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SETI: Science and Skepticism Podcast by Seth Shostak

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Real Science Beats Pseudo Science

A podcast presented by the organization that is leading the search for life on other planets, the SETI podcast is great for anyone interested in cutting-edge scientific research. Each week, SETI Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak invites guests to talk about topics such as cosmology, physics, genetics, astrobiology and more. Not content to allow room for any pseudo-science, Shostak also gives attention to skeptics, providing a well-rounded perspective on the mysteries that science is still working to illuminate.

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To Earth and Back

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, May 21, 2012

We are all Martians … or could be, if, billions of years ago, Red Plant microbes fell to Earth and eventually evolved to us. Okay, that one’s a big “if.â€� But microbes can survive space travel. Meet the NASA officer whose task is to keep Earth, Mars – and the entire solar system –safe from hitchhiking bacteria.

And, even if we’re not Martians (darn!), did life once thrive on the Red Planet … and does it still today?

Plus, why meteorites may be happy habitats for life.

Guests:

• Catharine Conley – NASA planetary protection officer
• Chris McKay – Planetary scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
• Paul Davies – Director of the BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University
• Aaron Burton – Astrobiologist, NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center
• Debbie Kolyer – Grants Manager, SETI Institute


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That's So Random!

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, May 14, 2012



ENCORE Random is as random does… makes sense doesn’t even that anyway in tune hear to randomness how lives rules.

Brain chaos the drives, restoration role of help insight ecology may into randomness the, numbers sense of make statistics can’t why we or, ants not seem of erratic behavior why the may but is.

Guests:

• Leonard Mlodinow – Theoretical physicist and author of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Vintage)
• Jon Chase – Biologist and director of the Tyson Research center at Washington University in St. Louis
• Lori Marino – Evolutionary biologist, Emory University
• Deborah Gordon – Biologist, Stanford University
• John Beggs – Physicist, Indiana University at Bloomington

First released January 10, 2011



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Skeptic Check: Forget with the Program

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, May 07, 2012



Just remember this: memory is like Swiss cheese. Even our recollection of dramatic events that seem to sear their images directly onto our brain turn out to be riddled with errors. Discover the reliability of these emotional “flashbulb� memories.

Also, a judge questions the utility of eyewitness testimony in court. And, don’t blame Google for destroying your powers of recall! Socrates thought the same thing about the written word.

Plus, Brains on Vacation!

Guests:

• Phil Plait – Keeper of Discover Magazine’s badastronomy blog
• Craig Stark – Neurobiologist, Director for the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at Univeristy of California, Irvine
• Ronald Reinstein – Former judge on the Superior Court of Arizona and judicial consultant for the Arizona Supreme Court
• Betsy Sparrow – Psychologist, Columbia University

Descripción en español



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Group Think

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Apr 30, 2012



If two is company and three a crowd, what’s the ideal number to write a play or invent a new operating system? Some say you need groups to be creative. Others disagree: breakthroughs come only in solitude.

Hear both sides, and find out why you always have company even when alone: meet the “parliament of selves� that drive your brain’s decision-making.

Plus, how ideas of societies lead them to thrive or fall, and why educated conservatives have lost trust in science.

Guests:

• Susan Cain – Author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
• Keith Sawyer – Psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis and author of Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
• David Eagleman – Neuroscientist, Baylor College of Medicine and author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
• Gordon Gauchat – Sociologist, University North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Joseph Tainter – Professor, Environment & Society Department, Utah State University and author of The Collapse of Complex Societies

Descripción en español



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Early Adapters

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Apr 23, 2012



ENCORE The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah.

So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in the city – your vegetables might be grown in downtown, hi-rise greenhouses. Also, a population expert tells us how our planet can cope with billions more people, and the man who invented the term ‘cyberspace’ describes what the future might hold for the techno-savvy.

Darwinian evolution takes a long time to accommodate to new environments. But Homo sapiens can beat that rap by wielding the right technology – and becoming early adapters.

Guests:

• Dickson Despommier – Emeritus professor of public health and microbiology at Columbia University, author of The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century
• William Gibson – Author, most recently, of Zero History
• Joel Cohen – Mathematician and biologist at Rockefeller University
• David DeGusta – Paleoanthropologist at the Paleoanthropology Institute in California

Descripción en español

First aired December 6, 2010



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Humans Need Not Apply

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Apr 16, 2012



ENCORE You are one-of-a-kind, unique, indispensible… oh, wait, never mind! It seems that computer over there can do what you do … faster and with greater accuracy.

Yes, it’s silicon vs. carbon as intelligent, interactive machines out-perform humans in tasks beyond data-crunching. We’re not only building our successors, we’re developing emotional relationships with them. Find out why humans are hard-wired to be attached to androids.

