Pulsar: Recent Episodes
The Museum of Science, Boston
We hear amazing questions in the exhibit halls of the Museum of Science, Boston. Do woodpeckers get headaches? How many colors are in the rainbow? Who gets to drive the Mars rovers? Pulsar features short interviews with our education staff along with scientists, engineers, and experts from around the world in order to find the answers.
Mike Horvath, the Director of Exhibits at the Museum of Science, details the process of imagining and creating an exhibit and how it can lead to wearing a wookiee costume on the mound at Fenway Park.
We chat about all of the options that you have for keeping, donating, or recycling eclipse glasses after April's total solar eclipse.
With the Great American Eclipse of 2024 in the rear view mirror, we look ahead to the next three years of solar and lunar eclipses visible from Boston and around the globe.
Dr. Greg Skomal, a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, discusses the incredible data that shark tags can give us as well as the process of finding and tagging great white sharks off of Cape Cod.
Our triceratops fossil, Cliff, did not live in New England. So what kind of dinosaurs did? We ask two local experts, Mark Agostini and Dr. Mark McMenamin, to tell us what fossils have been recovered from our own backyard.
With a total solar eclipse coming up on April 8th, 2024, we ask planetarium educator Talia what it feels like to actually witness the moon totally blocking the sun.
We celebrate the 30th anniversary of a daring Space Shuttle mission that fixed the Hubble Space Telescope by chatting about the experience with astronaut Jeff Hoffman.
Dr. Supriya Chakrabarti, the Director of UMass Lowell's Center for Space Science and Technology, explains some of the exciting space research and engineering that is happening right here in our backyard.
We ask marine mammal odontologist Dr. Martin Nweeia about one of the most amazing teeth anywhere in the animal kingdom and get the full story of the narwhal and its ten-foot tusk.
One of the more hopeful results of human spaceflight has been the Overview Effect, when astronauts feel the awe in looking down at our home planet while orbiting above. NASA Astronaut Bob Hines details his experience earthgazing from the International Space Station in 2022.
Maybe the most frequent questions we have gotten this century at the museum is what people can do personally to mitigate the effects of climate change. Frank Lowenstein from Rare's Climate Culture Boston gives a short list of big-impact actions.
There are an astonishing number of ant species living on our planet. One of the world's foremost experts on ants, Dr. Susanne Foitzik, explains how their society is different from ours in many ways.
There are so many amazing writers of science fiction. When they were young, did they dream of bring famous authors, or amazing scientists? Author Katie Slivensky shares her journey through the worlds of science and fiction.
Last month, MIT's Kishalay De published the first ever observations of a star destroying a planet. Hear about the detective work it took to realize what some of the world's largest telescopes were seeing as this cataclysmic event unfolded.
The word 'dinosaur' refers to a specific group of animals. Many animals get included under the dinosaur umbrella when they are actually from different groups. Becca from our programs team helps us set the fossil record straight.
Talia from our planetarium team talks about calculating the most efficient trajectories for spacecraft in order to get to interesting places from Mercury to Pluto and beyond.
With 62 new moons announced last week, Talia from our Charles Hayden Planetarium tells us how Saturn is once again the grand champion of the solar system in terms of natural satellites.
Volcanoes are incredibly powerful, but what causes one to form? Becca from our programs team talks about the origins of these explosive entities.
With so many stories in the news about the new capabilities of artificial intelligence, Emily from the museum's programs team explains what that term means and how AI works.
Dr. Michael Meyer has been the lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program for over 25 years. He tells us what the possibility of life on the red planet would mean for science and our understanding of the universe.
We ask Dr. Ben Weiss, an MIT expert on meteorites, how to spot the difference between rocks that formed on Earth and ones that fell from space.
North Atlantic Right Whales are critically endangered. We chat with Tim Cole and Lieutenant Christopher Licitra from NOAA Fisheries about efforts to identify, track, and conserve this fragile population.
In part two of our conversation with evolutionary biologist Dr. Nancy Simmons, we discuss the astonishing diversity of bats and how they came to dominate Earth's night skies.
Bats are the only mammals in Earth's history to achieve powered flight. We ask evolutionary biologist Dr. Nancy Simmons how bats gained this ability and why.
Kim Steadman, an engineer who operates the Perseverance Mars rover, details the how, when, what, and why behind our incredible discoveries on Mars.
Joe Bagley has been Boston's City Archeologist for over a decade. He shares some of the historic science that his department uncovers all around Beantown.
The metal gold has been highly valued by humans throughout our history, but what makes it so unique? Museum educator Colin gives us insight into its amazing properties, from its cosmic origins to its use in some of the most advanced technology humans have ever created.
