Science Selections
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This series of podcasts is intended to keep you up to date on the whole spectrum of scientific progress without losing you in technospeak or abstract concepts. It features selections from the more popular scientific journals, such as Scientific American Magazine, but also takes its material from such sources as the Los Angeles Times or the New Yorker, when appropriate. The articles read range from methane on Mars and cosmic radiation to our sense of smell and the intelligence of ravens.
| Title | Podcast Description | Author/Reader | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Follow the Bouncing Universe - Oct 2008 Scientific American | Our universe may have started not with a big bang, but with a big bounce - an implosion that triggered an explosion, all driven by exotic quantum-gravitational effects. | Author: Martin Bojowald, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:22 |
| How to Keep Secrets Safe - Sept 2008 Scientific American | A versatile assortment of computational techniques can protect the privacy of your information and online activities to essentially any degree and nuance you desire. | Author: Anna Lysyanskaya, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:29:15 |
| Beyond Fingerprinting - Sept 2008 Scientific American | Security systems based on anatomical and behavioral characteristics may offer the best defense against identity theft. | Authors: Anil K. Jain & Sharath Pankanti, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:17:11 |
| The Icarus Syndrome - Sept 2008 Weekly Standard | Should we pay any price to avoid the consequences of global warming? | Author: Jim Manzi , Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:18:01 |
| The Gonzo Scientist - sciencemag.org | How Astronomers Have Fun - Chasing the 2008 solar eclipse | Author: John Bohannon, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:16:37 |
| Mental Fitness - September 2008 Discover | Want a sharper memory and a more agile mind? The solution might be just one video game away. | Author: Kathleen McAuliffe, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:17:48 |
| The Vatican's Secret Science Club - September 2008 Discover | The Pontifical Academy of Sciences - a little-known meeting ground for science and religion - includes some of the greatest minds of our age | Author: Michael Mason, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:35:03 |
| A Discussion of Gravity | This discussion from Dr. Odenwald's web site should clear up many misconceptions of the nature of gravity. Trekkies beware! Can you handle the truth? | Author: Dr. Sten Odenwald, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:29 |
| Sounds From Space | Sounds from space and the magnetosphere - from the web sites of NASA and the University of Iowa | Authors: NASA and University of Iowa, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:14 |
| Why Migraines Strike - August 2008 Scientific American | For the more than 300 million people who suffer migraines, the excruciating pain that characterizes these debilitating headaches needs no description. Biologists finally are unraveling their medical mysteries. | Authors: David W. Dodick and J. Jay Gargus | 00:27:42 |
| What Fills the Emptiness? August 2008 Discover | The fate of the universe rests in the endless expanse of nothing called the vacuum | Author: Tim Folger, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:16:24 |
| The Self-Organizing Quantum - July 2008 Scientific American | Quantum theory and General Relativity are famously at loggerheads. A new approach provides a novel way to apply existing laws to the motes of spacetime - they fall into place of their own accord, like molecules in a crystal, suggesting that spacetime shades from a smooth arena to a fractal on small scales. | Authors: Jan Ambjorn, Jerzy Jurkiewicz and Renate Loll | 00:27:05 |
| Traces of a Distant Past - July 2008 Scientific American | Scientists can trace the path of human migrations by using bones, artifacts and DNA. Ancient objects are hard to find, so DNA from contemporary humans is compared to determine how long an indigenous population has lived in a region; from this they postulate "migration superhighways!" | Author: Gary Stix, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:29:36 |
| Sight Lines, July 2008 Discover Magazine | Can a blind rock climber "see" through pulses delivered to his tongue? Climber Erik Weihenmayer, sightless by age 13, helps test a prototype of an amazing bit of technology. | Author: Buddy Levy, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:10:51 |
| Better Planet Solutions - June 2008 Discover Magazine | Better Energy: We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear, Better Water: The Groundwater Replenishment System will serve as a model for other places struggling to meet their water supply needs | Authors: Gwyneth Cravens and Jennifer Barone, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:26 |