Also, the handful of areas where humans still rule… as pilots, doctors and journalists. Scratch that! Journalism is automated too – tune in for a news story written solely by a machine.

Guests:

• Clifford Nass – Social psychologist at Stanford University and Director of the Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab
• Tom Jones – United States astronaut, space consultant, and veteran of four Space Shuttle flights
• Chris Ford – Business director at Pixar Animation Studios
• Eric Van De Graaff -Cardiologist at Alegent Health
• James Bennighof – Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, and professor of music theory at Baylor University in Texas
• Kathy Abbott – Chief Scientific and Technical Advisor for Flight Deck Human Factors at the Federal Aviation Administration
• Kristian Hammond – Co-founder, Narrative Science

Descripción en español

First aired November 22, 2010.



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Second That Emotion

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Apr 09, 2012



So you weep at sappy commercials and give drivers the bird. Have no regrets: emotion is what makes us human! Discover the survival value in feeling disgust … why humans are terrible liars … and how despair fuels creativity.

Also, mis-firing emotions and the emotional consequences of facial paralysis. And why E.T. will need to feel fear and joy to survive.

Guests:

• Rachel Herz – Psychologist, author of That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion
• Paul Ekman – Psychologist, professor emeritis, University of California, San Francisco
• Kathleen Bogart – Psychologist, Tufts University
• Gordy Slack – Science writer
• Jonah Lehrer – Author of Imagine: How Creativity Works

Descripción en español



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Life Back Then

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Apr 02, 2012



Time keeps on ticking, ticking … and as it does, evolution operates to produce remarkable changes in species. Wings may appear, tails disappear. Sea creatures drag themselves onto the shore and become landlubbers. But it’s not easy to grasp the expansive time scales involved in these transformative feats.

Travel through millennia, back through mega and giga years, for a sense of what can occur over deep time, from the Cambrian Explosion to the age of the dinosaurs to the rise of Homo sapiens.

Guests:

• Lorna O’Brien – Evolutionary biologist, University of Toronto
• Ivan Schwab – Professor of ophthalmology, University of California, Davis. His blog
• Don Henderson – Curator of dinosaurs, Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Canada
• Gregory Cochran – Physicist, anthropologist, University of Utah
• Todd Schlenke – Biologist, Emory University

Descripción en español



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Found in Space

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Mar 26, 2012



ENCORE If someone asks where you get off, you can now respond with precision. Satellites and computers spit out coordinates accurate to a few paces. And digital maps stand the Copernican principle on its head – putting you at the center of everything (how does it feel?).

Find out how today’s maps are shuffling our world view. Also, how does a rat navigate a maze without GPS? Hear of the plotting that goes on in that tiny rodent brain.

Plus, mapping the universe and pinpointing just where we are in cosmic time – lucky for us, human evolution is right on schedule.

Guests:

• Josh Winn – Astronomer, MIT
• David Redish – Neuroscientist, University of Minnesota
• Mario Livio – Astrophysicist, Space Telescope Science Institute and author of Is God a Mathematician?
• Mike Goodchild – Professor of Geography, Center for Spatial Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Descripción en español



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Catch a Wave

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Mar 19, 2012



Let there be light. Otherwise we couldn’t watch a sunset or YouTube. Yet what your eye sees is but a narrow band in the electromagnetic spectrum. Shorten those light waves and you get invisible gamma radiation. Lengthen them and tune into a radio broadcast.

Discover what’s revealed about our universe as you travel along the electromagnetic spectrum. There’s the long of it: an ambitious goal to construct the world’s largest radio telescope array … and the short: a telescope that images high-energy gamma rays from black holes.

Also, the structure of the universe as seen through X-ray eyes and a physicist sings the praises of infrared light. Literally.

And, while gravity waves are not in the electromagnetic club, these ripples in spacetime could explain some of the biggest mysteries of the cosmos. But first, we have to catch them!

Guests:

• Anil Ananthaswamy – Journalist and consultant for New Scientist in London
• Harvey Tananbaum – Director of the Chandra X-Ray Center, located in Cambridge Massachusetts at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
• David Reitze – Executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), California Institute of Technology
• Albert Lazzarini – Deputy director, LIGO, California Institute of Technology
• Alan Marscher – Professor of astronomy at Boston University

Descripción en español



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Seth's Cabinet of Wonders

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Mar 12, 2012



It’s always a surprise to sort through Seth’s cabinet of wonders – who knows what we’ll find!

In this cramped cupboard, tucked between shelves of worm gears and used clarinet reeds, we discover a forgotten U.S. sea floor laboratory … copies of the new Cosmos TV series … evidence of science fiction’s predictive powers … software that may replace scientists … and tips on surviving a deadly poison (hint: it helps to be a snake).

