6/27/17 Show feat. Alex Todorov on the psychology of first impressions + Ingrid Ockert on “Programmed Inequality” in Britain

In this installment of These Vibes, Stevie spoke with Alexander Todorov, psychology professor at Princeton and author of the new book “Face Value: The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions,” which just came out in hardcover earlier this month. The book dives in to his research on first impressions — the very human way we make character judgments after only a glance at another person’s face. These impressions are often incorrect, but can affect important decisions we make, like elections and criminality. In this interview we take a deep dive in to the history of the pseudoscience of physiognomy, as well as current research in psychology and the effect of first impressions on elections, criminal justice, and more.

Additionally, science historian Ingrid Ockert joins us to discuss the text “Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing.”

Science News:

“Floral curve test shows what’s great for a moth is not so good for a flower” – 3-D printed imaginary flowers reveal hidden pollinator-plant conflict over flower shape
“Chinese province runs on 100% renewable energy for a week to test whether grid can cope” – ‘Clean energy is the ultimate way. We need to reduce reliance on fossil fuel’

6/20/17 Show feat. Tamas Prileszky on Engineering Fluids and Food Science

Featured image: The late Professor Mainstone with his famous tar drip experiment, which has produced about a drop a decade since 1930. The idea: everything flows.

In this episode, we’re investigating the intersecting worlds of colloids, fluid properties, and food science with Tamás Prileszky, a University of Delaware graduate student in chemical engineering. What governs the diverse behavior of liquids as different as oil and mayonnaise? How can engineers tweak the concoctions they develop? Tamás will share his expertise in droplets, which float around in liquids and drastically affect their properties, and explain what tools and methods scientists use to develop new chemical technologies. Finally, we’ll connect all this with our diets: how do we engineer food, and why is it that we put so many additives in grocery store products?

In other news:

CRISPR, the gene editing technology that’s taking biology by storm, recently made big gains against Huntingdon’s disease in mice.
Eclipses (discussed on TVR2C recently) are still a huge opportunity for solar research, as shown by this group from Hawaii studying the temperature of coronal mass ejections.
A widely-publicized Tesla crash can be blamed on the driver, not the self-driving car, say new findings by the company.
Wild felines became cats and spread all around the ancient world, mostly through two big human-induced migrations. Or at least that’s what scientists can tell from new analyses of ancient cat DNA.
Airborne germs survive for a long time after a sneeze or a cough, according to Australian scientists. So long, dreams of cleanliness.

The full playlist of the show is available on WPRB’s website or below.

6/13/17 Show feat. Dorit Aviv on Building and Optimizing Buildings + the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty

Featured image: Adlinger Center at Princeton University.

In this installment of These Vibes, graduate researcher in the Computation and Energy track in Princeton University’s School of Architecture, Dorit Aviv, joined us on the mic to discuss her work designing and optimizing buildings. In the image next to the stream you can see Dorit Aviv with her Cool Oculus, discussed in the show.

At the start of the show, Tamara Patton and Sébastien Philippe*, doctoral researchers in mechanical engineering and Science & Global Security, explained the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty, currently in negotiations at the UN as well as the upcoming Women’s March to Ban the Bomb.

*Tamara Patton and Sébastien Philippe were both past guests on this show. Learn more about Tamara’s research on emergent technologies being used for nuclear disarmament and Sébastien on nuclear arms verification in their interview.

Playlist:

6/6/17 Show feat. Doug Massey on Undocumented Immigration and Border Militarization

Featured image: Workers in the bracero program in the 1950s. Seasonal migrants like these men circulated from Mexico to the US and back yearly until the border became too dangerous to do so. (courtesy Emory University)

This episode, listen to hear Professor of Sociology Doug Massey in an intensely topical conversation: what happens when borders are militarized? What are the impacts of US immigration policy, and how might a border wall affect our country’s population of immigrants? In this interview, we dig into the xenophobia of our politics and media, and see how sociologists view macroscopic trends in migration in the light of baseless misinformation propagated by our news and in our culture.

In other news:

By publishing information about endangered species online, scientists are accidentally helping poachers root out the last of some rare animals.
It’s hard to tell when sheep are in pain, but computers can now get it right about as often as humans: new AI can guess which sheep are in distress 2/3 of the time.
Individual neurons are responsible for recognizing each part of a face, as detailed in new a new study of chimpanzee brains.
More LIGO results are in, with measurements of gravitational waves coming from a black hole merger 3 billion years ago.

The full playlist can be found on WPRB.com or below.