Science Talk

In this episode, SciAm.com associate editor David Biello discusses the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released last week in Paris; Academy Award Winner and Dolby Laboratories Senior VP Ioan Allen talks about the cyan dye audio track innovation that will be honored Saturday at the Scientific And Technical Academy Awards ceremony. Plus we'll test your knowledge about some...

In this episode, journalist Michael Antonoff, author of the article Digital TV At Last? in the February issue of Scientific American, talks about the upcoming switch to all digital television broadcasting, scheduled to take place February 17, 2009; SciAm.com associate editor David Biello discusses the war being waged between open access science journals and those that charge readers; and Scientifi...

In this episode, food ingredient expert Roger A. Clemens discusses research suggesting that coffee drinking has numerous beneficial health effects. Scientific American editor-in-chief John Rennie talks about pseudoscience and paranormal debunker The Amazing Randi's skeptic conference last weekend in Las Vegas. Plus we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned...

In this episode, mathematician Michael Jones talks about improved methodologies for cake cutting. (It involves the equitability of the division, not the sharpness of the knife.) Los Alamos National Laboratory theoretician Eli Ben-Naim talks about relative competitiveness of professional team sports and devising more efficient schedules. Plus we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in t...

In this episode, author and journalist Carl Zimmer talks about his Scientific American article Evolved For Cancer?, which looks at how natural selection has led to what appears to be an inevitable tendency for human beings to develop the disease. Dmitry Vaintrob, winner of the 2006-07 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology for high school students, talks about his project in string to...

In this episode, journalist Chip Walter, author of Thumbs, Toes and Tears, takes us on a tour of the physical traits that are unique to humans, with special attention to crying, the subject of his article in the current issue of Scientific American MIND. The University of Cambridge's Gordon Smith discusses the alarming lack of any randomized, controlled trials to determine the efficacy of parachut...

In this episode, robotics writer Daniel Wilson talks about his book How To Survive A Robot Uprising: Tips On Defending Yourself Against The Coming Rebellion. Naturalist Kurt Auffenberg from the University of Florida talks about wrangling Komodo Dragons. Plus we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned on this episode include www.sciam.com/podcast; www.sciam....

In this episode, Michigan State University historian of science Kristie Macrakis discusses the use of radioactive isotopes in the cloak and dagger world of cold war espionage, and what it tells us about the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. We'll also hear a Christmas poem dedicated to the graduate students and postdocs who burn the midnight oil even on Christmas Eve. Plus we'll test you...

In this episode, Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus talks about the challenges facing the U.S. in science and technology competitiveness and some possible plans of action, related to the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project. And the American Museum of Natural History's Jin Meng discusses a major new fossil find, a flying mammal some 130 million years old. Plus we'll test your knowledge about som...

In this episode, Leiden University bird song expert Hans Slabbekorrn notes the changes in bird vocalizations when they move from the forest to the city. And we wrap up our series on Scientific American magazine's "SA 50" citations with Ivo Menzinger, managing director of sustainability and emerging risk management for the reinsurance company Swiss Re. Plus we'll test your knowledge of some recent...

In this episode, MIT Communications Forum Director David Thorburn discusses the future of newspapers and news in light of new technology. Scientific American editor Steve Ashley talks about the magazine's "SA 50" picks in the areas of automobile and fuel technology advances. And we'll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned on this episode include www.sciam.com/p...

In this episode, Scientific American's "SA 50" research leader of the year, MIT's Angela Belcher, discusses her work using viruses and other organisms to help create nanoelectronics. Animal behaviorist and turkey expert Richard Buchholz brings us up to date on some turkey science. And we'll test your knowledge of some recent turkey science in the news and outer boroughs. Websites mentioned on this...

In this episode, Scientific American editor-in-chief John Rennie talks about the World Science Forum, held in New York City last week. Forum speaker Mike Roco, nanotechnology advisor to the National Science Foundation, shares some thoughts about our tiny tomorrow. Chemist Roald Hoffmann reads his own poetry and discusses the importance of fuzzy thinking in science. And we'll test your knowledge of...

In this episode, Scientific American Mind executive editor Mariette Dichristina talks about a special section of the magazine devoted to the roles of gestures and facial expressions in communications. A panel discussion of government secrecy at the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists featured climate researcher James Hansen; we'll play some highlights from his comments regar...

In this episode, journalist Larry Tye talks about his new book, SHOCK, written with electroshock patient Kitty Dukakis, wife of former governor and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. Following Tye, Charles Welch, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital electroconvulsive therapy program, discusses the treatments knowns and unknowns. Then Scientific American editor Christine Soares share...

In this episode, evolutionary biologist Sean Carroll talks about his new book, "The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution." Even without fossils or comparative anatomy, vast amounts of evidence for evolution and its mechanisms exist in the genomes of the organisms alive today. Carroll discusses immortal genes, fossil genes and repetition in evolution, as well as...

In this episode, journalist Robin Marantz Henig discusses a TV program airing on October 23 based in part on Pandora's Baby, the title of her book and Scientific American article about the early days of In Vitro Fertilization. JJ Mirsky talks about the technology of early radios. And we'll look at what happens when a company's name or url becomes detrimental overnight because of some coincidental...

In this episode, journalist Philip Ross discusses his article in the October Scientific American, called "Viral Nanoelectronics," about wires, batteries and microchips constructed out of viruses. New Jersey Institute of Technology mathematics professor Bruce Bukiet talks about his probability estimates for the first round of major league baseball's playoffs and how he managed to miss all four seri...

Court cases increasingly deal with complex science and technical issues. And the last time some judges were in a science classroom was before Watson and Crick published the structure of DNA (or at least before the beginning of the Human Genome Project). We'll talk about bringing judges up to science speed with Franklin Zweig and Robert Bell, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland. Zwe...

Last week, the National Academy of Sciences and other institutions released a report titled Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering. Maria Zuber, head of the department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was one of the members of the committee that prepared that report. We talk to her ab...

A major paleoanthropological fossil find was announced on September 20th. Donald Johanson is the director of the Institute of Human Origins and professor of human origins at Arizona State University, and is the discoverer of the famous Lucy fossil more than three decades ago. In this episode, he talks about the new finding and what it means for our understanding of human evolution. We also hear re...

In this episode, MIT physicist Ernest Moniz discusses the future of nuclear energy and the article he co-authored in the September issue of Scientific American called The Nuclear Option. David Holmes of Manchester Metropolitan University talks about the reality of mouse food preferences and whether or not cheese is included. Plus we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news. Web...

In this episode, MIT astrophysicist Paul Schechter offers some perspective on recent research about the universe's mysterious "dark matter." Journalist Karen Hopkin and host Steve Mirsky talk about the new daily Scientific American podcast, called "60-Second Science." And Scientific American magazine contributing editor Sarah Simpson shares some thoughts about the late Steve Irwin, the "Crocodile...

In this episode, journalist Leslie Sabbagh discusses the teen brain, the subject of her cover story in the August/September issue of Scientific American Mind. Geologist Kip Hodges, the director of the Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration, answers a listener's question about the earth's fickle magnetic poles. Plus we'll test your knowledge about the status of Pluto and oth...

In this episode, Scientific American editor-in-chief John Rennie talks about the September, single-topic issue of the magazine, the focus of which is Energy's Future: Beyond Carbon. He also explains the Emmy Award in his home. And University of East Anglia School of Medicine professor Christopher Cowley discusses his proposal of new requirements for medical school candidates. Plus, we'll test your...