Featured image: Famed science advocate Bill Nye debates creationist Ken Ham on evolution in one of the most watched scientific debates in recent memory. (Courtesy NBC)

In this final show of the year, Matt Grobis (a regular guest and graduate student in EEB) comes on to talk through the urgent topic of public outreach by scientists. In a media landscape where evidence doesn’t always count, how can scientists defend their research to taxpayers and the government? Can we accurately gauge public understanding of science, and whether the public is divided over our research? Finally, we contemplate echo chambers in society and the accusation that the scientific community itself is an echo chamber.

On top of that, listen for yogurt science, holiday/science events, and an overview of some of this year’s biggest discoveries: from gravity waves to the superparticle that wasn’t, to new prime numbers, planets and moons.

Thanks for listening to These Vibes Are Too Cosmic all through 2016! It’s our goal to keep up the quality science news and entertainment through the exciting discoveries of 2017. Never hesitate to contact us with show ideas if you have them!

For further information:

• Nature advocates better visualization of climate data, so that the public can interpret the facts more clearly.
• Matt mentioned Strangers in their Own Land, a series of interviews with Tea Partiers in Louisiana.
• See also this story on anti-vaccine opinions being transformed not by evidence, but by emotional connections.
• Featured music includes Juri Seo of Princeton’s Music Department, as well as several tunes from Jeff Snyder’s Carrier Records.

The playlist for the show is online at WPRB.com or below.

 

Featured image: a cargo ship, ferrying a pile of our everyday goods across the Pacific Ocean. Increases in ship traffic attracted the attention of Eric Stone, photographer.

This week, Yann Koby of Princeton’s Department of Economics comes on the air, focusing on the economics of the US manufacturing sector. We examine economic modeling and prediction, especially concerning the flow of jobs in and out of the US due to trade with other countries. How do trade policies between large nations affect the structure of our economy? How does job availability in the US affect politics? Specifically, Yann theorized about the recent election: Trump bet his candidacy on the connection between globalization and jobs. Was he right that increased trade put Americans out of work? What effects on the US and world economy might we expect out of the upcoming administration? Listen in to the interview (starting an hour in to the recording) to find out!

Later in the show, regular guest Ingrid Ockert reviews a lecture series by Naomi Oreskes on scientists as Merchants of Doubt. When have scientists peddled misinformation, and when should we trust them?

Other relevant info and background:

• Yann Koby maintains a blog, visible here (some articles are in English!).
• Solar panels have broken even, making as much energy as it’s cost to produce them for decades.
• We’ve long theorized about dark matter, but have never seen it. Some suspect it might not exist at all – hear Stevie’s careful analysis in the show.
• Genetic engineering is making plants grow faster – demonstrated in tobacco but useful for fighting worldwide hunger.

The full playlist is online at WPRB.com or below.

Featured image: HeLa cells, all derived from one human, being imaged with fluorescence. Proteins tagged with light-sensitive tails travel through the cell. (courtesy NIH)

This week, I’m happy to have interviewed Lian Zhu, a Princeton PhD candidate in Chemical and Biological Engineering. Her fascinating research on the cell’s nucleolus will bring us through the science of RNA creation and how cell parts can exist without membranes. She’ll explain how light can engineer cellular dynamics, and how she’s used this optogenetics technique to stiffen or loosen various proteins inside the cell nucleus–a feat which mimics the cell’s own formation and dissociation of globs inside the nucleus. Track proteins and affect their motion with light: it’s a hands-on way to look inside the cell! Her interview starts an hour into the track above.

As an added bonus, Lian shared this video of cells inside a worm egg dividing until they form a multicellular animal – and she’s seen this happen under a microscope with her own eyes.

Preceding the main interview (0:40 on the recording), Harrison Blackman covers the rust-red Blood Falls, an Antarctic glacier whose bacteria produced a horror-movie set. Afterwards, we share science news about space telescopes and craters on Earth, and the whole show features music from all over the Middle East for flavor. Enjoy!

Relevant links:

• The crater that ended the dinosaurs’ reign is under study, and granite is way closer to the surface than expected–is it a sign of lava flows during asteroid impact?
• The James Webb Space Telescope is built and ready for launch in 2018, finally ready to peer into new galaxies beyond the capabilities of Hubble.
• A lake under Mars’ surface could be easily accessible standing water for us to investigate, and we only found it recently with orbiter radar!
• Science poetry: Lian shared this engaging piece on air, and it turns out lots of scientists throughout history have been writing poems to share their research.

See our event calendar for upcoming events, and check out the playlist for the show at WPRB.com or below.

 

Featured image: A small group of Grevy’s zebras, which might remain together to avoid predators or split apart to find more food for themselves. (Courtesy M. F. Kinnaird)

Kaia Tombak of Princeton’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department was on mic this week to share her expertise on collective behavior in animals. How are groups of animals structured? What environmental factors influence social flexibility in a herd? Kaia studies these questions about group dynamics where two species of zebras co-exist in the Kenyan

savannah, looking at the impact a few genetic differences have on collective behavior. Later, we discuss hierarchies in primate species: how egalitarian are male and female groups? All this, plus stories of running from elephants and a smattering of science news, can be found in this week’s show.

Check out the interview beginning an hour into the show above, and in the meantime here’s some relevant background:

• Narwhals have amazing abilities of echolocation for finding their way around the Arctic.
• Of all the emotions, babies have the strongest neurological connection with fear.
• We now have genetic evidence that European colonization of the Americas uprooted the  immune systems of Native Americans.
• Kaia’s research goes way beyond Africa: here she is diving with sharks and lasers.

Thanks for listening! The playlist is online at WPRB.com or below.

Featured image: A high-pressure system over Tasmania, which pushes moist air away from a region and can cause droughts (even over the ocean!). (Courtesy NASA).

This week’s episode features Julio Herrera Estrada, Princeton PhD candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering (his interview starts an hour into the show). As an expert on drought formation and prediction, Julio told us how to model long-term climate patterns and how interactions between land and air can lead to severe weather. Withstanding severe droughts requires connecting science and policy, so we explore what developed and developing countries can do to mitigate risks.

Additionally in this Election Day special, we spoke with Kathleen McCleery, visiting Ferris journalist, producer for PBS NewsHour, and WPRB alumnus on her understanding of this year’s US election. From demographics to the voracious news cycle that forgets as fast as we feed it, we pondered the influence that the media can have on the election and vice versa. You can hear it starting 30 minutes into the broadcast.

For other science news, check out the following links:

• Perovskite solar cells promise to be cheap and efficient, thanks to nanomaterial engineering.
• X-rays from the haze around Pluto might indicate a bigger atmosphere than we thought possible, and suggest that other dwarf planets might emit X-rays too.

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

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.