New Books in Science
745 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 days ago - ★★★★ - 13 ratingsInterviews with Scientists about their New Books
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Episodes
John P. Gluck, "Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals: A Primate Scientist's Ethical Journey" (U Chicago Press, 2016)
January 03, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourThe National Institute of Health recently announced its plan to retire the fifty remaining chimpanzees held in national research facilities and place them in sanctuaries. This significant decision comes after a lengthy process of examination and debate about the ethics of animal research. For decades, proponents of such research have argued that the discoveries and benefits for humans far outweigh the costs of the traumatic effects on the animals; but today, even the researchers themselves ha...
Why are Insects so Scary? On Insects in Films.
January 03, 2023 09:00 - 42 minutesThis episode from the Vault is a lecture by May Berenbaum about why insects are so scary. Professor Berenbaum is an American entomologist whose research focuses on the chemical interactions between herbivorous insects and their host plants. She teaches entomology at the University of Illinois, and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2014. She is also the organizer of the annual Insect Fear Film Festival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show ...
Christopher M. Palmer, "Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health" (Benbella Books, 2022)
December 23, 2022 09:00 - 56 minutesChristopher M. Palmer's book Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health (Benbella Books, 2022) will forever change the way we understand and treat mental health. If you or someone you love is affected by mental illness, it might change your life. We are in the midst of a global mental health crisis, and mental illnesses are on the rise. But what causes mental illness? And why are mental health problems so hard to treat? Drawing on decades of research, Harvard ps...
Tom McLeish, "The Poetry and Music of Science: Comparing Creativity in Science and Art" (Oxford UP, 2021)
December 20, 2022 09:00 - 35 minutesWhat human qualities are needed to make scientific discoveries, and which to make great art? Many would point to 'imagination' and 'creativity' in the second case but not the first. Tom McLeish's The Poetry and Music of Science: Comparing Creativity in Science and Art (Oxford UP, 2021) challenges the assumption that doing science is in any sense less creative than art, music or fictional writing and poetry, and treads a historical and contemporary path through common territories of the creati...
James D. Stein, "Seduced by Mathematics: The Enduring Fascination of Mathematics" (World Scientific, 2022) Math
December 19, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourSeduction is not just an end result, but a process -- and in mathematics, both the end results and the process by which those end results are achieved are often charming and elegant.This helps to explain why so many people -- not just those for whom math plays a key role in their day-to-day lives -- have found mathematics so seductive. Math is unique among all subjects in that it contains end results of amazing insight and power, and lines of reasoning that are clever, charming, and elegant. ...
Seeing Truth in Variability, Creativity, and Building Biological Collections
December 15, 2022 09:00 - 44 minutesIn this episode, scientists speak back to ideas about collection building, knowledge making, and the role of art and creativity in research. Bernard Goffinet and Eric Schultz, professors in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, discuss their roles in building and maintaining UConn’s Biodiversity Research Collections and their vision for how scientific knowledge, data, and research will shape our future. Learn more about the Seeing Truth exhibitio...
Nancy J. Nersessian, "Interdisciplinarity in the Making: Models and Methods in Frontier Science" (MIT Press, 2022)
December 10, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourBased on examining physics and the practices of physicists, philosophers of science often see models in science as representational intermediaries between scientific theories and the world. But what do scientists do when they don’t yet have the models or the theories? In Interdisciplinarity in the Making: Models and Methods in Frontier Science (MIT Press, 2022), Nancy Nersessian reveals the bootstrapping creation of models in two biomedical engineering and two integrated system biology labs....
David Lindsay, "Scientific Writing = Thinking in Words" (CSIRO Publishing, 2020)
December 07, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourListen to this interview of David Lindsay, emeritus professor of the University of Western Australia. We talk about his book Scientific Writing = Thinking in Words (CSIRO Publishing, 2020) and how your hypothesis can save the communication of your research. David Lindsay : "It's quite unfortunate that we're training our undergraduates in science this way. I mean, undergraduates know that when they write something, for example, a protocol to be graded—undergraduates know that their professors ...
