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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Future of Chocolate - February, 2012 Scientific American | "The Future of Chocolate. Researchers are racing to fortify the embattled Cacao tree and to meet increasing demand for cocoa made from its seeds." by Harold Schmitz and Howard-Yana Shapiro. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:40 |
| Is Space Digital? - February, 2012 Scientific American | "Is Space Digital? An experiment ... will attempt to measure the intimate connections among information, matter and spacetime. If it works, it could rewrite the rules for 21st-century physics." by Michael Moyer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:29 |
| Birth of the Bionic Eye - January, 2012 IEEE Spectrum | "Birth of the Bionic Eye. In 2012, electrodes will bring eyesight to the blind" by Eliza Strickland. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:06:13 |
| A New Path to Longevity - January, 2012 Scientific American | "Researchers have uncovered an ancient mechanism that retards aging. Drugs that tweaked it could well postpone cancer, diabetes and other diseases of old age." by David Stipp. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:32:42 |
| A Cloud You Can Trust - December, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "A Cloud You Can Trust. How to ensure that cloud computing's problems - data breaches, leaks, service outages - don't obscure its virtues." by Christian Cachin and Matthias Schunter. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:38 |
| The Machine That Would Predict the Future - Dec., 2011 Scientific American | "If you dropped all the world's data into a black box, could it become a crystal ball that would let you see the future? One researcher thinks so, and he could soon get a billion Euros to build it." by David Weinberger. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:30:53 |
| World-Changing Ideas - December, 2011 Scientific American | "World-Changing Ideas. Ten new technologies that will make a difference." by various staff writers. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:33:55 |
| Brain Mismatches - December, 2011 Discover | "The Brain. When sound and image get mismatched in the mind, our perceptions fall prey to maddening illusions and reality is turned on its head." by Carl Zimmer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:48 |
| Unmanned Airliners? - December, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "When Will We Have Unmanned Commercial Airliners? Unmanned planes dominate the battlefield, yet airliners still have pilots - and copilots." by Philip E. Ross. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:41 |
| Getting Rid of Classroom Lectures - December, 2011 Discover | "Cognitive scientists have pointed advice on how to boost students' lagging science scores: Get rid of the hallowed (and stultifying) classroom lecture." by David H. Freedman, the Impatient Futurist. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:10 |
| Ants and the Art of War - December, 2011 Scientific American | "Ants and the Art of War. Battles among ants can be startlingly similar to human military operations." by Mark W. Moffett. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:20 |
| Human Male Virility - November, 2011 Discover | "The Impatient Futurist. Bad food, bad genes, and monogamy are sucking the life out of human sperm. But conceptive gels and stem cells could bring some virility back." by David H. Freedman. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:55 |
| The Decline of Violence - October, 2011 Scientific American | "The Decline of Violence. Be skeptical of claims that we live in an ever more dangerous world." by Michael Shermer, in his monthly column, The Skeptic. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:07:06 |
| The 10,000 Year Clock - November, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Engineering the 10 000-Year Clock. The clock of the Long Now moves from thought experiment to actual timepiece." By David Kushner. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:47 |
| The Scent of Your Thoughts - October, 2011 Scientific American | "Although we are usually unaware of it, we communicate through chemical signals just as much as birds and bees do." by Deborah Blum. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:57 |
| Waiting For The Higgs - October, 2011 Scientific American | "Waiting For The Higgs. Even as the last protons spin through the most successful particle accelerator in history, physicists hope to conjure one final triumph." by Tim Folger. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:19:56 |
| Dark Side of the Milky Way - October, 2011 Scientific American | "The Dark Side of the Milky Way. Dark matter is not just a puzzle. It is a solution." by Leo Blitz. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:57 |
| A Next-Generation Ice Radar - September, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "A Next-Generation Ice Radar. Scientists can now probe polar ice sheets better than ever using synthetic-aperture radar." by John Paden, David Braaten, and Prasad Gogineni. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:56 |
| The Autism Defense - July, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "The Autism Defense. Gary McKinnon hacked thousands of government computers. His lawyers say his autism is to blame." by David Kushner. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:54 |
| Magnet Makeover - August, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Magnet Makeover. Rare earth magnets are already exceedingly strong. Nanotechnology could soon double their powers of attraction." by George Hadjipanayis and Alexander Gabay. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:42 |
| Unidentified Floating Objects - August, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Unidentified Floating Objects. New sonar imagery reveals mysterious echoes to be enormous schools of fish." by Nicholas Makris. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:17 |
| Autonomous Robots in the Fog of War - August, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Autonomous Robots in the Fog of War. Networks of intelligent robots will someday transform warfare - but significant hurdles remain." by Lora G. Weiss. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:09 |
| Cities In The Air - September, 2011 Scientific American | "Cities In The Air. The attacks of 9/11 supposedly ended the age of the skyscraper. A decade on, we're building more than ever." by Mark Lamster. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:41 |
| Straight Talk About Vaccination - September, 2011 Scientific American | "Straight Talk About Vaccination. Parents need better information, ideally before a baby is born." by Mathew F. Daley and Jason M. Glanz. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:14:01 |
| The Wine Whisperers - September, 2011 Discover | "The Wine Whisperers. Tasting the environment in a wine glass." by Rebecca Coffey. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:14:36 |
