Big Picture Science

(Repeat) Astronauts are made of the “right stuff,” but what about their spacesuits?  NASA’s pressurized and helmeted onesies are remarkable, but they need updating if we’re to boldly go into deep space.  Suiting up on Mars requires more manual flexibility, for example. Find out what innovative materials might be used to reboot the suit. Meanwhile, strange new materials are in the pipeline for use on terra firma: spider silk is kicking off the development of biological materials that are inspiring ultra-strong, economical, and entirely new fabrics. And, while flesh-eating bacteria may seem like an unlikely ally in materials science, your doctor might reach for them one day. The bacterium’s proteins are the inspiration for a medical molecular superglue. Plus, an overview of more innovative materials to come, from those that are 3D printed to self-healing concrete.   Guests: Nicole Stott– Retired NASA astronaut, artist  Dava Newman– Professor of Astronautics and Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute o

ENCORE Water is essential for life – that we know. But the honeycomb lattice that forms when you chill it to zero degrees Celsius is also inexorably intertwined with life. Ice is more than a repository for water that would otherwise raise sea levels. It’s part of Earth’s cooling system, a barrier preventing decaying organic matter from releasing methane gas, and a vault entombing ancient bacteria and other microbes.  From the Arctic to the Antarctic, global ice is disappearing. Find out what’s at stake as atmospheric CO2 threatens frozen H2O.  Guests: Peter Wadhams- Emeritus Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University in the U.K. and the author of A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic Eric Rignot- Earth systems scientist, University of California, Irvine, senior research scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Åsmund Asdal- Biologist, Nordic Genetic Resource Center, coordinator for operations and management of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Svalbard, Norway John Priscu- Polar biologi

ENCORE It’s not just tin cans and newspapers. One man says that, from a technical standpoint, everything can be recycled – cigarette butts, yoga mats, dirty diapers. Even radioactive waste. You name it, we can recycle it. But we choose not to. Find out why we don’t, and how we could do more.  Plus, a solar-powered device that pulls water from the air – even desert air.  And, something upon which life depends that seems dirt cheap, but can’t be replenished: soil. What happens when we pave over this living resource?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ENCORE It’s one of the most bizarre biological experiments ever. In the 18th century, a scientist fitted a pair of tailor-made briefs on a male frog to determine the animal’s contribution to reproduction. The process of gestation was a mystery and scientists had some odd-ball theories.  Today, a 5th grader can tell you how babies are made, but we still don’t know exactly what life is. In our quest to understand, we’re still at the frogs’ pants stage. Find out why conception took centuries to figure out. Also, why the 1970s Viking experiments, specifically designed to detect life on Mars, couldn’t give us a definitive answer. Plus, can knowing where life isn’t help define what it is? Take a tour of the world’s barren places.  Guests: Jay Gallentine - Author of books about space and space history. Edward Dolnick - Author and former science writer at the Boston Globe. His book is The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to Da Vinci, from Shark’s Teeth to Frogs’ Pants. Chris McKay - Planetary scientist, NASA Ames

ENCORE Get ready for compassionate computers that feel your pain, share your joy, and generally get where you’re coming from. Computers that can tell by your voice whether you’re pumped up or feeling down, or sense changes in heart rate, skin, or muscle tension to determine your mood. Empathetic electronics that you can relate to. But wait a minute – we don’t always relate to other humans. Our behavior can be impulsive and even self-sabotaging – our emotions are often conflicted and irrational.  We cry when we’re happy. Frown when we’re pensive. A suite of factors, much of them out of our control, govern how we behave, from genes to hormones to childhood experience.  One study says that all it takes for a defendant to receive a harsher sentence is a reduction in the presiding judge’s blood sugar. So grab a cookie, and find out how the heck we can build computers that understand us anyway.  Guests: Rosalind Picard – Professor at the MIT Media Lab and co-founder of the companies Affectiva and Empatica.  Rob

