Featured image: Protests in India about women’s rights have taken center stage in Western news recently, but mainstream media often emphasizes the louder news: aggression and war, instead of the peace process. (courtesy WBUR)

Thanks to guest Beena Sarwar, Pakistani media expert and visiting Ferris journalist at Princeton, for a deep look into why the media functions as it does. She speaks on how the personal is political in a repressive system, the media’s ideal role in society (and how its operation as a business corrupts this role), and the hypernationalism of nuclear proliferation in Southeast Asia. It’s stunning and entertaining stuff, so tune in starting about an hour in!

In the broadcast’s third hour, we jump to open source software and its values. Eugene Evans and Charles Swanson, plasma physics PhD candidates at Princeton, join us to talk about their own inventions with open source technology: homemade 3D printers, startups for VoIP systems, and more!

Check out this background for more information:

• With new metallic polymers, we can now 3D print magnets.
• The recent European Space Agency’s crash landing of a Mars rover is still being investigated.
• The grounding lines of Antarctic glaciers are slipping faster than we thought–bad news for a system that amplifies over time.

The playlist can be found at WPRB.com or below.

Featured image: A climate change model from Boulder, CO, predicting air flows and temperatures in a wide range of climate-change scenarios. (courtesy Atmos News)

Double interview on These Vibes tonight! We started the show with Matteo Ippoliti, Princeton graduate student in physics, who explained the Nobel-winning concepts of his academic advisor Duncan Haldane–all the way from spin arrays to quantum computing.

At 6:00, composer Erik Walker and climate prediction expert Bill Collins called in from San Francisco to cover their recent collaboration: the Climate Music Project. This joining of arts and sciences writes climate change into the pace of a composition. For example, temperature forces the piece’s tempo to change, increased solar radiation leads to distortion, and so forth. Hear the pair dive into climate modeling accuracy and the public’s reaction to their collaboration.

The whole show is dotted, of course, with science news and music of all kinds. Check out the resources below:

• Topology and its applications to condensed matter, as explained by APS
• A recent presentation on Haldane’s work, which was just awarded a very abstract Nobel prize
• Some jobs are more appealing in a world with climate change
• What ancient British teeth tell us about mobility in 2500 BC
• Buffets should waste less meat, say Missouri scientists

Find the playlist below, or at WPRB.com.