| The Brain - Artificial Retinas - September, 2011 Discover | "The Brain. Artificial retinas could enable the blind to see, augmenting the eye with a camera. The first such devices are already illuminating colors and shapes." by Carl Zimmer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:10 |
| The Evolution of Grandparents - August, 2011 Scientific American | "The Evolution of Grandparents. Senior citizens may have been the secret of our species' success." by Rachel Caspari. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:20 |
| Does The Multiverse Exist? - August, 2011 Scientific American | "Does the Multiverse Really Exist? Proof of parallel universes radically different from our own may still lie beyond the domain of science." by George F. R. Ellis. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:42 |
| The Limits of Intelligence - July, 2011 Scientific American | "The Limits of Intelligence. The laws of physics may well prevent the human brain from evolving into an ever more powerful thinking machine." by Douglas Fox. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:29:49 |
| Greater Glory - June, 2011 Scientific American | "Greater Glory. In the race to the South Pole, explorer Robert F. Scott refused to sacrifice his ambitious science agenda." by Edward J. Larson. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:43 |
| Inside the Meat Lab - June, 2011 Scientific American | "Inside the Meat Lab. A handful of scientists aim to satisfy the world's growing appetite for steak without wrecking the planet. The first step: Grab a petri dish!" by Jeffrey Bartholet. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:52 |
| Chronic Pain - June, 2011 Discover Magazine | "The Brain. Scientists have traced chronic pain to a defect in a single region of the brain. Could this be a decisive turn in the battle against pain?" by Carl Zimmer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:19 |
| Thin, Fast and Flexible - May, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Thin, Fast and Flexible. Amorphous oxide semiconductors promise to make flat-panel displays faster and sharper than today's silicon standby." by John F. Wager and Randy Hoffman. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:33 |
| Egypt's Lost Fleet - June, 2011 Discover Magazine | "Egypt's Lost Fleet. An ancient harbor on the Red Sea proves ancient Egyptians mastered oceangoing technology and launched a series of ambitious expeditions to far-off lands." by Andrew Curry. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:02 |
| Superconductivity's First Century - March, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Superconductivity's First Century. In the 100 years since superconductivity was discovered, only one widespread application has emerged." by Pradeep Haldar & Pier Abetti. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:19:47 |
| The Tops In Flops - February, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "The Tops In Flops. Supercomputers are now running our search engines and social networks. But the heady days of stunning performance increases are over." by Peter Dodge. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:19:54 |
| Ray Kurzweil's Slippery Futurism - December, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "Ray Kurzweil's Slippery Futurism. His stunning prophecies have earned him a reputation as a tech visionary, but many of them don't look so good on close inspection." by John Rennie. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:35 |
| Fast Track to Vaccines - May, 2011 Scientific American | "Fast Track to Vaccines. Analyzing all the layers of the immune system at once speeds design and may one day deal a decisive blow against HIV." by Alan Aderem. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:44 |
| The Hidden Organ In Our Eyes - May, 2011 Scientific American | "Our bodies adjust to the cycle of day and night thanks to specialized neurons in out eyes. Ongoing study of these cells could lead to new treatments for winter depression and other conditions." by Ignacio Provencio. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:18:31 |
| Cocktail Party Problem - April, 2011 Scientific American | "Solving the Cocktail Party Problem. Computers have great trouble deciphering voices that are speaking simultaneously. That may soon change." by Graham P. Collins. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:08:09 |
| Seeing Forever- April, 2011 Scientific American | "Seeing Forever. Digital photos and videos are great, but don't expect your grandkids to see them." by David Pogue. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:07:04 |
| The Hungry Brain - June, 2011 Discover Magazine | "The urge to eat too much is wired into our heads. Tackling obesity may require bypassing the stomach and short-circuiting our brains." by Dan Hurley. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:29:40 |
| Beyond the Event Horizon - June, 2011 Discover Magazine | "Beyond the Event Horizon. Nothing that enters a black hole ever comes out - but now one astrophysicist has stepped inside, finding a maelstrom of energy exceeding the Big Bang." by Steve Nadis. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:30:08 |
| The Brain - May, 2011 Discover Magazine | "The Brain. Brains are wired with such stunning precision that every neuron knows its place. Miswiring leads to disorders of emotion and thought." by Carl Zimmer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:00 |
| Planet Boom - May, 2011 Discover Magazine | "NASA's first mission dedicated to the search for planets beyond our solar system has produced a gusher of strange new worlds. If astronomers are right, 53 of them may be inhabitable." by Tim Folger. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:29:43 |
| Lynn Margulis Interview - April, 2011 Discover Magazine | "An interview of Lynn Margulis. Are humans really amalgams of bacteria? Is AIDS really a form of syphillis? This noted researcher thinks so." by Dick Teresi | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:30:26 |
| The Rise and Fall of Douglas Prasher - April, 2011 Discover | "Douglas Prasher was driving a van for a car dealership in Huntsville Alabama, when he learned that former colleagues had won a Nobel Prize for the research he began." by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:33:33 |
| The Brain - April, 2011 Discover | "The Brain. Rich autobiographical memory is the essence of our humanity and the base from which we foresee the future - a key to our species' success." by Carl Zimmer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:30 |
| Technology #1 Smartphones - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number One - Smartphones. Is your phone smarter than a fifth-grader? Yes!" by Joshua J. Romero | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:09:05 |
