Latest Science sundays Podcast Episodes
John M. Horack - Gamma Ray Bursts: A Brief History of the Most Powerful Explosions in the Universe
Science Sundays - April 05, 2020 05:00 - 1 hourGamma-ray bursts, discovered by accident with classified satellites, were for decades a leading mystery in astrophysics. John M. Horack explores the breakthroughs that followed from the Gamma Ray Observatory (1991) and subsequent experiments, which showed that these are the most powerful explosio...
Kate Zwaard - Collections as Data: Combining Data Science and the Power of Library Collections to Unlock New Understanding
Science Sundays - March 01, 2020 05:00 - 57 minutesWhile the digital revolution has changed the way libraries serve their users, it’s also enabled new modes of research and creativity. Kate Zwaard will explore how libraries and archives are presenting their collections so artists, researchers and the curious can interact with them in new ways.
Barbara Piperata - Food insecurity and Mental Health: An Underexplored Global Health Concern
Science Sundays - February 02, 2020 05:00 - 1 hourFood insecurity is on the rise, affecting the nutrition and mental health of around 821 million people. Drawing on research from Nicaragua, Barbara Piperata will explore the underlying causes of the issue and how to inform policies aimed at alleviating food insecurity and improving mental health ...
Amanda Hummon - Diagnosing Cancer with Molecular Imaging
Science Sundays - January 12, 2020 05:00 - 1 hourScience and medicine are at an exciting crossroads. Recent developments in the clinical laboratory are being implemented in research hospitals and will soon be used to diagnose diseases across the U.S. In this talk, Amanda Hummon will illustrate some of the recent breakthroughs in molecular imagi...
Nandini Trivedi - Superconductivity: From the Quantum Dance of Electrons to Levitated Trains and Quantum Computers
Science Sundays - December 01, 2019 05:00 - 1 hourIn this lecture, physicist Nandini Trivedi will explain why a piece of metal can superconduct, that is allow electricity to flow without any resistance; why superconductors make the strongest magnets; how superconducting qubits are driving the revolution for quantum computers; and, most important...
Karen Lloyd - The Strange Microbes Deep Inside Earth and What They Do
Science Sundays - November 17, 2019 05:00 - 50 minutesIn this lecture, Karen G. Lloyd will introduce the vast and diverse microbial ecosystem that was recently discovered buried deep within Earth’s crust, illuminating how these microbes perform important ecosystem functions in volcanoes, hot springs and deep subsurface oceanic sediments.
Dustin Mixon - The Mathematics of Partisan Gerrymandering
Science Sundays - October 13, 2019 05:00 - 1 hourEvery decade, politicians update voting districts to account for population shifts as measured by the U.S. Census. Of course, partisan politicians are inclined to draw maps that favor their own party, resulting in partisan gerrymandering. In this episode, Dustin G. Mixon will explore how ...
Marcos Sotomayor - The Molecular Machinery of Hearing
Science Sundays - September 08, 2019 05:00 - 1 hourThe human hearing organ is exceptional in its ability to sense sound across a wide range of frequencies and intensities. The process of sound conversion into brain electrical signals that we can understand is called "mechanosensation" and is carried out by various proteins essential to hearing. ...
Laurie Cutting - Educational Neuroscience: How the Brain Supports Learning in Children and Adolescents
Science Sundays - April 14, 2019 05:00 - 58 minutesEducational neuroscience draws upon cognitive neuroscience, education and psychology with the goal of examining neurobiological processes related to education. This presentation by Laurie Cutting will provide an overview of this emerging field and the insights it can offer, using reading ...
Robert Hazen - The Story of Earth: How Life and Rocks Have Co-Evolved
Science Sundays - March 17, 2019 05:00 - 58 minutesThe story of Earth is a 4.5-billion-year saga of dramatic transformations driven by physical, chemical and biological processes. The co-evolution of life and rocks unfolded in an irreversible sequence of evolutionary stages. Each stage re-sculpted our planet’s surface; introduced new plan...
Harvey J. Miller - Mobility Matters: Why Sustainable Transportation is Essential for our Future
Science Sundays - February 17, 2019 05:00 - 1 hourContemporary humanity enjoys mobility levels that are unprecedented in history. While this has benefits, it also has enormous social, health and environmental costs. Resolving these costs is crucial if civilization is to survive the 21st century — a world that will see 10 billion people, most of ...