Tune in, find out and grab a duster, will you?

Guests:

• Neil deGrasse Tyson – Astrophysicst at the American Museum of Natural History and author of Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier
  
• Robert J. Sawyer – Hugo award-wining science fiction author; his newest title is Triggers
  
• Ben Hellwarth – Author of Sealab: America’s Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor
• Hod Lipson – Roboticist at Cornell University
• Chris Feldman – Biologist, University of Nevada, Reno

Descripción en español



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Skeptic Check: Prog-Not-Stication

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Mar 05, 2012



The future is no mystery … according to psychics who say they have special access to tomorrow’s events. For example, adherents to the Mayan doomsday prophecy warn that when 2012 ends, so will the world.

Discover what’s behind claims of prognostication, and why – if it really works – no one is making a killing in Las Vegas.

Also, could science divine the future? Programmers with the Living Earth Simulator say that with sufficient data, their billion-dollar computer project can predict world events.

It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!

Guests:

• Phil Plait – Skeptic and keeper of Discover Magazine’s blog, badastronomy.com
• Christopher French – Psychologist, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London
• Guy Harrison – Writer and business owner, author of 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True
• Alessandro Vespignani – Physicist, Northeastern University
• Ken Caldeira – Climate scientist in the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology, Stanford University
• Sue Wilhite – Master Tarot card reader at East
  West Bookstore in Mountain View, California

Descripción en español



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Rife with Life

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Feb 27, 2012



“Follow the water� is the mantra of those who search for life beyond Earth. Where there’s water, there may be life. Join us on a tour of watery solar system bodies that hold promise for biology. Dig beneath the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa, and plunge into the jets of Enceladus, Saturn’s satellite.

And let’s not forget the Red Planet. Mars is rusty and dusty, but it wasn’t always a world of dry dunes. Did life once thrive here? Also, the promise of life in the exotic hydrocarbon lakes of Titan.

Science-fiction author Robert J. Sawyer joins us, and relates how these exotic outposts have prompted imaginative stories of alien life.

Guests:

• Robert J. Sawyer – Hugo award-winning science fiction author
• Cynthia Phillips – Planetary geologist at the SETI Institute
• Alexander Hayes – Planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley
• Rachel Mastrapa – Planetary scientist for NASA and the SETI Institute
• Robert Lillis – Space and planetary scientist at the Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley

Descripción en español



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Skeptic Check: Saucer's Apprentice

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Feb 20, 2012



ENCORE They’re here! About one-third of all Americans believe we’re being visited by extraterrestrial spacecraft. But wait, you want evidence?

UFO sighting are as prevalent as flies at a picnic. But proof of visitation – well, that’s really alien.

Hear why belief in extraterrestrial UFOs persists … and why military sightings that “can’t be explained� don’t warrant rolling out a welcome mat for ET.

Plus, the most fab UFOs in the movies!

It’s Skeptic Check… but don’t take our word for it!

Guests:

• Phil Plait – Keeper of the skeptical website badastronomy.com
• Benjamin Radford – Research Fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and managing editor of “Skeptical Inquirer Science Magazineâ€�
• Leslie Kean – Journalist, and author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record
• Susan Clancy – Psychology Researcher, Harvard University
  and author of Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens
• Thomas Bullard – Folkorist at Indiana University and author of The Myth and Mystery of UFOs

FIrst aired November 15, 2010.

Descripción en español



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Aware Am I?

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Feb 13, 2012



ENCORE Humans are pleasure-seekers – from food to sex to fine art. But do we know why we crave what we do? Discover the surprising motivation behind our desires. Also, why our hedonistic cousins, the bonobos, may hold the secret to world peace.

Plus, self-awareness in monkeys: can they really pass the mirror test? Can bacteria, for that matter? Nope! But since you are, cell for cell, more microbe than human, you’ll want to know just how cognitively aware these critters are.

Guests:

• Paul Bloom – Psychologist at Yale University and author of How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like
• Julie Neiworth – Psychologist, Carleton College
• Vanessa Woods – Research scientist at Duke University and author of Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo. Find out more about helping bonobos.
• Jim Shapiro – Bacterial geneticist, University of Chicago

First aired November 1, 2010.

Descripción en español



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Getting a Spacelift

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Feb 06, 2012



I need my space… but oh, how to get there? Whether it’s a mission to Mars or an ascent to an asteroid, we explore the hows of human spaceflight. Also, the whys, as in, why send humans to the final frontier if robots are cheaper? Neil deGrasse Tyson weighs in.