Pluto, we hardly knew ye. Well, not anymore! Until recently, Pluto and Mars were respectively the least-known and best-known planet-sized bodies in our Solar System. Thanks to the New Horizons spacecraft, our picture of Pluto has changed from a featureless dot to a place where we can name the geologic features. And with rovers and orbiters surveying the red planet, we now know much more about Mars than our parents ever did. Examining our planetary backyard has provided insight into the trillion other planets in our galaxy. Dive into a mountain lake and trek though the driest desert on Earth with a scientist who’s had not one but two near-fatal incidents in these extreme environments. Find out what questions compel her to keep returning. And scientists on the New Horizons mission remember why the nail-biting Pluto flyby almost failed at the last minute. Find out what surprises Pluto offered and what the mission might uncover as it heads to its next, outer solar-system target. Also, from Earth-like planets to s

ENCORE Time passes like an arrow, but what if it flew like a boomerang? Scientists are learning how to reverse time’s most relentless march: aging. But before we rewind time, let’s try to define it, because there’s plenty of debate about just what time is – a fundamental component of the universe or a construct of our consciousness? Find out why, even though pondering the future may cause heartburn, mental time travel has an evolutionary survival advantage. Plus, your brain as a clock; why “brain age” may be more accurate than chronological age in determining lifespan. And while a million-dollar monetary prize hopes to inspire researchers to crack the aging code, one group claims they already have. By reprogramming special genes, they’ve reversed the biological clocks in mice. Find out when human trials begin.  Guests: Dean Buonomano– Neurobiologist and psychologist at UCLA and author of “Your Brain is a Time Machine” James Cole– Postdoc studying neuroanatomy, Imperial College London  Joon Yun– Radiolog

ENCORE You are your brain. But what happens when your brain changes for the worse – either by physical injury or experience? Are you still responsible for your actions? We hear how the case of a New York man charged with murder was one of the first to introduce neuroscience as evidence in court. Plus, how technology hooks us – a young man so addicted to video games, he lacked social skills, or even a desire to eat. Find out how technology designers conspire against his digital detox. Also, even if your brain is intact and your only task is choosing a sock color, are you really in control? How your unconscious directs even mundane behavior … and how you can outwit it.  Guests: Kevin Davis – Author of The Brain Defense: Murder in Manhattan and the Dawn of Neuroscience in America’s Courtrooms Hilarie Cash – Co-founder and chief clinical officer of reSTART, an internet addiction recovery program Adam Alter – Assistant professor of marketing and psychology at New York University, Stern School of Business, a

ENCORE Whether they swim, slither, jump, or fly, animal locomotion is more than just an urge to roam: it’s necessary for survival. Evolution has come up with ingenious schemes to get from here to there. Hear how backbones evolved as a consequence of fish needing to wag their fins, and why no animals have wheels.  Motion is more than locomotion. Test the physics of movement in your kitchen and find out what popping corn has in common with the first steam engine. And while physics insists that atoms are always moving, find how what happens to these basic building blocks when placed in the coldest spot in the universe. The Cold Atom Laboratory chills material to nearly absolute zero, creating some weird superfluid effects as atoms slow down.   Guests: Matt Wilkinson– Zoologist, science writer, University of Cambridge, author of Restless Creatures: The Story of Life in Ten Movements. Technology. Helen Czerski–physicist, University College London, author of Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life. 