For the exciting conclusion of our series on NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft, we ask meteorologist Nikki Hathaway how flights through tropical storms can give us insight into their origins, mechanics, and perhaps most importantly, their trajectories.
We continue our series on NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft with aerospace engineer Nick Underwood, who flies on missions through hurricanes and collects data to study their behavior and predict their movement.
NOAA aircraft scout out hurricanes that may threaten the United States by flying aircraft over and even right through them. We ask Lieutenant Commander Kevin Doremus what it's like to pilot an airplane through the eyewall of a massive storm.
For our hundredth episode, we're joined by the Museum of Science's president, Tim Ritchie, to answer one of the most common questions we are asked: what exciting things are coming up in the museum's future?
Sometimes the most exciting thing to talk about is what scientists don't know...yet. Georgia from our programs team tells us about the mystery of fast radio bursts, and how scientists are getting closer to explaining their origin.
We can learn a lot about animals that lived millions of years ago from studying their fossils. Morgan from our education team explains how we can analyze fossil teeth to tell us amazing things about ancient diets.
We chat with astronomy graduate student Daisuke Taniguchi about his clever method of looking back in time at the peculiar behavior of the star Betelgeuse, which will explode and disappear from our skies (relatively) soon.
We have over one hundred species of animals living at the museum. Visitors often ask our educators: are you assigned an animal for a live show, or do you get to pick your partner? Lauren from our programs team tells us more about the process of selecting and getting to know our live animal co-stars.
We ask NASA's Jay Hollenbeck about the Space Launch System, a towering new rocket that will soon launch humans on a path back to the moon while claiming the title of most powerful rocket ever built.
Are snakes all tail? Or do they not even have tails? We ask museum educator and snake superfan Becca about snake anatomy as well as some of our most frequently received snake questions, such as: Why is that snake sticking its tongue out? And: Is that snake venomous?
We talk with geologist and climate scientist Dr. Patrick Nunn, who has studied the history of sea level rise and its effect on human civilizations.
We talk with astronomer Dr. Joshua Blackman about the fate of the Earth at the very end of our solar system, when the sun will render our planet quite uninhabitable.
With over 100 species of animals living here at the museum, visitors are always asking how they got here. We chat with Stacy, the Curator of our Live Animal Care Center, to get the whole story.
Carnivorous plants exist all around the world. People sometimes ask us, why do they need to eat bugs? And...what happens if I stick my finger in one?
Allergies to food are becoming more common and more severe in modern times. We talk with members of the Food Allergy Science Initiative to discuss why that is, as well as the scientific work being done right now that may one day lead to a cure for food allergies.
Marcus from our education team gives us the scoop on all of the speed records in the animal kingdom - land, sea, air, and more.
If a black hole came wandering through the solar system, would we notice? We're joined by the Bad Astronomer, Dr. Phil Plait, to chat about the possibility of Earth meeting its end via gravitational catastrophe.
We get tons of questions about plants - what's the biggest one? The largest flower? Why do leaves change color in the autumn? We go to Sue from our education team to dig up the answers.
We ask Dr. Sidney D'Mello, a cognitive and computer scientist, about his AI-assisted research on the connection between our emotions and how we learn.
Taking care of our 65 million-year-old Triceratops fossil is a delicate task. We ask Katie from our Collections department how, and how often, it gets cleaned.
We connect live with pandemic expert Dr. Ashish Jha and pose our most asked coronavirus question: when will the pandemic be over?
We feature an 'interview' with our virtual exhibit, Covid Conversations with Dr. Ashish Jha, to discover the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
The indoor sparks we create in our Theater of Electricity are purple, and visitors often ask what causes the color. We explore the reasons behind different shades of lightning.
Award-winning science fiction author Jack McDevitt discusses how we can imagine a universe where human space travel is not limited to the speed of light, and our civilization can explore the galaxy and beyond.
We ask Caity from our Charles Hayden Planetarium what the universe's speed limit is, and how that limits our ability to explore the beyond the solar system.
Did life ever exist on Mars? The Perseverance rover is working hard to find out by studying rocks on Mars, and we ask NASA geologist Katie Stack Morgan which rocks could tell us definitively that Earth is not the only living planet in the universe.
What happened when inadvertent thruster firing caused the International Space Station to spin completely around in July 2021? And what is the future of this decades-old orbiting laboratory?
It turns out that all tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises - we go to museum educator Karen to tell us how to spot the difference as well as learn about the amazing adaptations of both.
We ask Pascal Cotte, an engineer who specializes in light, how his multi-spectral camera has unveiled Leonardo's methods when painting the famous Mona Lisa.