| Technology #2 Social Networking - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Two - Social Networking. Bandwidth, digital cameras, and a hunger for connectedness have created a virtual dinner party." by Ariel Bleicher | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:56 |
| Technology #3 Voice Over IP - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Three - Voice Over Internet Protocol. Setting Phone Service Free. How Ma Bell's cash cow became a free software app." by James Middleton | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:15:41 |
| Technology #4 LED Lighting - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Four - LED Lighting: Blue + Yellow = White. Giving LEDs the blues was the key to replacing the incandescent light bulb." by Richard Stevenson | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:07:50 |
| Technology #5 Multicore CPUs - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Five - Multicore CPUs: From multicore to many-core to hard-to-describe-in-a-single-word core." by Samuel K. Moore | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:12:40 |
| Technology #6 Cloud Computing - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Six - Cloud Computing: It's always sunny in the Cloud. Cloud computing puts your desktop wherever you want it." by Sandra Upson | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:16:02 |
| Technology #7 Drone Aircraft - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Seven - Drone Aircraft: How the drones got their stingers." by David Schneider | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:14:42 |
| Technology #8 Planetary Rovers - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Eight - Planetary Rovers: They attempt to answer the most profound question in science. Are we alone?." by Enrico Guizzo | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:17:32 |
| Technology #9 Flexible AC Transmission - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Nine - Flexible AC Transmission: Flexible power electronics will make the smart grid smart." by Peter Fairly | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:15:09 |
| Technology #10 Digital Photography - January, 2011 IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Ten - Digital Photography. It changed not only how we take pictures but also how we communicate." by Tekla S. Perry | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:12:00 |
| Technology #11 Class D Audio - January 2011, IEEE Spectrum | "Top Eleven Technologies of the Decade: Number Eleven - Class-D Audio. A quiet revolution is transforming audio electronics." by Glenn Zorpette | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:08:20 |
| Quest for Absolute Zero - March, 2011 Scientific American | "Demons entropy and the quest for absolute zero. A 19th-century thought experiment paved the way to new scientific discoveries and useful applications." by Mark G. Raizen. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:19 |
| Putting Stonehenge in its Place - March, 2011 Scientific American | "Putting Stonehenge in its place. An increasingly accepted view holds that the great stone circle may have been just part of a much larger ceremonial landscape." by William Underhill. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:15:58 |
| Diseases in a Dish - March, 2011 Scientific American | "Diseases in a Dish. A creative use of stem cells made from adult tissues may hasten drug development for debilitating diseases." by Stephen S. Hall. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:40 |
| Freedom and Anonymity - March, 2011 Scientific American | "Freedom and Anonymity. Fear of cyberattacks should not lead us to destroy what makes the Internet special." by Jonathan Zittrain. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:06:42 |
| Keep the Internet Fair - March, 2011 Scientific American | "Keep the Internet Fair. The government's net neutrality compromise fell flat. Here's a simple fix." by Scientific American's Board of Editors. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:06:02 |
| The Ecosystem Inside - March, 2011 Discover Magazine | "The Ecosystem Inside. The trillions of microbes that live in the human gut could be the key to fighting disease without antibiotics." by Michael Tennesen. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:56 |
| Species Survival - March, 2011 Discover Magazine | "Should Conservationists Allow Some Species to Die Out?" by Isabelle Groc. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:08:19 |
| Vital Signs - March, 2011 Discover Magazine | "Vital Signs: A faint whiff of bad breath tells a worried wife something is seriously wrong with her husband." by H. Lee Kagan. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:30 |
| Physics of the Divine - March, 2011 Discover Magazine | "Physics of the Divine: A group of scientists are embarking on a controversial search for God within the fractured logic of quantum physics." by Zeeya Merali | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:26 |
| Star Fields - March, 2011 Discover Magazine | "Star Fields: Lightning literally comes like a bolt out of nowhere. So scientists are setting up camp to decode the elusive physics of the flashes." by Dava Sobel. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:10:12 |
| Future Tech - March, 2011 Discover Magazine | "Future Tech: iPads, 3-D TVs, and other slick modern displays ignore one critical shortcoming: the fact that we need screens at all." by David H. Freedman. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:11 |
| The Brain - March, 2011 Discover Magazine | "The Brain. Fast driviing, drugs, and unsafe sex may result from a neurological gap in the developing brain." by Carl Zimmer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:12:39 |
| Mind Out of Body - February, 2011 Scientific American | "Mind Out of Body. Pioneering neuroscientist Miguel A. L. Nicolelis argues that brain-wave control of machines will allow the paralyzed to walk and portends a future of mind melds and thought downloads." | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:19:23 |
| How Languages Shape Thought - February, 2011 Magazine Name | "How Languages Shape Thought. The languages we speak affect our perceptions of the world." by Lera Boroditsky. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:19:26 |
| Graphene Electronics: Unzipped! - November 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "Graphene Electronics: Unzipped! By controlling tiny carbon tubes, you can produce superthin sheets with truly extraordinary electronic properties." by Alexander Sinitski and James M. Tour. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:18:54 |
| Green Gold - November, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "Green Gold. Algae could make the perfect renewable fuel." by Philip T. Pienkos, Eric Jarvis and Al Darzins. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:17:45 |
| The Real Sexual Revolution - January 2011, Scientific American | "Dawn of the Deed. Fish fossils push back the origin of copulation in backboned animals and suggest that it was a key turning point in our evolution." by John A. Long. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:48 |
