Science, Actually Presents : The Nerd and the Scientist

How is 'qubit' pronounced? Is it 'cue-bit'? Or is it 'kwi-bit'? And what is a 'qubit' anyway? Welcome to season number 10 of The Nerd and The Scientist! Kovi and Benjamin kick things off with quantum physicist, Dr. Danni Holmes. She not only answers those qubit questions, but also sheds a little light on how Marvel movies don't get 'quantum' exactly right, how the European Robin uses quantum physi...

Doctor of science, filmmaker of science, and communicator of science - the one and only Petr Lebedev - takes a moment to chat with Kovi and Benjamin about AI. How AI's infiltrating our education system, the workforce, and it doesn't matter how much you thank your AI bot of choice - it's still coming for us all. Maybe. Probably not. 10%. Never mind all that - currently it's incentive is keep us sup...

Are there alien civilizations out there looking for us like we're looking for them? Do they want to eat us? Meet us? Or fulfill this episode's guest's secret desire to merge into a hive mind with them? Dr. Graham Lau has watched all the 'Trek', read all the books, and talks to Kovi and Benjamin about the variety of societal and evolutionary impacts astrobiologists dream of as the result of coming...

In the beginning... ...the was this huge bang from which all this ionized stuff came into the universe. Then a Recombination came along and cooled everything down and changed matter from ionized to neutral. Then the first stars and galaxies came to be, and produced enough UV light to re-ionize everything. So... Kovi and Benjamin ask the REALLY big question... How could there be an ionization befor...

Our very first guest and our very first return guest - Dr. Dimos Katsis - becomes our second 'third timer'. He's the principal engineer at Overview Energy - a company that's building the infrastructure to gather solar energy in space with satellites each as big as two football fields, and then beam it down to us here on Earth. To sum it up real quick... Kovi and Benjamin asked, "so, the microwave...

Moondial! Get it? Like 'Mundial' but we made it say 'Moon' because we're space nerds? FIFA World Cup 2026 is over (congrats, Spain!), so get your vuvuzelas ready as Kovi and Benjamin get into some of the science behind soccer. Over time the ball was reengineered to be smoother until it actually ruined its aerodynamics, one venue is almost 1 1/2 miles above sea level where the air is 23% less dense...

Kovi and Benjamin talk about things that explode in space. Well Kovi talks about things that explode in space, and then Benjamin says something along the lines of, "you mean like in Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country!?" Tune in and clearly see where the line's drawn between nerd and scientist. The boys talk micronovae, novae, supernovae, and 'movie physics'. (spoiler - those 'launch a nuke at...

Dr. Bryan Scott's interested in principled inference and astrostatistics. His research focuses on the use of large galaxy surveys and intensity mapping experiments to constrain cosmology and astrophysics over cosmic time. His graduate work at U.C. Riverside focused on measurements of the Ultraviolet Extragalactic Background Light and on the sensitivity of future spectroscopic intensity mapping exp...

While Benjamin might be a working nerd, Kovi's a working scientist. In this episode Kovi walks us through this new thing he found, lurking out there in the universe. A rare binary star system in the Ara constellation. A 'Rosetta stone' for explaining mysterious, repeating cosmic radio pulses. You probably saw it online - it made all the news - we're talking about ASKAP J1745. Also, how does Kovi e...

As this episode's guest, Anastasia Shavrova, explains - the road to studying and falling in love with spiders begins with hating spiders and loving ants. As Anastasia explains why some spiders' third pair of legs are very strong, Kovi and Benjamin can't help but fawn over Zilly - their guest's guest lizard. Follow us everywhere! Follow Benjamin at Science, Actually : https://www.scienceactually.co...

What goes up, must come down - even if you send it up to space three times aboard a space shuttle. Just ask our latest guest, Rex Walheim, who flew on shuttle Atlantis three times - including the last shuttle flight... ...ever. Kovi and Benjamin did their very best to keep their composure as they spoke with Rex about how he became an astronaut, what it's like up there, does space really have a bur...

Jennifer Swanson woke up one day and thought, "what have I done with my life?" So at the ripe old age of 5 (yes, FIVE), she wrote and illustrated her first book about science. Since then she didn't do much - other than graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in Chemistry, taught chemistry, got a master’s degree in K–8 Science Education, gave a Ted Talk and wrote 55 more books. Kovi and...