We ask leading paleontologist Dr. Jingmai O'Connor to tell us everything she knows about feathered dinosaurs.
We talk with graduate student Markia Smith about her research in cancer and genetics, understanding health disparities in historically marginalized populations, and why she chose these areas of study.
We ask Lauren Etter from Boston University about how efforts to build trust and ensure equitable access to healthcare led to the development of an artificial intelligence system that uses images of ears to identify patients in remote communities.
Part Two of our conversation with shark researcher Dr. Catalina Pimiento, where we find out why this fifty foot long super-predator disappeared from the oceans.
We ask shark researcher Dr. Catalina Pimiento all of the best questions we've ever received about megalodon, a prehistoric fifty-foot-long shark with teeth the size of a human hand.
Graduate student Katie Burns tells us about her adventures in field research and the importance of pollinators in our environment.
It's National Engineers Week! To celebrate, we talked with Apollo engineer Don Eyles about the challenge of landing humans on the moon.
Spaceflight whiz Kellie Gerardi, author of the new book 'Not Necessarily Rocket Science', tells us about her adventures in the aerospace industry.
We finish counting down our picks for the ten most exciting, important, and awe-inspiring stories from the world of science in 2020.
We're back with more of our annual countdown of the ten most exciting, important, and fun stories from the world of science in 2020.
Author Janice Nimura details the lives of Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell, who paved the way for women to study and practice medicine in 1800s America.
We continue our annual countdown of the ten most exciting, important, and fun stories from the world of science in 2020 with #8, #7, and #6.
We kick off our annual countdown of the ten most exciting, important, and awesome stories from the world of science in 2020.
With the first COVID-19 vaccines rolling out to frontline healthcare workers, we asked Physician Assistant Amanda Stearns what it was like to receive her first dose.
We ask Caity from our planetarium all about stars that run out of fuel and go supernova in explosions that can be seen clear across the universe.
How do we know how sight first evolved if eyes don't fossilize? For some ancient organisms, they do! Dr. Brigitte Schoenemann shares her research on trilobite fossils from nearly half a billion years ago that tell us about the origins of vision.
We ask one of our animal keepers, Christa, all about our Cotton-Top Tamarin monkeys and how the Museum of Science is participating in the effort to conserve this critically endangered species.
Biomedical Engineer Dr. Parag Gad tells us about a noninvasive technique that can help paralyzed patients regain the use of their extremities as well as other systems of the body.
Physicist Dr. Billy Hubbard tells us how designing the world's smallest 'refrigerator', a thousand times thinner than a human hair, may lead to more efficient cooling of scientific instruments.
We ask Shilpa Lawande, a Data Engineer at Facebook Boston, all about data and its impact on our lives.
We answer all of your questions about how far away things are from Earth, from the Moon to the very edge of existence, and also discover how we know the distance to objects in space.
We chat with Akshita Rao, an undergraduate at Tufts University, about her biomedical engineering research on the human heart.
We chat with Becca, one of our museum educators, about the driving factors behind the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
Harvard's Dr. Pia Sorensen tells us about her new book, Science and Cooking, and answers your questions about chemistry, physics, and biology in the kitchen.
Shelley Smith, the Brewing Innovation Engineer at Sam Adams, talks about the science that goes into crafting a flawless pint.
Talia from our planetarium answers some of the most common questions that museum visitors ask about the Earth-Moon-Sun system, covering everything from Moon phases to eclipses.
Bats! Owls! Creepy-crawlies! For Halloween, we asked Liz from our Live Animal Care Center some of the best questions we've heard at the museum about spooky species.
We asked two MIT graduate students in chemistry, Jessica Beard and Angela Lee, how they got into science and what they are looking forward to in the future.
We chat with Dr. Bassam Shakhashiri from the University of Wisconsin-Madison about his decades of experience creating safe, fun, and illuminating chemical experiments.
Social and psychiatric epidemiologist Dr. Erin Dunn explains how stressful events leave a permanent record on our teeth and how we can potentially use our molars and canines to predict future mental health.
Benjamin Clark and Saikat Basu from Facebook tell us about their initiative to help identify roads using satellite images and deep learning.
How do you drive a rover from 40 million miles away? In part two of our conversation, we asked NASA engineer Rich Rieber about how the newest robot to explore Mars will get around.
Part two of our look at Perseverance, the next Mars rover. We asked NASA engineer Rich Rieber what the mission hopes to accomplish on the red planet - searching for signs of ancient life, analyzing the geology of Mars, and even testing out a small helicopter.
NASA's newest rover is on its way to Mars. We asked engineer David Way, who designed the landing system, how it will touch down safely on the red planet.