| Space Contact - The Day After - January, 2011 Scientific American | "Space Contact - The day after. If we are ever going to pick up a signal from E.T., it is going to happen soon, astronomers say. And we already have a good idea how events will play out." By Tim Folger. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:24 |
| Putting Family First? - Jan/Feb, 2010 Discover Magazine | "Biologist E. O. Wilson is overturning the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first." An interview by Pamela Weintraub. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:14:44 |
| First Synthetic Organism - Jan/Feb, 2010 Discover Magazine | The Year In Science - 2010: "First Synthetic Organism Created." by Kathleen McAuliffe. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:03:47 |
| 4.4 Million Barrels Later - Jan/Feb, 2010 Discover Magazine | "4.4 Million Barrels Later. The Gulf oil spill revealed the danger of deep oil exploitation. Remote stashes of oil long dismissed as too difficult to reach are within our grasp." by Mac Margolis. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:10:01 |
| Doctor Unification - November, 2010 Scientific American | "Doctor Unification. For years the cosmos and the atom have been at odds with one another. If any physicist can reconcile them, it's Steven Weinberg." an interview by physicist Amir D. Aczel. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:17:22 |
| The Hot Zone - December 2010 Discover | "The Hot Zone. Dengue in Texas. Malaria in New York. Hypertoxic pollen in Baltimore. Climate change is scrambling disease in scary new ways." by Linda Marsa. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:30:27 |
| The Greening of the Supercar - October, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "The Greening of the Supercar. Ferraris, just like Fords must now conform to environmental regulations." by Lawrence Ulrich. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:14:02 |
| Why Size Matters - December, 2010 Discover Magazine | "Why Size Matters. In a galaxy filled with trillions of objects, what makes a planet so special?" by Phil Plait. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:15:08 |
| Airships Ahoy! - October, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "Airships Ahoy! Specialized designs breathe new life into the world's oldest aircraft technology." By Ron Hochstetler. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:12 |
| The Great Spectrum Famine - October, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "The Great Spectrum Famine. Mobile broadband is consuming the available radio spectrum. Serving up more won't be easy." By Mitchell Lazarus. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:42 |
| Big Game Theory - November, 2010 Discover Magazine | "Big Game Theory. What are so many physicists doing playing poker for hours on end in gaming rooms from Vegas to Monaco? Probably Winning." By Jennifer Ouellette. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:16:59 |
| The Bionic Man - November, 2010 Discover Magazine | "The Bionic Man. A mountain-climbing tragedy cost him both legs, so Hugh Herr set about reinventing the artificial limb." By Adam Piore. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:26:39 |
| Could Time End? - September, 2010 Scientific American | "Could Time End? Yes. And no. For time to end seems both impossible and inevitable. Recent work in physics suggests a resolution to the paradox." By George Musser. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:32:06 |
| Why Can't We Live Forever? - September, 2010 Scientific American | "Why can't we live forever? As we grow old, our own cells begin to betray us. By unraveling the mysteries of aging, scientists may be able to make our lives longer and healthier." By Thomas Kirkwood. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:26:47 |
| Cellphone Crime Solvers! - July, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "Cellphone Crime Solvers. Could the murder victim's BlackBerry lead to her killer? Increasingly, the answer is yes." By Richard P. Mislan. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:17 |
| Lite, Brite Displays - March, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "Lite, Brite Displays. Kindle, iPad, Droid - these compact mobile devices are essentially all-display. But the screens aren't all we'd like them to be. Yet." By Jason Heikenfeld. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:59 |
| fMRI Lie Detectors? - August, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "LIAR! Can fMRI brain scans show whether people are telling the truth?" By Mark Harris | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:00 |
| Long and Winding Road to Fusion - October 2010 Discover | "The Long and Winding Road to Fusion. It is the energy source that could change the world. It has eluded every effort to master it. But now Glen Wurden thinks he knows how to make fusion work." By Tim Folger. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:53 |
| The Fastest Helicopter on Earth - September, 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "The Fastest Helicopter on Earth. Sikorsky aims to break the helicopter speed record." By Thomas Lawrence. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:42 |
| When Does Life Belong to the Living? - September, 2010 Scientific American | "When does life belong to the living? With thousands of people on the waiting list for organs, doctors are bending the rules about when to declare that a donor is dead. Is it ethical to take one life and give it to another?" By Robin Marantz Henig. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:16:29 |
| Good Riddance - September, 2010 Scientific American | "Good Riddance. A highly selective list of human creations the world would be better off without." Commentary by various authors. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:28:10 |
| Hacker in Your Hardware - August, 2010 Scientific American | "The Hacker in Your Hardware. As if software viruses weren't bad enough, the microchips that power every aspect of our digital world are vulnerable to tampering in the factory." By John Villasenor. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:19:41 |
| The Incredible Shrinking Brain - September, 2010 Discover Magazine | "The Incredible Shrinking Brain. The human brain has been getting smaller and smaller since the Stone Age - and no one is sure why." By Kathleen McAuliffe. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:26:10 |
| Robot Pills - August, 2010 Scientific American | "Robot Pills. A voyage through the human body is no longer mere fantasy. Tiny devices may soon perform surgery, administer drugs and help diagnose disease." By Paolo Dario and Arianna Menciassi. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:14:52 |
