The OIST Podcast

Professor Tom Froese is the head of the Embodied Cognitive Science Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST). He studies the interaction between agents and their environment, and the role of these interactions in cognition. In this episode we cover the possibilities and limitations of considering brains as isolated computers, the alternative positions adopt...

Professor Yasha Neiman is the head of the Quantum Gravity Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST). He spends his time thinking about how gravity and quantum mechanics can coexist in a universe that is expanding at an accelerating rate. In this episode we cover the standard model of particle physics, how limits in the model led to research on quantum gravi...

Professor Fred Turek is the Director of the Center for Sleep & Circadian Biology and Charles & Emma Professor of Biology in the Department of Neurobiology at Northwestern University. He is also the founder and first President of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms. In this episode, we cover the basics of the "master clock" in the brain, and its control on downstream processes in the bod...

Sir Jim Smith is Head of the Wellcome Science Review and Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute's Developmental Biology Laboratory. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society and was knighted in 2017 for services to medical research and science education. In this episode, we talk about the future of embryonic research, including the development of new stem cell therapies for humans. We also tal...

In 2012, when OIST had only 200+ researchers, representing approximately 30 countries, OIST's first podcast "Crossing Frontiers, a Scientific Passport Podcast" was created to highlight the interesting backgrounds and fascinating research of five OIST researchers. This is the fifth of those episodes. Pinaki Chakraborty, a Physicist from India explains why studying the motion of fluids, for example...

In 2012, when OIST had only 200+ researchers, representing approximately 30 countries, OIST's first podcast "Crossing Frontiers, a Scientific Passport Podcast" was created to highlight the interesting backgrounds and fascinating research of five OIST researchers. This is the fourth of those episodes. Masako Nakamura, Marine Biologist from Chiba, Japan speaks about sessile or immobile small animals...

In 2012, when OIST had only 200+ researchers, representing approximately 30 countries, OIST's first podcast "Crossing Frontiers, a Scientific Passport Podcast" was created to highlight the interesting backgrounds and fascinating research of five OIST researchers. This is the third of those episodes. Lars Goran Ofverstedt, a Swedish Structural Biologist talks about examining the structures of molec...

In 2012, when OIST had only 200+ researchers, representing approximately 30 countries, OIST's first podcast "Crossing Frontiers, a Scientific Passport Podcast" was created to highlight the interesting backgrounds and fascinating research of five OIST researchers. This is the second of those episodes. Marianela Garcia-Munoz, Neuroscientist from Costa Rica explains her enthusiasm for research on bas...

In 2012, when OIST had only 200+ researchers, representing approximately 30 countries, OIST's first podcast "Crossing Frontiers, a Scientific Passport Podcast" was created to highlight the interesting backgrounds and fascinating research of five OIST researchers. This is the first of those episodes. Ivan Raikov, a Bulgarian Computational Neuroscientist at OIST gives us a glimpse of how computers c...