Editor Flora Lichtman, physicists Leif Ristroph & David Hu, neuroscientist Chess Stetson, and Drift Innovation Athlete / Dallas BASE Crew (DBC) team member Luke Hively on Plunging into the Science of BASE jumping. Watch the Drift HD video of Luke's wingsuit creating a vortex as he flies through a waterfall in his X-Bird, made by Tony Wingsuits (Tony Uragallo) and learn how we fly.

Also featuring Michael Biederman of iFly Seattle and Drift HD Athletes / DBC team members, Brad Perkins & Eugene Edwards.

Footage courtesy of Luke Hively
Shot with Drift HD, available at: driftinnovation.com
Music: Broke for Free/Swimming, Free Music Archive
Additional images: wikimedia

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Special Thanks to Science Friday. See the video there at:
or on their channel at:

Hear the On-Air discussion at:

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE! Your world is shaped by the information you receive. More and more, complex mathematical formulas are shaping your reality, from detecting skin cancers to suggesting new Facebook friends, deciding who gets a job, how police resources are deployed, who gets insurance at what cost, who is on a “no fly” list -- or what qualifies as real news.

Thanks to John Sudbury for this week's SCIENCE!

Available via BlogTalkRadio:
iTunes:
Stitcher (search The Thinking Atheist)

This show is a celebration of science. We talk about (arguably) the best discoveries and inventions of the Information Age. We honor the work of humankind's greatest scientific minds. And we raise our glasses to those who have given us a greater lens through which we can view our origins, our planet and the universe.

It's an amazing time to be alive. Indeed, science is just awesome.

Phil Hellenes Science Saved My Soul video:

Article: Science is More Beautiful than Art


Video The Center of all Things

Science Friday: October 6, 2006
(part 1 of 3)

In his book The God Delusion, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says fundamentalist religion subverts science and saps the intellect. Join guest host Joe Palca in this hour of Science Friday for a chat with Dawkins on religion, the teaching of evolution and creationism in science class, and his call for atheists to out themselves.

Visit the Site:

Astronauts are allowed to bring special crew preference items when they go up in space. NASA astronaut Don Pettit chose candy corn for his five and a half month stint aboard the International Space Station. But these candy corn were more than a snack, Pettit used them for experimentation.

NPR's jingle writer BJ Leiderman plays an improvised version of his newly written theme song for NPR's Science Friday. Read more about the musician in our September 2013 issue.

A mystery of the animal kingdom: How do owls turn their heads 270 degrees without damaging their blood vessels? At last an answer, published this week in Science, as the winning poster in the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. Fabian de Kok-Mercado, of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Philippe Gailloud, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, dissected and X-rayed owls to discover how the birds do the twist.

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Technology puts the world in the palm of your hand. The Enemy uses it to encourage the very worst parts of human nature and destroy the innocence of children.

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Scientists have discovered that light can trigger genetic changes in mice that turns them into stone-cold killers. How might this science be used on humans?

Plus: Through Monday, use promo code WATCHMEN to save $40 on registrations for the Hear the Watchmen conference March 31-April 2 in Dallas. For more information and to register, log on to HearTheWatchmen.com.

For centuries, maple syrup producers across New England and Canada harvested sap by drilling into the bark of fully grown wild trees. While commercial syrup producers have adopted vacuum pumps and plastic tubing to aid these efforts, recent experiments at the University of Vermont's Proctor Maple Research Center may further pull the industry from its pastoral roots. By vacuum-sucking sap directly from the cut tops of juvenile trees, the researchers increased syrup production 5 to 6 times per acre compared to the traditional sap collecting methods.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Video and Stills by Kieth Silva © Across the Fence, Abby van den Berg, Mark Isselhardt Shutterstock, Leonora Enking, Ben Ramirez, Sally McCay, Jim Hood, Kevstan

Plants may be stationary but they're rarely still, says biologist Roger Hangarter, creator of the website Plants in Motion. Researchers are using time-lapse photography to study the biomechanics of plant movement. For example, this week in the journal Science, physicist Sharon Gerbode, of Harvey Mudd College, and biologist Joshua Puzey, of Harvard University, explain how they used time-lapse, mathematical modelling and a prosthetic plant to understand how cucumber tendrils twist.

My beautiful wife is forever patient with me. Ask her the results:
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Promo Code: SMARTER
⇊⇊ Click below for more info ⇊⇊

If you'd like to ask my wife what she thought about this experiment feel free to tweet her:

If you did what I do, there's a cool way you can make it easier for me to do it:


Will Leahy compiled all the data.

If you want to play with the graph, it's here!


Outro music by A Shell in the Pit
Bottles which can be downloaded here.


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METHODOLOGY:

My first attempts with a new cologne would be to just apply it and wait for a comment. We have busy lives so often she wouldn't say anything. If one reached out and grabbed her attention (I try to apply only enough for her to smell me when she's close... not like a high school boy who pours it on) I knew it was an interesting scent to her. I tried to be honest, so many times I would wear one an entire day without a single comment from her. That was pretty hard to do because I was hungry for data. Sometimes if the mood was right and we were getting ready or something I'd casually ask what she thought about a certain fragrance. She's conducted serious biological research projects before so she understood all along the importance of the data set.

Some colognes I only tried once because it was obvious one of us hated it. Others were kind of in the whatever region. Those I would often try multiple times. Some she really liked one day, but not another. Those took multiple tries to weed out.

Often I would go without wearing anything, or perhaps my old aftershave just to make sure she wasn't gaming the system. The first or second day or so I realized that if she knew the names of the colognes it DRASTICALLY influenced her opinions. That just goes to show you how powerful marketing is on our perceptions.

At some points she got confused because she couldn't tell if I was re-wearing something I had tried earlier. For example, she became a bit self conscious about whether or not she had already told me she liked one... I could tell she was trying to give me consistent answers, but I kept shifting it up so much I filtered out all her attempts to game the data.

I also noticed that if I wore one that she complimented or mentioned without being prompted.

In the end, I'm really happy with what we chose. It's light and a bit sweet, but still has swagger to it. I fancy myself a manly man, and I think she likes that about me. If you want to try to pull the answer out of her, I'm sure she would get a kick out of that. Tweet her at and see if you can talk her out of the answer. If you're a normal supporter, PM me on Patreon and I'll tell you the result.
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Here is the Facebook Survey I pulled the data from:


Tweet ideas to me

I'm also on Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit




If you like what I do and want to support my efforts to create Smart kids and Smarter Every Day here are a couple of links you can use to help. You will be notified when every single video is released!
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Warm Regards,

Destin

You don't need a time machine to marvel at the hot broth of quarks and gluons that made up all matter a microsecond after the Big Bang. You just need a ticket on the Long Island Railroad. Using massive feats of engineering, Brookhaven National Laboratory has devised a recipe for cooking up tiny ephemeral batches of this quark-gluon soup, a fluid which physicists Paul Sorensen say is the most perfect fluid ever discovered.
Produced by Luke Groskin, Music by Audio Network, Additional Footage and Stills by Brookhaven National Laboratory NASA and Shutterstock