| The Streetlight Effect - July/August 2010 Discover Magazine | "The Streetlight Effect. Researchers tend to look for answers where the looking is good, rather than where the answers are likely to be hiding. The result: a lot of dubious science." By David H. Freedman. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:17:41 |
| How Babies Think - July 2010 Scientific American | "How Babies Think. Even the youngest children know, experience and learn far more than scientists ever thought possible." By Alison Gopnik | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:43 |
| War of the Machines - July, 2010 Scientific American | "War of the Machines. Robots on and above the battlefield are bringing about the most profound transformation of warfare since the advent of the atom bomb." By P. W. Singer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:28:46 |
| Isaac Newton and the Philosopher's Stone - July/August 2010 Discover | "For centuries some of the world's greatest geniuses struggled in secret to turn base metals into gold. In a sense they succeeded: In their restless quest, they unlocked some of nature's greatest secrets." By Jane Bosveld. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:11 |
| Winged Victory - July 2010 Scientific American | "Winged Victory. Modern birds, long thought to have arisen only after the dinosaurs perished, turn out to have lived alongside them." By Gareth Dyke. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:18:02 |
| The Beatles: Rock Band - September 2009 IEEE Spectrum | "The making of 'The Beatles: Rock Band.' How two MIT geeks created a video-game phenomenon that reinvents the Beatles." By David Kushner. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:26 |
| Washing Carbon Out of the Air - June 2010 Scientific American | "Washing Carbon Out of the Air. Machines could absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, slowing or even reversing its rise and reducing global warming." By Klaus S. Lackner. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:23 |
| The Insanity Virus - June 2010 Discover Magazine | "The Insanity Virus. Schizophrenia has long been blamed on bad genes or even bad parents. Wrong! says psychiatrist Fuller Torrey. The real culprit, he claims, is a virus that lives entwined in every person's DNA." By Douglas Fox. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:28:41 |
| It's Alive!!! - June 2010 Discover Magazine | "It's Alive!!! Is anything stirring on the dusty surface of the Red Planet? A few bold scientists say we need speculate no longer: We have already found strong evidence of life on Mars." By Andrew Lawler. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:34 |
| Is Time an Illusion? - June, 2010 Scientific American | "Is Time an Illusion? The concepts of time and change may emerge from a universe that, at root, is utterly static." By Craig Callender. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:30:23 |
| Uncanny Sight in the Blind - May 2010 Scientific American | Some people who are blind because of brain damage have "blindsight," an extraordinary ability to react to emotions on faces and even navigate around obstacles without knowing they can see anything. By Beatrice de Gelder. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:39 |
| Through Neutrino Eyes - May 2010 Scientific American | "Through Neutrino Eyes. Neutrinos are no longer just a curiosity of physics but a practical tool for astronomy." By Graciela B. Gelmini, Alexander Kusenko and Thomas J. Weiler. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:49 |
| Your Inner Healers - May 2010 Scientific American | "Your Inner Healers. Reprogramming cells from your own body could give them the therapeutic power of embryonic stem cells, without the political controversy." By Konrad Hochedlinger. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:29 |
| Terminators - May 2010 Discover Magazine | "Terminators. In the skies above Afghanistan and along the roadsides of Iraq, unmanned military machines are changing the nature of combat. The battlefield of the future may belong to the robots, not the humans." By Mark Anderson. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:06 |
| The Body Shop - May 2010 Discover Magazine | "The Body Shop. No longer the fancy of science fiction, androids are here right now - draped in fleshlike rubber and programmed to ease our fears." By Bruno Maddox. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:10:59 |
| Truffles - April 2010 Scientific American | "The Hidden Life of Truffles. Not just for gourmands, truffles play essential roles in the health of ecosystems." by James M. Trappe and Andrew W. Claridge | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:03 |
| Breaking the Growth Habit - April 2010 Scientific American | "Breaking the Growth Habit. Society can safeguard its future only by switching from reckless economic growth to smart maintenance of wealth and resources." by Bill McKibben | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:30 |
| Regaining Balance (and Vision) - April 2010 Scientific American | "Regaining Balance (and Vision) with Bionic Ears. Electronic implants in the inner ear may one day restore clear vision and equilibrium in some patients with disabling unsteadiness." by Charles C. Della Santina | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:09:58 |
| Who Wrote the Book of Physics? - April 2010 Discover Magazine | For many years we have assumed that the laws of the universe have never changed and never will. But what if that is not so? What if evolution is at work not only in biology but also in the cosmos? by Adam Frank | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:27:16 |
| Fusion's False Dawn - March 2010 Scientific American | "Fusion's False Dawn. Scientists have long dreamed of harnessing nuclear fusion - the power plant of the stars - for a safe, clean and virtually unlimited energy supply." by Michael Moyer | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:28:15 |
| Evolution of Minerals - March 2010 Scientific American | "Evolution of Minerals. Looking at the mineral kingdom through the lens of deep time leads to a startling conclusion: most mineral species owe their existence to life." by Robert M. Hazen | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:27:37 |
| Worm Charmers - March 2010 Scientific American | "Worm Charmers. As Charles Darwin had suspected, earthworms that flee from ground vibrations do so to escape hungry moles - even though sometimes it is humans chasing them." by Kenneth Catania. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:16:17 |
| Interviewing "The Guinea Pig Doctor" - March 2010 Discover Magazine | "The Discover interview of Barry Marshall. The medical elite thought they knew what caused ulcers and stomach cancer. But they were wrong - and did NOT want to hear the answer that was right." By Pamela Weintraub. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:27:09 |
| The Picasso of DNA - March 2010 Discover Magazine | "The Picasso of DNA. George Church is learning to redraw the genetic code. Medicine may soon look totally different - and so could Homo Sapiens." by Ed Regis | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:27:09 |