Nadya Mason - Going Through the Quantum Tunnel
Science Sundays - January 13, 2019 05:00 - 1 hourQuantum mechanics — the fundamental theory that describes nature at the smallest scales of atomic and subatomic energy levels — seems to be everywhere, from superhero movies to Fortune 500 companies. But what makes quantum mechanics so different and special? How can it be used (and can objects re...
Naomi Leonard - Flock Logic: The Art and Engineering of How Groups Move
Science Sundays - December 02, 2018 05:00 - 57 minutesWhat are the social interactions and responses that explain the stunning behavior of flocking birds, schooling fish and swarming honeybees? How do performance instructions shape a collaborative improvisation when dancers make compositional choices on the fly? How should we design decision-making ...
Michael W. Gray - What Do We Really Know About the Origin of the Cell's Powerhouse?
Science Sundays - November 18, 2018 05:00 - 1 hourMitochondria — the so-called “powerhouse of the cell” — hold a special place in eukaryotic (nucleus-containing) cells. Evidence accumulated over the past half century strongly points to an origin of the mitochondrion from a free-living bacterium closely related to a specific group, the Alphaprote...
Bharat Bhushan - Lessons from Nature: Bio-inspired Surfaces for Green Science and Technology
Science Sundays - October 14, 2018 05:00 - 1 hourOver billions of years, nature has developed materials, objects and processes that function from the macroscale to the nanoscale. Many organisms and objects — including bacteria; plants; animals; and seashells — possess properties of commercial interest. The emerging field of biomimetics allows s...
Michael A. Neblo - Politics With the People
Science Sundays - September 16, 2018 05:00 - 1 hourCitizens and scholars alike worry about the health of representative democracy around the world today. They worry about resurgent nationalism across the globe as well as accusations of “democratic deficits” against technocrats. In the United States, public approval of Congress remains near its al...
Alberto Cairo - Visual Trumpery
Science Sundays - April 15, 2018 05:00 - 58 minutesTrumpery: worthless nonsense, something that is, simultaneously, deceitful and showy. Cairo explains how to fight fake data, fake facts, fake visualization, demonstrating how choices a data-visualization designer makes have significant impact on how an audience perceives data. He shares strategie...
Matt Kahle - Archimedes: Mathematical Superhero of the Ancient World
Science Sundays - February 18, 2018 05:00 - 1 hourArchimedes — remarkable physicist, engineer, inventor, astronomer — built a heat ray to burn attacking ships’ sails; designed machines predicting motions of planets and eclipses; estimated how many grains of sand it would take to fill the universe. Kahle discusses a few of these amazing invention...
Rebecca Reczek - Do Healthy Diets Make Empty Wallets? How Consumer Beliefs Shape Food Choice
Science Sundays - January 21, 2018 05:00 - 1 hourConsumers have many lay beliefs about how the world works. But are these beliefs always correct? Reczek explains how our non-professional theories about food, including the relationships between health and taste; and cost and health, drive our food choices that can sometimes lead us away from mak...
Joe Lykken - Particle Physics: New Research Frontiers
Science Sundays - December 03, 2017 05:00 - 1 hourParticle physics, the quest to understand the smallest objects in the universe, depends on operating powerful colliders, like those at Fermilab and CERN. Surprisingly, the answers we get also shed light on the largest objects, such as the universe itself. Lykken outlines deep theoretical question...
Ruchika Prakash - Mindfulness for the Aging Brain
Science Sundays - November 12, 2017 05:00 - 1 hourMindfulness meditation has been practiced for centuries, but is now finding its place in Western discourse. Prakash discusses research examining the effect of training in practices of mindfulness meditation for brain and cognitive health, with a special emphasis on the aging brain.
Jonathan Yewdell - A Practical Guide to Becoming a Priest of Scientific Methodism
Science Sundays - October 15, 2017 05:00 - 1 hourYewdell, who studies influenza viruses to see how viral proteins are made to better understand immune-system responses to viral infection, describes the nuts and bolts of becoming a biomedical PhD researcher. He shares what is required to make and interpret discoveries, the sheer joy of scientifi...
Frederic Bertley - Paying Attention to the Importance of the Scientific Revolution Amid Cluelessness
Science Sundays - September 10, 2017 05:00 - 1 hourDespite an ever-growing dependency on science and technology, we are seeing a decline in scientific literacy. Bertley discusses this duality and challenges us to become advocates for science. Highlighting wide-ranging technological advances, he emphasizes the necessity of basic scientific literac...
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