ENCORE Know your brain? Think again. Driven by a hidden agenda, powered by an indecipherable web of neurons, and influenced by other brains, your grey matter is a black box. To "know thyself" may be a challenge, and free will nonexistent, but maybe more technology can shed light on the goings on in your noggin, and the rest of your body. Find out how tiny implanted sensors called “brain dust” may reveal what really going on. Plus, the day when your brain is uploaded into a computer as ones and zeros. Will you still be you? Guests: David Eagleman – Neuroscientist, Stanford University, author of The Brain: the Story of You. Michel Maharbiz – Electrical engineer, University of California, Berkeley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ENCORE Sherlock Holmes doesn’t have a science degree, yet he thinks rationally – like a scientist. You can too! Learn the secrets of being irritatingly logical from the most famous sleuth on Baker Street. Plus, discover why animal trackers 100,000 years ago may have been the first scientists, and what we can learn from about deductive reasoning from today’s African trackers. Also, the author of a book on teaching physics to your dog provides tips for unleashing your inner scientist, even if you hated science in school. And newly-minted scientists imagine classes they wish were available to them as grad students, such as “You Can’t Save the World 101.” Guests: Louis Liebenberg - Co-founder and Executive Director of Cybertracker Conservation, associate of human evolutionary biology, Harvard University Maria Konnikova - Psychologist, journalist and author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. Her weekly blog on psychology is at com. Chad Orzel - Physicist and astronomer at Union College, and a

ENCORE Einstein thought that quantum mechanics might be the end of physics, and most scientists felt sure it would never be useful. Today, everything from cell phones to LED lighting is completely dependent on the weird behavior described by quantum mechanics. But the story continues. Quantum computers may be millions of times faster than your laptop, and applying them to big data could be transformational for biology and health. Quantum entanglement – “spooky” action at a distance – may not allow faster-than-light communication, but could be important in other ways. And there’s even the suggestion that quantum mechanics defines the difference between life and death. Quantum physics. It’s weird and exotic. But it’s how the universe works. Guests: Seth Lloyd – Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Johnjoe McFadden – Lecturer at the University of Surrey, and co-author of Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology Michael Raymer – Professo

It was a shocker of a story, splashed across the New York Times front page: The existence of a five-year long, hidden Pentagon investigation of UFOs. With one-third of the American public convinced that aliens are visiting Earth, could this study finally provide the proof? We consider how this story came to light and what the $22 million program has produced. Does the existence of a secret study mean there’s now decent proof of extraterrestrial craft in our skies? We take a look at the evidence made public so far. And why, six years after the study ended, are we learning about it now? Guests: James Oberg - Space journalist, historian and former NASA employee James McGaha - Retired Air Force pilot, astronomer and director of the Grasslands Observatory Ben Radford - Deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine and a Research Fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ENCORE For a half-century, space has been the playground of large, government agencies. While everyone could dream of becoming an astronaut, few could actually do so. Things have changed. We hear how a geeky son of immigrant parents incentivized the ground-breaking launch of SpaceShipOne, and spawned the commercial rocket industry.  And while you’re waiting for a ticket to ride, why not build your own satellite to keep tabs on the kids or just check out the back forty? A CubeSat could be your next basement project. And the hitherto untold story of how black women mathematicians a half-century ago helped get a man into orbit, and astronauts to the moon. Guests: Margot Lee Shetterly – Author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. Simon “Pete” Worden – Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and former Center Director of NASA Ames Research Center Julian Guthrie – Journalist and author of How to Make a Spaceship: A B

ENCORE The record of the rocks is not just the history of Earth; it’s your history too. Geologists can learn about events going back billions of years that influenced – and even made possible – our present-day existence and shaped our society. If the last Ice Age had been a bit warmer, the rivers and lakes of the Midwest would have been much farther north and the U.S. might still be a small country of 13 states. If some Mediterranean islands hadn’t twisted a bit, no roads would have led to Rome. Geology is big history, and the story is on-going. Human activity is changing the planet too, and has introduced its own geologic era, the Anthropocene. Will Earthlings of a hundred million years from now dig up our plastic refuse and study it the way we study dinosaur bones? Plus, the dodo had the bad luck to inhabit a small island and couldn’t adapt to human predators. But guess what? It wasn’t as dumb as you think. Guests: Walter Alvarez – Professor of Geology, University of California, Berkeley, and author of A