James A. Geraghty, "Inside the Orphan Drug Revolution: The Promise of Patient-Centered Biotechnology" (Cold Springs Harbor Lab Press, 2022)
December 06, 2022 09:00 - 43 minutesAdvances in medicine have made possible better treatments for widespread, familiar human illnesses like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Yet there are thousands of much less common diseases, most of genetic origin, each classed as rare because it afflicts only a small number of people. These patient groups were long ignored by a pharmaceutical industry that judged them too small to provide a return on the investment needed to develop an effective remedy. Yet these orphaned diseases collec...
Mary-Frances O'Connor, "The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss" (HarperOne, 2022)
December 05, 2022 09:00 - 52 minutesFor as long as humans have existed, we have struggled when a loved one dies. Poets and playwrights have written about the dark cloak of grief, the deep yearning, how devastating heartache feels. But until now, we have had little scientific perspective on this universal experience. In The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss (HarperOne, 2022), neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallm...
Joseph Silk, "Back to the Moon: The Next Giant Leap for Humankind" (Princeton UP, 2022)
November 28, 2022 09:00 - 35 minutesJust over half a century since Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the lunar surface, a new space race to the Moon is well underway and rapidly gaining momentum. Laying out a vision for the next fifty years, Back to the Moon: The Next Giant Leap for Humankind (Princeton UP, 2022) is astrophysicist Joseph Silk's persuasive and impassioned case for putting scientific discovery at the forefront of lunar exploration. The Moon offers opportunities beyond our wildest imaginings, and plans to retur...
Alfred S. Posamentier, "The Secret Lives of Numbers: Numerals and Their Peculiarities in Mathematics and Beyond" (Prometheus Books, 2022)
November 23, 2022 09:00 - 54 minutesAlfred S. Posamentier's The Secret Lives of Numbers: Numerals and Their Peculiarities in Mathematics and Beyond (Prometheus Books, 2022) is the first book I’ve ever seen written by a mathematician that will absolutely, definitely, certainly appeal to people who love numbers and who don’t love mathematics. I would urge all listeners to tell everyone they know who has a fascination with numbers to listen to this podcast, especially if they don’t love mathematics because they will definitely lov...
Ann-Christine Duhaime, "Minding the Climate: How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis" (Harvard UP, 2022)
November 22, 2022 09:00 - 59 minutesWhy is it so difficult to adopt a more sustainable way of life, even when convinced of the urgency of the environmental crisis? If adopting new behaviors beneficial for the environment is so challenging at the individual level, no wonder it is even harder at the community or governmental levels. Seeing individual and collective behaviors not changing, or not rapidly enough, eventually leads to the belief that nothing can be done and that human beings are just “hard-wired” that way. This is wh...
Probability
November 22, 2022 09:00 - 18 minutesIn this episode of High Theory, Justin Joque talks with Júlia Irion Martins about Probability. This conversation is part of our High Theory in STEM series, which tackles topics in science, technology, engineering, and medicine from a highly theoretical perspective. If you want to learn more about the philosophical, technical, and economic implications of probability, check out Justin’s new book, Revolutionary Mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, and the Logic of Capitalism (Verso...
Robert P. Crease with Peter D. Bond, "The Leak: Politics, Activists, and Loss of Trust at Brookhaven National Laboratory" (MIT Press, 2022)
November 18, 2022 09:00 - 55 minutesIn 1997, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory found a small leak of radioactive water near their research reactor. Brookhaven was--and is--a world-class, Nobel Prize-winning lab, and its reactor was the cornerstone of US materials science and one of the world's finest research facilities. The leak, harmless to health, came from a storage pool rather than the reactor. But its discovery triggered a media and political firestorm that resulted in the reactor's shutdown, and even attempts ...
Steven N. Austad, "Methuselah's Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us about Living Longer, Healthier Lives" (MIT Press, 2022)
November 15, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourOpossums in the wild don't make it to the age of three; our pet cats can live for a decade and a half; cicadas live for seventeen years (spending most of them underground). Whales, however, can live for two centuries and tubeworms for several millennia. Meanwhile, human life expectancy tops out around the mid-eighties, with some outliers living past 100 or even 110. Is there anything humans can learn from the exceptional longevity of some animals in the wild? In Methuselah's Zoo: What Nature ...