| Movie Camera to the Stars - May 2008 Discover Magazine | Movie Camera to the Stars - Coming soon: an Epic film of the cosmos, produced by the fastest telescope on Earth | Author: Laurence Marschall, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:26:55 |
| The Tunguska Mystery, Scientific American, June 2008 | Finding a piece of the elusive cosmic body that devastated a Siberian forest a century ago could help save the earth in the centuries to come | Authors: Luca Gasperini, Enrico Bonatti, and Giuseppe Longo | 00:27:53 |
| Cosmic Origins of Time's Arrow - Scientific American, June 2008 | One of the most basic facts of life is that the future looks different from the past. But on a grand cosmological scale, they may look the same. | Author: Sean M. Carroll, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:33:42 |
| Reigning In The Weather - Discover, June 2008 | In this age of killer hurricanes, monster tornadoes, and ravaging floods, taking the edge off weather extremes has never been so vital. | Author: Donovan Webster, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:23 |
| Book Review from the Weekly Standard, May 12, 2008 | Balancing Act, Symmetry is more than a mathematician's conceit, A review of "Symmetry, A Journey into the Patterns of Nature," by Marcus du Sautoy | Author: David Guaspari, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:12:50 |
| The Weekly Standard April 28, 2008 | Food Riots Made in the USA - There's a better solution to our energy problems than ethanol. It's called nuclear energy. | Author: William Tucker, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:52 |
| Scientific American - May 2008 | The Genesis of Planets - Long viewed as a stately procession to a foregone conclusion, planetary formation turns out to be startlingly chaotic | Author: Douglas N. C. Lin, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:34:32 |
| Scientific American - May 2008 | Science 2.0 - Is posting raw results online, for all to see, a great tool or a great risk? | Author: M. Mitchell Waldrop, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:42 |
| Scientific American - May 2008 | Hooked From the First Cigarette - New findings reveal that cigarette addiction can arise astonishingly fast. But the research could lead to therapies that make quitting easier | Author: Joseph R. DiFranza, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:45 |
| Scientific American - Apr 2008 | The Doping Dilemma - Game theory helps to explain the pervasive abuse of drugs in cycling, baseball and other sports | Author: Michael Shermer, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:30:38 |
| Opinions, Scientific American - Mar 2008 | Adam's maxim and Spinoza's conjecture - belief, disbelief and uncertainty, Nothing to sneeze at - and other interesting results from researchers with some operating room. | Authors: Michael Shermer and Steve Mirsky, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:28 |
| Scientific American - Mar 2008 | An Accelerating Universe Wipes Out Traces of its Own Origins. Future cosmologists will not have access to observations that would allow them to deduce the beginning of the universe in a fiery big bang. | Authors: Lawrence M. Krauss, Robert J. Scherrer, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:27:50 |
| LA Times Science File | Middle-aged and miserable?, Deep brain stimulation boosts memory, Science Briefs. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:12:21 |
| Scientific American, Nov 2007 | WeirdoNomics and Quirkology: How the curious science of the oddities of everyday life yields new insights. | Author: Michael Shermer, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:07:09 |
| The Weekly Standard Oct 29, 2007 | You Tube U: Now you can sleep through lectures in the comfort of your own home. | Author: Andy Kessler, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:08:58 |
| The Weekly Standard, Nov 5, 2007 | Poverty of Ideas: Review of the Book 'The Persistence of Poverty' by Charles Karelis. | Author: Joel Schwartz, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:14:27 |
| Scientific American, Nov 2007 | News Scan: Water droplets encased in fat simulate cell membranes; Liability fears trump science for ulcer beating silicone. | Authors: Gary Stix and Melinda Wenner, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:56 |
| Scientific American, Oct 2007 | The Really Hard Science: To be of true service to humanity, science must be an exquisite blend of data, theory and narrative. | Author: Michael Shermer, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:07:02 |
| The Weekly Standard, Oct 8, 2007 | The Nose Knows: Should our sense of smell, neglected and even disdained as part of our animalistic past, be elevated to the status of sight and sound? | Author: Emily Yoffe, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:09:15 |
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