| The Brain (and Vision) - March 2010 Discover Magazine | "The Brain. We take visual imagination for granted. But the blank inner world of a patient called MX demonstrates the rich neural processes needed to create the images in our heads." by Carl Zimmer | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:32 |
| Star Formation - February 2010 Scientific American | "Cloudy with a chance of stars. Making a star is no easy thing." by Erick T. Young | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:03 |
| Seeing Forbidden Colors - February 2010 Scientific American | "People can be made to see reddish green and yellowish blue - colors forbidden by theories of color perception. These and other hallucinations provide a window into the phenomenon of visual opponency." by Vincent A. Billock & Brian H. Tsou | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:20 |
| The Naked Truth - February 2010 Scientific American | "The Naked Truth. Recent findings lay bare the origins of human hairlessness - and hint that naked skin was a key factor in the emergence of other human traits" by Nina G. Jablonski | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:07 |
| Google Chrome O.S. - January 2010 IEEE Spectrum | "Google Chrome, the Conqueror. Google's new online operating system could be the Windows killer" by Sally Adee | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:18:39 |
| The Rise & Fall of Nanobacteria - January 2010 Scientific American | "The Rise and Fall of Nanobacteria. Once believed to be the smallest pathogens known, nanobacteria have now proved to be something almost as strange. They do play a role in health - just not the one originally thought" by John D. Young and Jan Martel | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:27:11 |
| Next 20 Years of Microchips - January 2010 Scientific American | "The next 20 years of microchips. Designers are pushing all the boundaries to make integrated circuits smaller, faster and cheaper." by Scientific American Editors | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:54 |
| Violent Origins of Continents - January 2010 Scientific American | "Violent Origins of Continents. Did asteroid strikes during the earth's youth spawn the earliest fragments of today's landmasses?" by Sarah Simpson | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:10 |
| Biology's Next Leap - Jan/Feb 2010 Discover | An interview of J. Craig Venter on "Biology's Next Leap," digitally designed life-forms that could produce novel drugs, renewable fuels, and plentiful food for tomorrow's world. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:29 |
| Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural? - June 2007 Lecture | Climatologist S. Fred Singer's June 30, 2007 lecture at Hillsdale College presents the view that concern over man-caused global climate change is misplaced and that governmental action is not required. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:02 |
| Portrait of a Black Hole - December 2009 Scientific American | "Portrait of a Black Hole - By adapting a global network of telescopes, astronomers will soon get their first look ever at the dark silhouette of a black hole" by Avery E. Broderick and Abraham Loeb. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:28:20 |
| Computers That Behave as a Brain - December 2009 Discover | An interview of Henry Markram: Using computer processors that behave like neurons in the neocortex, Markram is inching closer to building a simulated human brain - a truly conscious machine. By David Kushner | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:22:23 |
| Out of Eden - December 2009 Discover | "Out of Eden: The sobering message from an extraordinary ancient Syrian settlement. Urban civilization and organized warfare emerged hand-in-hand" by Andrew Lawler | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:28:37 |
| Dawn of the Black Holes - December 2009 Discover | "Dawn of the Black Holes: Long known for their obliterating power, black holes may also have been a creative force: New evidence suggests that they helped sculpt the structure of the early universe" by Andrew Grant | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:08:59 |
| The Everything T.V. - November 2009 Scientific American | "The Everything T.V.: The Internet stands ready to upend the television-viewing experience, but exactly how is a matter of considerable dispute" by Michael Moyer. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:04 |
| Siblings of the Sun - November 2009 Scientific American | "The Long-Lost Siblings of the Sun: The sun was born in a family of stars. What became of them?" by Simon F. Portegies Zwart | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:14 |
| Sustainable Energy - November 2009 Scientific American | "A Path to Sustainable Energy: Wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 percent of the world's energy, eliminating all fossil fuels. Here's how!" by Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:26:26 |
| Digital Exposure - November 2009 Discover Magazine | "Digital Exposure: As data mining becomes a potent force in business, politics and government, our "private" information is becoming more public every day." by Elizabeth Svoboda. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:19:24 |
| Squeezing Oil From the Ground - October 2009 Scientific American | "Squeezing More Oil From the Ground. Amid warnings of a possible "peak oil," advanced technologies offer ways to extract every last possible drop." by Leonardo Maugeri | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:10 |
| The Ig Nobel Awards - from Improbable.com | The Ig Nobel Awards are awarded each year for serious Scientific publications that also have a humorous slant. Example: a paper showing that cows who have names give more milk. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:18:55 |
| Cosmic Collision - October 2009 Discover Magazine | "What Lies Beyond the Edge of the Universe? Cosmic Collision: Our universe may be one of a multitude - and it may bear the scars of past run-ins with its neighbors." by Zeeya Merali | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:14 |
| Thinking Machine - October 2009 Discover Magazine | "Thinking Machine. Can we build an artificial brain? The future of computing may depend on embracing the chaos that defines the human brain" by Douglas Fox | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:29:11 |
| Buzz Off - October 2009 Discover | "Buzz Off: Where Have All the Bees Gone? The great bee die-off is not such a mystery after all: Industrial agriculture has stressed our pollinators to the breaking point." by Morgen E. Peck | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:50 |
| Origin of Life - September 2009 Scientific American | "Origin of Life On Earth: Fresh clues hint at how the first living organisms arose from inanimate matter" by Alonso Ricardo and Jack W. Szostak | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:28:40 |