Alexandr Draganov, "Mathematical Tools for Real-World Applications: A Gentle Introduction for Students and Practitioners" (MIT Press, 2022)
November 11, 2022 09:00 - 54 minutesI’ve never read a book like Mathematical Tools for Real-World Applications: A Gentle Introduction for Students and Practitioners (MIT Press, 2022) – it’s a book about how engineers and scientists see math, and I found it fascinating. What intrigued me about this book was not that it just presents and solves a bunch of interesting problems, it shows how scientists and engineers differ in their approach to problem solving from mathematicians. Shame on me, but as a mathematician, I’ve always bee...
Karen Bakker, "The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants" (Princeton UP, 2022)
November 11, 2022 09:00 - 56 minutesThe natural world teems with remarkable conversations, many beyond human hearing range. Scientists are using groundbreaking digital technologies to uncover these astonishing sounds, revealing vibrant communication among our fellow creatures across the Tree of Life. At once meditative and scientific, The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants (Princeton UP, 2022)shares fascinating and surprising stories of nonhuman sound, interweaving i...
Thom van Dooren, "A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions" (MIT Press, 2022)
November 07, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourIn this time of extinctions, the humble snail rarely gets a mention. And yet snails are disappearing faster than any other species. In A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions (MIT Press, 2022), Thom van Dooren offers a collection of snail stories from Hawai'i--once home to more than 750 species of land snails, almost two-thirds of which are now gone. Following snail trails through forests, laboratories, museums, and even a military training facility, and meeting with scien...
Perry Zurn and Dani S. Bassett, "Curious Minds: The Power of Connection" (MIT Press, 2022)
November 03, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourCurious about something? Google it. Look at it. Ask a question. But is curiosity simply information seeking? According to this exhilarating, genre-bending book, what's left out of the conventional understanding of curiosity are the wandering tracks, the weaving concepts, the knitting of ideas, and the thatching of knowledge systems--the networks, the relations between ideas and between people. Curiosity, say Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett, is a practice of connection: it connects ideas into netw...
David Kaiser, "Well, Doc, You're In: Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe" (MIT Press, 2022)
November 02, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourFreeman Dyson (1923–2020)—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—helped invent modern physics. Not bound by disciplinary divisions, he went on to explore foundational topics in mathematics, astrophysics, and the origin of life. General readers were introduced to Dyson’s roving mind and heterodox approach in his 1979 book Disturbing the Universe, a poignant autobiographical reflection on life and science. "Well, Doc, You're In": Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe (MIT Press, ...
Sian E. Harding, "The Exquisite Machine: The New Science of the Heart" (MIT Press, 2022)
October 31, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourYour heart is a miracle in motion, a marvel of construction unsurpassed by any human-made creation. It beats 100,000 times every day--if you were to live to 100, that would be more than 3 billion beats across your lifespan. Despite decades of effort in labs all over the world, we have not yet been able to replicate the heart's perfect engineering. But, as Sian Harding shows us in The Exquisite Machine: The New Science of the Heart (MIT Press, 2022), new scientific developments are opening up ...
Annalisa Berta and Susan Turner, "Rebels, Scholars, Explorers: Women in Vertebrate Paleontology" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
October 28, 2022 08:00 - 39 minutesIn Rebels, Scholars, Explorers: Women in Vertebrate Paleontology (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020), Professors Annalisa Berta and Susan Turner uncover the rich legacy of women in the field of vertebrate paleontology from the eighteenth century until today. Through a series of biographies arranged both chronologically and geographically, the book offers a most welcome historical overview of the diverse contributions made by women to the advancement of vertebrate paleontology. Traditional ...
Halloween Special: Schrodinger’s Cat
October 25, 2022 08:00 - 12 minutesKim talks with George Gibson about Schrödinger’s cat. This cat is a thought experiment proposed by Erwin Schrödinger, and taken up in correspondence with Albert Einstein, in the 1930s. Schrödinger’s original paper on the subject, “Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik” (Naturwissenschaften 23 no. 48 (November 1935): 807–812) doi: 10.1007/BF01491891 was translated by John D. Trimmer and published as “The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics: A Translation of Schrödinger’s ‘Cat Pa...