Plus, the astronaut who lived on the ocean floor training for a visit to an asteroid. Also, the 100YSS – the 100 Year Starship project – and interstellar travel.

And, as private rockets nip at NASA’s heels, meet one of the first tourists to purchase a (pricey) ticket-to-ride into space.

Guests:

• Neil deGrasse Tyson – Astrophysicst, American Museum of Natural History, and author of Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier
  
• Shannon Walker – NASA astronaut
• Nathan J. Strange – Formulation system engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• C. C. Culver – Former NASA mission controller, and motivational speaker with International Stars. How to contact: internationalstars@comcast.net
• Marc Millis – Physicist who has been NASA’s foremost expert on advanced propulsion concepts and founder of the Tau Zero Foundation

Descripción en español



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Material Whirl

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Jan 30, 2012



What’s the world made of? Here’s a concrete answer: a lot of it is built from a dense, knee-scraping substance that is the most common man-made material. But while concrete may be here to stay, plenty of new materials will come our way in the 21^st century.

Discover the better, faster, stronger (okay, not faster) materials of the future, and Thomas Edison’s ill-conceived plan to turn concrete into furniture.

Plus, printing objects in 3D… the development of artificial skin… and unearthing the scientific contributions of African-American women chemists.

Guests:

• Darren Lipomi – Chemical Engineering post-doc, Stanford University’s “Skin Labâ€�
• Linda Schadler – Professor of materials science and engineering, and associate dean for academic affairs at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
• Nicolas Weidinger – Research assistant at the Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, California
• Jeannette Elizabeth Brown – Retired research chemist; author of African American Women Chemists
• Robert Courland – Author of Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World’s Most Common Man-made Material

Descripción en español



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Skeptic Check: Energy Vortex

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Jan 23, 2012



“I feel your vibe!� Well, that describes a number of fabled locales that claim to pulse with mysterious energy – perhaps prompting books to fly across the room or airplanes to vanish into thin air. But what’s the science behind it?

We examine spots marked with an X, for “extraordinary� – from a haunted house to the Bermuda Triangle – to sort out natural from supernatural phenomena.

Plus, what causes the aurora borealis… a haywire Russian space probe… and just what the heck is an “energy vortex,� anyway?

Guests:

• Phil Plait – Skeptic and keeper of Discover Magazine’s blog: badastronomy
• Mike Borg – Group Sales Coordinator, Winchester Mystery House
• Jim Underdown – Executive Director, Center for Inquiry, Los Angeles
• Peter Williams – Hydrodynamicist at Agilent Technologies
• Guy P. Harrison – Writer and business owner in Southern California, author of 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True
• Rob Lillis – Space and Planetary Physicist, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley

Descripción en español



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Wired for Thought

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Jan 16, 2012



A cup of coffee can leave you wired for the day. But a chip in your brain could wire you to a machine forever. Imagine manipulating a mouse without moving a muscle, and doing a Google search with your mind. Welcome to the future of the brain-machine interface.

Don your EEG thinking-cap, and discover a high-tech thought game that may be the harbinger of machine relationships to come.

Plus, the ultimate mapping project: the Human Connectdome Project aims to identify all the neural pathways in the human brain. It may help us understand what makes us human, but could it also point the way to making us smarter?

And, what all this brain research reveals about the mind and free will – who, or what, is really in charge?

Guests:

• Jan Rabaey – Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), University of California, Berkeley
• Arthur Toga – Neurologist at the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, and researcher on the Human Connectome Project
• Michael Gazzaniga – Neuroscientist, director of the University of California Santa Barbara’s SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, and author of Who’s in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain
• Bradley Voytek – Neuroscientist, University of California, San Francisco

Descripción en español



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Cosmos: It's Big, It's Weird

Seth Shostak Author: SETI Institute
Mon, Jan 09, 2012



It’s all about you. And you, and you, and you and you… that is, if we live in parallel universes. Imagine you doing exactly what you’re doing now, but in an infinite number of universes.

Discover the multiverse theory and why repeats aren’t limited to summer television.

Plus, the physics of riding on a light beam, and the creative analogies a New York Times science writer uses to avoid using the word “weird� to describe dark energy and other weird physics.

Also, people who concoct their own theories (some would say fringe) of the universe: is all matter made up of tiny coiled springs?

Guests:

• Brian Greene – Physicist and mathematician, Columbia University, and author of The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
• Dennis Overbye – Reporter, New York Times
• Simon Steel – Science educator at University College London
• Margaret Wertheim – Science writer, author of Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons, and Alternative Theories of Everything

Descripción en español



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• Published: 2002
• LearnOutLoud.com Product ID: S007038



 Science  Astronomy


This Author: Seth Shostak

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