The Science Basement Podcast

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Giuliano Didio, who is a PhD student at the Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE) of the University of Helsinki. He works on the magical world of brains! Did you know that the common saying that kids learn things faster is actually true? That’s because the infant brain is very “plastic”. Listen to this episode to learn what...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Markku Alho, who is a PhD student at Aalto University. He works on plasma modelling of solar wind interactions with several bodies in space. In this episode, we focus mostly on the Moon and how the solar wind “bombards” its surface, but we also talk for example about Venus, Mars, and comets! …and, of course, it wouldn't be an epi...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Anastasia Diatlova, who is a doctoral researcher in Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Helsinki. Her research focusses on the daily experience of life and work of russian-speaking sex workers in Finland. It is also the first time we have a guest telling us about social sciences, so we have the opport...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Arnaud Praplan, who is an Academy Research Fellow at the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). His research focusses on the reactive chemical compounds emitted by plants into the atmosphere and their oxidation reactions. Did you know that plants emit stuff all the time, and that their emission depends on the season, the tempera...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Diana Morosan, postdoctoral researcher in solar physics at the University of Helsinki. We chat about multiple things: how to observe the Sun in radio frequencies, the big LOFAR radio telescope, the solar cycle, solar storms, the coronal heating problem, and many other things. In particular, tune in to hear what would happen to us...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Ari-Pekka Honkanen, PhD student at the Materials Physics lab of the University of Helsinki. He studies the structure of materials by "shooting" X-rays at them! He also explains us how an X-ray detector works. …and, of course, it wouldn't be an episode of the TSB podcast without a science anecdote. This time we talk about how X-ra...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Chiara Facciotto, PhD student at Biomedicum in Helsinki. She works on how epigenetics influences cancer response to therapy. Follow us to discover what the epigenome is and how it relates to our DNA, and why it is a very bad idea to put pineapple on your pizza! …and, of course, it wouldn't be an episode of the TSB podcast without...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Camille Bélanger-Champagne, post-doctoral researcher at the Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP) in the technology programme. Her research focusses on instruments for nuclear safeguards! The instrument she works on can be used by the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to check that facilities that handle...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Juhani Huovelin, who is a University Lecturer at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Solar Intensity X-ray and particle Spectrometer (SIXS) instrument onboard BepiColombo, the mission to Mercury from ESA and JAXA that will be launched in October 2018! Join us for a conversation about...

Welcome to Season 2 of The Science Basement Podcast! Our first guest for the new season is David Weir, who is a University Researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He looks at gravitational waves from processes in the early Universe, and we have a chance to chat with him about his work, the successful LIGO experiment, and the upcoming LISA mission! …and, of course, it wouldn't be an epis...

Hello from TSB Podcast! This episode is a Summer Special that we recorded at the International Conference of Physics Students 2018 that took place in Helsinki during 8-14 August! We at TSB have spent one day with the students and held a workshop about science communication called “How to tell a science story”! This special episode is the result of the workshop. Listen to a bunch of science anecdot...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Andrew House, who is a PhD student in Wildlife Biology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He works with a large sample of Atlantic Salmon and studies the fat composition in these fish during their early development (from the stage of embryo up to 2.5 years into their life!). ...and, of course, it wouldn't be an episode of th...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Shibani Ratnayake from Aston University (UK), Life and Health Sciences, biomedical engineering group. She works on stem cells (unspecialised cells that are in our body), and in particular on automatisation of stem cells growing techniques. ...and, of course, it wouldn't be an episode of the TSB podcast without a science anecdote....

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Lubna Dada, who is a doctoral student at the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR), University of Helsinki. She works on aerosols and how particles are formed in the air. We have a chance to talk with her about particles that float in the air and various factors that contribute to air pollution! ...and, of co...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Minna Myllys, who is a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Environnement et de l’Espace (LPC2E) of CNRS in Orléans, France. She works on data from the Rosetta spacecraft to study the plasma environment around comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, in order to understand how the comet's coma interacts w...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Alexander Meaney, who is a doctoral student in the computational inverse problem group at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Helsinki. He works on reconstructing 3D images from 2D X-Ray screenings! His research aims at improving the current techniques, so that patients would need less X-Ray screenings to get their...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Juan Landoni, who works at the University of Helsinki on mitochondrial diseases. Mitochondrial diseases start from the mitochondria that are inside our cells and there is still much effort to be put into understanding them and curing them. ...and, of course, it wouldn't be an episode of the TSB podcast without a science anecdote....

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Yongmei Gong, who also is a TSB "honourable" member since she recently got her PhD. She works at the Institute of Atmospheric Science and Earth System Research at the University of Helsinki. She works on glaciers, and in particular on ice shelves and ice caps. We talk about how fast glaciers are "running", which means how fast th...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! Our guest this week is Ekaterina Baibuz, who works towards her PhD at the University of Helsinki in Materials Physics. She works on simulating the behaviour of materials with computer simulations and is part of a big collaboration that aims at building a new particle accelerator at CERN called Compact Linear Collider (CLIC). We also have a chance to ta...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! This episode takes us to interstellar space! We talk with Elisabetta Micelotta, who is an astrophysicist at the University of Helsinki. She studies interstellar dust, which is solid matter that can be found in the space between stars. Interstellar dust absorbs light from the stars and re-emits it in other wavelengths, and also contributes to stars form...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! This episode takes us to the sub-arctic and arctic regions, exploring how plants grow! We talk with Friederike Gehrmann, who works on plant biology at the University of Helsinki. She studies how sub-arctic plants are affected by differences in snowmelt timing. Follow us during this virtual journey into the flora of Finnish Lapland and the Svalbard Isla...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! This episode takes us to tropical lands where the cassava grows! We talk with Daniel Wasonga, who works at the Department of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Helsinki. His research focuses on reducing the level of cyanide (a toxic substance) and increasing the level of vitamin A in cassava (a tropical tuber).    ~•~•~ The de-jargonizer: http:...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! This episode is all about space! We talk with Dr. Urs Ganse, who is a postdoctoral researcher in space physics at the University of Helsinki. His work focuses on supercomputer simulations of the near-Earth space, but he is also an expert in spaceships and sci-fi movies! ~•~•~ Some links from this episode: Urs' talks on YouTube (in German): https://www....

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! For this episode we welcome the new year with a conversation with Casimir Ehrenborg, who studies electromagnetic theory for small antennas at Lund University, Sweden. Where you can find us: Homepage: www.thesciencebasement.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheScienceBasementTSB Instagram: @science_basement Twitter: @ScienceBasement Email: thesciencebaseme...

Welcome back to The Science Basement Podcast! This episode is all about Christmas and snow! We interview Jussi Tiira, who studies snow at the University of Helsinki. Precipitation data: http://www.archive.arm.gov/discovery/#v/results/s/s::baecc/fdsc::vdis/fsite::tmp. M Where you can find us: Homepage: www.thesciencebasement.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheScienceBasementTSB Instagram: @science_b...