Lisa Feldman Barrett, "Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain" (Mariner Books, 2020)
October 19, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourHave you ever wondered why you have a brain? Let renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett demystify that big gray blob between your ears. In Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain (Mariner Books, 2020), Feldman reveals mind-expanding lessons from the front lines of neuroscience research. You’ll learn where brains came from, how they’re structured (and why it matters), and how yours works in tandem with other brains to create everything you experience. Along the way, you’ll also learn to...
Robert P. Crease, "The Leak: Politics, Activists, and Loss of Trust at Brookhaven National Laboratory" (MIT Press, 2022)
October 18, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourIn 1997, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory found a small leak of radioactive water near their research reactor. Brookhaven was--and is--a world-class, Nobel Prize-winning lab, and its reactor was the cornerstone of US materials science and one of the world's finest research facilities. The leak, harmless to health, came from a storage pool rather than the reactor. But its discovery triggered a media and political firestorm that resulted in the reactor's shutdown, and even attempts ...
Nadine Weidman, "Killer Instinct: The Popular Science of Human Nature in Twentieth-Century America" (Harvard UP, 2021)
October 11, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourA historian of science examines key public debates about the fundamental nature of humans to ask why a polarized discourse about nature versus nurture became so entrenched in the popular sciences of animal and human behavior. Are humans innately aggressive or innately cooperative? In the 1960s, bestselling books enthralled American readers with the startling claim that humans possessed an instinct for violence inherited from primate ancestors. Critics responded that humans were inherently lo...
The Surprising World of Wasps
October 06, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourWelcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: What inspired Professor Sumner to study wasps. That time she ate a slug. Her grad school research trip to study wasps in the Malaysian rainforest. The complex and varied roles wasps play in the natural world. The importance of approaching the natural world with endless curiosity. Today’s book is: Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps, which explores these much-maligned insects’ secret world, their incredible diversity a...
On Einstein's Discoveries
September 29, 2022 08:00 - 30 minutesBefore Albert Einstein, our understanding of space, time, and gravity hadn’t really shifted from the theories that Sir Isaac Newton developed in the 1700s. But in 1905, Einstein published his theory of special relativity; he’d discovered that time can warp in the universe. Then, he published his theory of general relativity and gave us a completely new understanding of gravity. These theories liberated scientists, artists, and the public to think in radical new ways. Peter Galison is a profe...
On Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"
September 28, 2022 08:00 - 32 minutesCharles Dawin’s 1859 book The Origin of Species introduced his famous theory of evolution. Darwin developed his theories of life and evolution after a historic voyage circumnavigating the globe on the H.M.S. Beagle. Most people at the time believed what the naturalist theologians believed: that God had created organisms perfectly adapted to their environments. Darwin, however, saw life in a different way. He saw organisms as constantly evolving to better fit their environments. Robert Proctor...
Fred Spier, "How the Biosphere Works: Fresh Views Discovered While Growing Peppers" (CRC Press, 2022)
September 22, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourHow the Biosphere Works: Fresh Views Discovered While Growing Peppers (CRC Press, 2022) offers a simple and novel theoretical approach to understanding the history of the biosphere, including humanity’s place within it. It also helps to clarify what the possibilities and limitations are for future action. This is a subject of wide interest because today we are facing a great many environmental issues, many of which may appear unconnected. Yet all these issues are part of our biosphere. For ma...
Beronda L. Montgomery, "Lessons from Plants" (Harvard UP, 2021)
September 15, 2022 09:00 - 21 minutesWe know that plants are important. They maintain the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. They nourish other living organisms and supply psychological benefits to humans as well, improving our moods and beautifying the landscape around us. But plants don't just passively provide. They also take action. Beronda L. Montgomery explores the vigorous, creative lives of organisms often treated as static and predictable. In fact, plants are masters of adaptation. They "know" ...
History, Space, and Getting Things Wrong
September 14, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourIn today’s episode of How To Be Wrong we welcome Dr. Steven Dick, retired Chief Historian at NASA and one of the leading historians of space exploration. Our conversation ranges from Steve’s experiences having his initial dissertation proposal rejected as not focusing on a “legitimate” topic (the history of thinking about extraterrestrials) to his experiences at NASA following the Columbia disaster. Our conversation also moves into one of the more serious problems of our time—the growing tend...