| Origin of the Universe - September 2009 Scientific American | "Origin of the Universe: Cosmologists are closing in on the ultimate processes that created and shaped the universe" by Michael S. Turner | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:30 |
| Origin of Computing - September 2009 Scientific American | "The Origin of Computing: The information age began with the realization that machines could emulate the power of minds" by Martin Campbell-Kelly | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:24:15 |
| Twilight of the Neandertals - August 2009 Scientific American | "Twilight of the Neandertals: Paleoanthropologists know more about Neandertals than any other extinct human. But their demise remains a mystery, one that gets curiouser and curiouser." By Kate Wong. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:05 |
| Iron Key to Superconductivity? - August 2009 Scientific American | "An Iron Key to High-Temperature Superconductivity? The discovery that compounds known as iron pnictides can superconduct 50 degrees above absolute zero has reignited physicists' quest for better high-temperature superconductors and may offer clues to unlocking a 20-year mystery" by Graham P. Collins | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:26:10 |
| Return of the Invisible Man - July/August 2009 Discover | Stephen Hawking, the master of time, space, and black holes, steps back into the spotlight to secure his scientific legacy - and to explain the greatest mystery in physics. By Tim Folger | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:35:10 |
| Adventures in Curved Spacetime - August 2009 Scientific American | The possibility of "swimming" and "gliding" in curved, empty space shows that, even after nine decades, Einstein's theory of general relativity continues to amaze. By Eduardo Gueron | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:00 |
| Grassoline at the Pump - July 2009 Scientific American | Scientists are turning agricultural leftovers, wood and fast-growing grasses into a huge variety of biofuels - even jet fuel. But before these next-generation biofuels go mainstream, they have to compete with oil at $60 a barrel. By George W. Huber and Bruce E. Dale. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:21:10 |
| Nukes Underground - June 11 2009 Whyfiles.org | "Nukes Underground: How do we know? North Korea pops second nuke; test is immediately detected" from www.whyfiles.org | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:16:00 |
| The Science of Bubbles and Busts - July 2009 Scientific American | "The Science of Bubbles and Busts: The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has prompted a reassessment of how financial markets work and how people make decisions about money" by Gary Stix. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:27:55 |
| From the Moon to Mars - July 2009 Scientific American | Forty years ago this month the lunar surface reverberated with life for the first time. The only scientist and field geologist ever to visit the moon offers some pointers to those who will one day visit Mars. By Harrison H. Schmitt | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:26:35 |
| Phosphorus: A Looming Crisis - June 2009 Scientific American | "This underappreciated resource - a key part of fertilizers - is still decades from running out. But we must act now to conserve it, or future agriculture will collapse." By David A. Vaccari. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:14:50 |
| Stepping Stone to Mars - June 2009 Discover Magazine | "Stepping stone to Mars: A bizarre moon could hold the keys to the history of the solar system - and the future of human space exploration" by James Oberg | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:45 |
| Vaccination Nation - June 2009 Discover | "Vaccination Nation: The decade long controversy surrounding the safety of vaccines is over - or is it? A fierce debate continues over what really puts our children at risk." By Chris Mooney. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:32:40 |
| Improbable Planets - June 2009 Scientific American | "Improbable Planets: Astronomers are finding planets where there were not supposed to be any." by Michael W. Werner and Michael A. Jura | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:18:15 |
| The Taming of the Cat - June 2009 Scientific American | The Taming of the Cat: Genetic and archeological findings hint that wildcats became house cats earlier - and in a different place - than previously thought. By Carlos A. Driscoll, Juliet Clutton-Brock, Andrew C. Kitchener and Stephen J. O'Brien. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:55 |
| Powering Nanorobots - May 2009 Scientific American | Powering Nanorobots: Catalytic engines enable tiny swimmers to harness fuel from their environment and overcome the weird physics of the microscopic world. | Authors: Thomas E. Mallouk & Ayusman Sen, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:05 |
| Sketching Sunspots - June 2009 Discover | Field Notes: Astronomers at the Mount Wilson Observatory sketch sunspots every day, continuing a tradition started by Galileo. | Author: Dava Sobel, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:09:57 |
| How to Make Anything Disappear - April 2009 Discover | How to Make Anything Disappear. From invisibility cloaks to optical computers, engineers are turning the laws of physics upside down. | Author: Fred Hapgood, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:30:06 |
| Fuel For Thought - April 27, 2009 Weekly Standard | Current proposals to make electricity even more expensive through cap and trade taxation, and to spend the revenue on the least productive alternatives, is counterproductive. Cheap nuclear-generated electricity is the "green energy" we really need. | Author: Halbert Fischel, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:13:55 |
| Dark Energy - April 2009 Scientific American | Does Dark Energy Really Exist? Maybe not. The observations that led astronomers to deduce its existence could have another explanation: that our galaxy lies at the center of a giant cosmic void. | Authors: Timothy Clifton & Pedro G. Ferreira, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:58 |
| The Biocentric Universe - May 2009 Discover | Biocentrism should unlock the cages in which Western science has unwittingly confined itself. Allowing the observer into the equation should open new approaches to understanding cognition and solving problems associated with quantum physics and the Big Bang. | Authors: Robert Lanza & Bob Berman , Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:16:18 |
| Saving the Honeybee - April 2009 Scientific American | The mysterious ailment called colony collapse disorder has wiped out large numbers of the bees that pollinate a third of our crops. The causes turn out to be surprisingly complex, but solutions are emerging. | Authors: Diana Cox-Foster and Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:21 |