Welcome to The Nerd and The Scientist's Book Club. Today Kovi and Benjamin will be talking about Project Hail Mary. Specifically - THE BOOK - as Kovi hasn't seen the movie yet. The book does raise some interesting questions, however, like how would we go about communicating with aliens? Extreme environments where liquid water could still exist. How life might evolve on other worlds. And was it fun...

As they watched a jar of Nutella float by, Kovi and Benjamin knew right then and there they needed to do an episode about all the goings on aboard Artemis II. From a broken toilet to googly eyes on the CO2 scrubber to the toilet breaking again, it was quite the ride. But also all the sentiment - a message from the first astronaut to go around the Moon, a flag from Apollo 18 that never got to fly,...

Dr. Zoe Xirocostas joins Kovi and Benjamin to talk about peer reviews, getting grants for research, the effort behind getting a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), and creating mutant super plants that can survive any habitat. Follow us everywhere! Find Benjamin at Science, Actually : https://www.scienceactually.com/ & https://www.facebook.com/actuallyscience Find Kovi at Fun Fact...

How do we explain this one? It's the 'Part Two' of Kovi and Benjamin's previous episode where they were waiting for their guest, Daniel Orvomaa of the Talking Ass podcast, who never showed up. It's 'Part Two' of a double episode done with the Talking Ass - 'Part One' of which is available on the Talking Ass right now. It's also Daniel's third time on the show but only his second time rapid-firing...

Hot Dogs and Toilet Paper and Action Figures, OH MY! All studied up and ready to record a double episode with the Talking Ass' very own Daniel Orvomaa - Daniel had a scheduling mix up, didn't make it, and that left Kovi and Benjamin just riffing. Well, we didn't get all dressed up for nothing! The boys talk about Vegas shows and try out some new Questions & Quibbles questions for future guests...

There are 1.5 million freshly minted engineers in India every year. One of them, this week's guest Naman Bajaj, said, "well, I guess they've got enough of those," changed course, became an astronomer, scored an insane amount of time on JWST (that, in itself, is amazing - which totally rocked Kovi's and Benjamin's minds), and found that protoplanetary disks - baby solar systems - lose 85-90% of the...

Kovi and Benjamin were getting their questions and notes in order, preparing for another amazing episode with another amazing guest - when there was a sudden reschedule that left the boys alone, unprepared, and unsupervised. Join the gents as they just talk... well... they way they usually talk - NERD TALK. From NORAD, to data science, to something that goes great with maple, strawberry or blueber...

In this episode, Kovi and Benjamin dive headfirst into the Ig Nobel Prize, science’s annual celebration of research that makes you laugh first and think later. The lads cover everything from the prize’s origins and its wonderfully weird traditions to the unforgettable “winners” themselves, all while celebrating the curious, human side of scientific discovery. It is a reminder that science is not j...

Everybody look busy! Our boss is back. For those of you who don't know, Kovi and Benjamin first nerded together as co-hosts on the Space Case Sarah Show, hosted by our return guest - the space case herself - Sarah Treadwell. Tune in to hear about her PhD journey, being a professional science communicator, what her son's favorite planet name is (nope, not what we thought either), and what does one...

Do you think about databases? Do you think like a databse? This week's guest David Ezrakhovich does. Listen to Kovi and Benjamin's 70th episode (holy moly 70!) as David shares with us how his journey and his mindset led him to becoming a multi-disciplinary engineer. ...and all that happens somewhere in the middle of three nerds being nerds. Follow us everywhere! Find Benjamin at Science, Actually...

Where do 'nearby stars' end and 'distant stars' begin? Learn the answer to that question from UC Berkeley astronomer Howard Isaacson! Kovi and Benjamin swoon as Howard gets romantic about astronomy, his love of exoplanets, black holes, and the search for life in the universe. Follow us everywhere! Find Benjamin at Science, Actually : https://www.scienceactually.com/ & https://www.facebook.com/...

Dr. Helen Maynard Casley, (one of) THE principal scientists at ANSTO (Australia's Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation), sets Kovi's and Benjamin's brains alight as she talks about working on the Wombat (not an acronym - Australians just like naming things after animals). Wombat is a high intensity neutron diffractometer that Dr. Helen uses to just scoop some neutrons out of a working nucle...

Dr. Blitz, Kovi and Benjamin showed up in matching shirts, glasses and microphones to talk about all things Star Trek, the path Dr. Blitz took from a young age to become the scientist he is today, science communication, the expansion of the universe, spacetime, and a bunch of things black holes do that you probably didn't know they did. So sit back, relax, and enjoy our sixty-seventh episode. Foll...