Karen Hunger Parshall, "The New Era in American Mathematics, 1920–1950" (Princeton UP, 2022)
September 12, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourIn The New Era in Mathematics, 1920-1950 (Princeton University Press, 2022) Karen Parshall explores the institutional, financial, social, and political forces that shaped and supported the American Mathematics community in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing from extensive archival and primary-source research, Professor Parshall uncovers the key players in American mathematics who worked together to effect change. She highlights the educational, professional, philanthropic, and g...
Elise Vernon Pearlstine, "Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance" (Yale UP, 2022)
September 08, 2022 08:00 - 53 minutesPlants have long harnessed the chemical characteristics of aromatic compounds to shape the world around them. Frankincense resin from the genus Boswellia seals injured tissues and protects trees from invading pathogens. Jasmine produces a molecule called linalool that attracts pollinating moths with its flowery scent. Tobacco uses a similarly sweet-smelling compound called benzyl acetone to attract pollinators. Only recently in the evolutionary history of plants, however, have humans learned ...
On Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
September 08, 2022 08:00 - 29 minutesIn 1962, American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn was struck by Aristotle’s beliefs about motion. Actually, he thought that those theories didn’t make any sense. But he also knew that Aristotle was one of the smartest philosophers of the ancient world. Kuhn realized that if Aristotle was stuck within his own way of seeing the world, then so are we. His ideas about scientific revolutions changed the way we perceive and teach science. S...
Georg Striedter, "Model Systems in Biology: History, Philosophy, and Practical Concerns" (MIT Press, 2022)
September 07, 2022 08:00 - 49 minutesBiomedical research using various animal species and in vitro cellular systems has resulted in both major successes and translational failure. In Model Systems in Biology: History, Philosophy, and Practical Concerns (MIT Press, 2022), comparative neurobiologist Georg Striedter examines how biomedical researchers have used animal species and in vitro cellular systems to understand and develop treatments for human diseases ranging from cancer and polio to Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. ...
Survival of the Leftest: Should We Embrace Behavioural Genetics?
September 07, 2022 08:00 - 51 minutesCan genetics play a role in crafting left social policy? Or should we not touch those ideas ever again–even with a 10 foot pole? Paige Harden’s book, “The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality” makes a forceful case for an egalitarian politics informed by DNA. However, geneticist Joseph Graves critiqued the book, arguing that we do not need sophisticated genetic knowledge to make a more socially just world. On this episode managing producer Marc Apollonio guest hosts, talking t...
John Measey, "How to Publish in Biological Sciences: A Guide for the Uninitiated" (CRC Press, 2022)
September 05, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourListen to this interview of John Measey, Researcher at the Centre for Invasion Biology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. We talk about the needs of early-career researchers and also about our need for early-career researchers. John Measey : "What we really need to know is what a scientific journal is for and what we want it to be for. So, we know, more or less, what it was for and where it came from, but what do we want that to be in the twenty-first century, and how will the journal me...
Peter Winkler, "Mathematical Puzzles" (A K Peters, 2020)
August 23, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourPeter Winkler has been collecting mathematical puzzles since childhood. He has had published two previous collections, and recently he compiled his largest curated collection to date. Mathematical Puzzles (A K Peters, 2021) also takes an alluring new approach to the genre: In the Roman-numbered front matter, 300+ puzzles are presented, roughly in order of increasing difficulty. Fuller discussions of the puzzles are then organized into 24 chapters according to the key insight that leads to the...
On Edwin Hubble’s "The Realm of the Nebulae"
August 22, 2022 08:00 - 38 minutesUntil the publication of Edwin Hubble’s 1936 book, The Realm of the Nebulae, astronomers believed that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the universe. Hubble infinitely expanded our understanding of the cosmos and showed that what scientists thought was everything, was really just the beginning. In this episode, MIT professor emeritus Marcia Bartusiak unpacks Hubble’s findings and discusses how they impact the field of astronomy to this day. Marica Bartusiak is Professor of the Practice Em...
The Poison Paradigm: What a Toxic Chemical Tells us about the Politics of Science
August 19, 2022 08:00 - 58 minutesWe are exposed to thousands of toxic chemicals daily. This is no accident; it is by design. They are everywhere – coating our consumer products, in our food packaging, being dumped into our lakes and sewers, and in countless other places. However, for the most part, regulators say that we need not worry. That assessment is based on a simple 500-year-old adage, “the dose makes the poison.” The logic is simple: anything is poisonous, depending on how large a dose. Dosing yourself with a miniscu...