| Building a Better Brain - April 2009 Discover Magazine | Today's mind-altering drugs can already improve your memory, increase your alertness, and smooth your mood. Just wait until you see what tomorrow's drugs can do! | Author: Sherry Baker, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:29:02 |
| The PTSD Trap - April 2009 Scientific American | A growing number of experts insist that the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder is itself disordered and that soldiers are suffering as a result. | Author: David Dobbs, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:27:49 |
| The Perfect Kilogram - March 2009 Discover | Within a secure climate-controlled vault in France, the perfect kilogram watches over every weight measurement in the world. | Author: Dava Sobel, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:10:20 |
| The Greenhouse Hamburger - Feb 2009 Scientific American | Producing beef for the table has a surprising environmental cost: it releases prodigious amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gasses. | Author: Nathan Fiala, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:10:17 |
| Entangled Life - Jan 2009 Discover | Quantum forces may explain photosynthesis, our sense of smell, even consciousness itself. | Author: Mark Anderson, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:15:57 |
| The Father of Dark Matter - Jan 2009 Discover | Fritz Zwicky, an oddball to a generation of astronomers, got there first on dark matter, neutron stars, and supernovas. His daughter wants him to get the recognition he deserves. | Author: Richard Panek, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:50 |
| Darwin's Living Legacy - Jan 2009 Scientific American | A Victorian amateur undertook a lifetime pursuit of slow, meticulous observation and thought about the natural world, producing a theory 150 years ago that still drives the contemporary scientific agenda. | Author: Gary Stix, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:21 |
| Three Short Articles - Dec 2008 Discover | Nomadic Hand-Me-Downs by Emily Anthes, Last Frog Hopping by Julianne Pepitone, Rebuilding the Internet by Mark Anderson | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:09:34 |
| Career Opportunities for Persons With Visual Impairment (Part 2) - July 2008 BAMS | Technology, adaptive strategies, full access to information and programs, and reasonable accommodations allow people with visual impairments to be productive in the highly visual field of atmospheric science. | Author: Imke Durre, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:35:30 |
| Career Opportunities for Persons With Visual Impairment (Part 1) - July 2008 BAMS | Technology, adaptive strategies, full access to information and programs, and reasonable accommodations allow people with visual impairments to be productive in the highly visual field of atmospheric science. | Author: Imke Durre, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:28:56 |
| Can HIV Be Cured? - Nov 2008 Discover | Eliminating HIV from the body would require flushing the virus out of its hiding places and preventing those reservoirs from being refilled. A tall order but perhaps not impossible. | Author: Mario Stevenson, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:20:46 |
| A Universe Built For Us - Dec 2008 Discover | Our cosmos seems inexplicably well-designed for life. According to a controversial theory, that's because nature had 10 to the 500th tries to get it right. | Author: Tim Folger, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:02 |
| Quest for a Second Earth - Nov 2008 Discover | Planets orbiting other suns are astonishingly common. Now the race is on to devise telescopes that can determine if any of them are enough like Earth to support life. | Author: Robert Kunzig, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:32:07 |
| The Perfect Plague - Nov 2008 Discover | The next killer germ could burst from the African rain forest - or from your family pet. | Authors: Jared Diamond and Nathan Wolfe, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:25:24 |
| Web Science Emerges - Oct 2008 Scientific American | Studying the Web will reveal better ways to exploit information, prevent identity theft, revolutionize industry and manage our ever growing online lives. | Authors: Nigel Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:23:51 |
| 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 | 00:20:02 |
| 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 | 00:27:16 |
| 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 | 00:16:14 |
| 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 | 00:16:44 |
| The Gonzo Scientist - sciencemag.org | How Astronomers Have Fun - Chasing the 2008 solar eclipse | Author: John Bohannon, Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:15:26 |
| 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 | 00:16:23 |
| 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 | 00:32:42 |
| 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 | 00:22:57 |
| 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 | 00:10:41 |
| 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 | 00:25:32 |
| 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 | 00:15:11 |
| 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 | 00:24:59 |
| 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 | 00:27:00 |
| 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 | 00:09:56 |
| 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 | 00:19:08 |
| 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 | 00:24:49 |
| 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 | 00:25:38 |
| 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 | 00:32:06 |
| 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 | 00:21:24 |
| 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 | 00:11:56 |
| 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 | 00:20:15 |
| 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 | 00:31:46 |
| 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 | 00:19:43 |
| 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 | 00:23:37 |
| 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 | 00:28:09 |
| 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 | 00:12:13 |
| 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 | 00:26:31 |
| LA Times Science File | Middle-aged and miserable?, Deep brain stimulation boosts memory, Science Briefs. | Reader: Joe Jurca | 00:11:21 |
| 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 | 00:06:32 |
| 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 | 00:07:59 |
| 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 | 00:13:31 |
| 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 | 00:11:19 |
| 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 | 00:06:25 |
| 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 | 00:08:24 |
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