ENCORE You own a cat, or is it vice versa? Family friendly felines have trained their owners to do their bidding. Thanks to a successful evolutionary adaptation, they rule your house. Find out how your cat has you wrapped around its paw. And it’s not the only animal to outwit us. Primatologist Frans de Waal shares the surprising intellectual capabilities of chimps, elephants, and bats. In fact, could it be that we’re simply not smart enough to see how smart animals are? Plus, the discovery of a fossilized dinosaur brain. Were those lumbering lizards more clever than we thought?   Guests: Alex Liu – Paleontologist, University of Cambridge, U.K. Abigail Tucker – Author of The Lion in the Living Room: How Housecats Tamed Us and Took Over the World Frans de Waal – Primatologist, psychologist, Emory University, and author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ENCORE Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Not that they haven’t tried. History is replete with attempts to control the weather, but we’d settle for an accurate seven-day forecast. Find out how sophisticated technology might improve accuracy, including predicting the behavior of severe storms. Plus, the age when “weather forecast” was a laughable idea, but why 19th century rebel scientists pursued it anyway. Also, a meteorologist who was falsely claimed to have “solved” the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, and a climate scientist recounts the history of trying to control the weather, and the potential future of geoengineering. Guests: Cliff Mass – Professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. Peter Moore – Author of “The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future.” Steven Miller – Meteorologist, Colorado State University Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. Alan Robock – Meteorologist and climatologist, Departmen

ENCORE Got aches and pains? Critters in the Cretaceous would have been sympathetic. A new study reveals that painful arthritis plagued a duck-billed dinosaur. Scientists impressively diagnosed the animal’s condition without a house call by examining its 70 million-year old bones. The technology we use for health diagnoses are becoming so sophisticated, some people are prompted to bypass doctors and do it themselves. Meet a man who had his genome sequenced and then had all 70 gigabytes delivered directly to him so that he could gauge his genetic health.   Also, practitioners who are trying to improve cognitive function using a battery and a few wires.  Find out the possible risks and benefits of DIY brain stimulation.  Guests: Jennifer Anne - Recent graduate, University of Manchester, studies injuries and diseases in dinosaurs. Carl Zimmer - Science writer, author. National correspondent for STAT, an online magazine that reports on the frontiers of science and medicine. His weekly column “Matter,” appears

ENCORE You are not alone. You can’t see ‘em, but your face is a festival of face mites. They’ve  evolved with us for millennia. And a new study finds that hundreds of different tiny spiders, beetles, and – our favorite - book lice make your home theirs. But before you go bonkers with the disinfectant, consider: eradicating these critters may do more harm than good. Some are such close evolutionary partners with humans that they keep us healthy and can even reveal something about our ancestry. But then there are bed bugs. Pests without redemption. However, their newly-sequenced genome may help us end their nightly nuisances. And of course some microscopic critters are deadly. So when it comes to bugs: when do we accommodate and when do we attack?   Guests: Michelle Trautwein – Curator of entomology, California Academy of Sciences Matt Bertone – Entomologist, North Carolina State University Joshua Benoit -- Insect molecular biologist, University of Cincinnati  Thomas McDade – Biological anthropologis

Hey, let’s meet last week for coffee. Okay, we can’t meet in the past … yet. But could it be only a matter of time before we can? In an attempt to defy the grandfather paradox, scientists try sending a photon back in time to destroy itself.  Also, find out how teleportation allows particles to instantaneously skip through space-time and why sending humans wouldn’t violate the laws of physics.  But before you pack your bags for that instantaneous trip to Paris, we need to understand the nature of time. A physicist offers a testable theory and ponders how it bears on free will. Plus, feel as if time comes to a standstill when you’re standing in line? Tricks for altering your perception of time while you wait. Some businesses already use them on you.   Guests: Richard Muller – Physicist, University of California Berkeley, author of “Now: The Physics of Time”  Seth Lloyd – Professor of quantum mechanical engineering, M.I.T.  Emma Bentley – contributor  David Andrews – Author of, “Why Does the Other Line