Adam Nocek, "Molecular Capture: The Animation of Biology" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
August 17, 2022 08:00 - 55 minutesIn Molecular Capture: The Animation of Biology (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), Adam Nocek, Assistant Professor in the Philosophy of Technology and Science and Technology Studies at Arizona State University, investigates the collusion between entertainment and scientific visualization in the case of molecular animation. “The very same tools that were invented to animate a character like Shrek or Nemo are now being applied to set in motion protein domains and cellular processes.” Opening...
Joseph Mileti, "Modern Mathematical Logic" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
August 15, 2022 08:00 - 47 minutesToday I had the pleasure of talking to Joe Mileti, associate professor of mathematics at Grinnell College. Even if you are not "into" math, you will enjoy this conversation. We talked about how math is not what you think it is. It's not just memorizing formulas and grinding. It's about thinking and, like all thinking, it involves abstraction, logic, using analogies and metaphors, and a bunch of imagination. We also talked about how math is about talking to other mathematicians and doing a kin...
The Science Wars: Post-Truth and the Nature of Science
July 29, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourWelcome to the final day of our weeklong deep dive into the politics of education. Today, we’ve got another episode of Cited for you. If you haven’t heard a Cited episode before, it’s the documentary show that came before Darts and Letters and it specialised in immersive storytelling. This piece takes us on a journey through a little-known, long-past set of debates on the nature of science in democratic society: the Science Wars. They may seem lost to time, but some scholars say the Science W...
Lisa Jean Moore, "Our Transgenic Future: Spider Goats, Genetic Modification, and the Will to Change Nature" (NYU Press, 2022)
July 20, 2022 08:00 - 45 minutesThe process of manipulating the genetic material of one animal to include the DNA of another creates a new transgenic organism. Several animals, notably goats, mice, sheep, and cattle are now genetically modified in this way. In Our Transgenic Future: Spider Goats, Genetic Modification, and the Will to Change Nature (NYU Press, 2022), Lisa Jean Moore wonders what such scientific advances portend. Will the natural world become so modified that it ceases to exist? After turning species into hyb...
Rachael Pells, "Genomics: How Genome Sequencing Will Change Healthcare" (Random House, 2022)
July 15, 2022 08:00 - 57 minutesGenome sequencing is one of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs of the past thirty years. But what precisely does it involve and how is it developing? In Genomics: How Genome Sequencing Will Change Healthcare (Random House, 2022), Rachael Pells explains the science behind genomics. She analyses its practical applications in medical diagnosis and the treatment of conditions that range from cancer to severe allergic reactions to cystic fibrosis. She considers its potential to help with a...
Michela Massimi, "Perspectival Realism" (Oxford UP, 2022)
July 11, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourFor many philosophers, the fact that scientists take different perspectives on the world is an obstacle to being a realist about the world. In Perspectival Realism (Oxford University Press, 2022), Michela Massimi argues that to the contrary the plurality of perspectives is the driving force behind realism. On her view, the scientific realism that emerges out of the perspectival nature of scientific representation takes perspectival models as inferential blueprints for exploring what is possib...
Reshaping the Politics of Science: Bioscience Governance in Indonesia
July 08, 2022 08:00 - 24 minutesThe last few years have brought to the fore the brilliant work of scientists as they worked to find a vaccine for Covid-19. But have you ever stopped to think about the role of biological materials in this and other science- and health-related research? In this episode of SSEAC Stories, Dr Natali Pearson is joined by Associate Professor Sonja van Wichelen to take a close look at the complex world of global health governance, with a particular focus on biotechnology and bioscience governance i...
Frank Close, "Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass" (Basic Book, 2022)
July 06, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourOn July 4, 2012, the announcement came that one of the longest-running mysteries in physics had been solved: the Higgs boson, the missing piece in understanding why particles have mass, had finally been discovered. On the rostrum, surrounded by jostling physicists and media, was the particle's retiring namesake--the only person in history to have an existing single particle named for them. Why Peter Higgs? Drawing on years of conversations with Higgs and others, Close illuminates how an unpro...