You had lots of questions about our perception of color, and so we asked Zoe to tell us about rainbows, matching shades of black, and more.
We ask Dan Distel, a marine biologist at Northeastern, about an amazing discovery off the coast of Alabama: an ancient underwater forest.
Dr. Rob Zellem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab answers questions about using citizen science to discover exoplanets.
One of the museum's resident birding enthusiasts returns to answer more questions all about our feathered friends.
We talked with Elizabeth Smith, a meteorologist from the National Severe Storms Laboratory, to find out more about tornadoes.
Biologist Hanna Mounce describes her team's efforts to conserve the native forest ecosystems of Hawai'i.
You can see bronze animal sculptures by artist Michael Alfano in the museum's exhibit halls. We asked him your questions about the intersection between science and art.
Sara Bleich, Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health discusses the impact COVID has had on food insecure populations around the country, and our best steps forward to ensure an equitable recovery.
Dr. Christine Reich, the museum's Senior Vice President of Exhibits and Research, sits down with Universal Design pioneer Dr. Richard Jackson to discuss inclusive education in the museum world.
We ask Dr. Fiona Garner, a scientist working on testing treatments for COVID-19, to explain the important steps of that process.
We asked Fallon Durant, an axolotl researcher, all your questions about these amazing animals and their superpowers.
We chat with Food Technologist Michelle Richardson about engineering healthy and appetizing meals for astronauts bound for Mars.
Museum educator Meghan tells us all about excrement, from the biggest to the most frequent to the strangest poop in the animal kingdom.
Exotopography is the study of mountain ranges on worlds beyond our solar system. We talked to the field's creator, Moiya McTier, to find out more.
We talked to a veteran spacewalker, astronaut Jeff Hoffman, and asked him your questions about extra-vehicular activity.
Hear a canine authority, museum educator Mayra, tackle some of the amazing questions we've received about dogs.
Museum educator Zoe answers audience questions having to do with chemistry in the kitchen, from how to make the best fluffy and chewy cookie, to which homemade breads are superior (chemically speaking).
We talk to Ranch Kimball, a high school senior, who is applying the engineering design process to help his community through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lava comes in all shapes, sizes and forms. Becca, our geology specialist, answers some of the question that our listeners have asked about lava.
Listen in on a conversation with Heather and her mother Kathy, who was just 8 years old during the polio epidemic in the 1950s. Kathy became part of the ground-breaking study to find a polio vaccine, a first step in leading to the near-eradication in the US of this terrible disease.
Karen is one of our educators that presents in our Theater of Electricity. Hear her answer your questions about lightning safety.
Chuck from our planetarium answers questions about meteor showers, what causes them, and useful tips for catching the next one.
Our own paleontology whiz, Katie, answers some of the many dinosaur questions we've received. Hear about feathered fossils, the swimming spinosaurus, and more.
We chat with Marcus from our education team about the largest animals in many different categories, from the longest reptile to the heaviest mammal.
Harvey Leonard has over 40 years of experience predicting New England weather. He tells us about the technology involved in making a forecast.
We tend to think of glaciers as changing extremely slowly, but geophysicist Brent Minchew tells us how they can change by the hour.
Sue, a longtime Museum educator who also helped develop our popular A Bird's World exhibit, answers questions about birds, from the color of eggs to the habits of hawks.
Our very own invertebrate animal keeper, Cori of the Butterfly Garden, tells us more about the reasons — including climate change — behind recent declines in insect populations.
Dr. Natalie Kuldell, director of BioBuilder and affiliate of MIT's Department of Biological Engineering, answers questions about biological engineering and its applications. Learn about manipulating DNA to produce new drugs, inserting genes into bacteria to produce biofuels, and much more.
Paleontologist Alex Hastings gives an account of a recent dig in Wyoming to uncover a long-necked dinosaur.
Museum educator Jeannine answers some of the most common questions about our iconic Theater of Electricity.
May is Biotechnology Month! Hear from Diveena Becker, a biologist/geneticist at Ginkgo Bioworks. She is working to use the full genetic code of a patient's SARS-CoV-2 virus to look for changes over time and help track its spread.
Hear from Peyton Siler-Jones of Climate Ready Boston. She details our city's plan to tackle the effects of climate change head-on.
Important archaeological sites around the world are threatened by conflict, urbanization, and climate change. Archaeologist Bastien Varoutsikos tells us about Iconem's work to use technology to digitally preserve these important places.
Citizen science is critical to help researchers understand the impacts of climate change. Find out how the Museum of Science works with the public to help gather data about the urban heat island effect in Boston.
Colleen Hitchcock, a biologist at Brandeis University, answers questions about citizen science. Find out how you can participate in projects as diverse as wildlife cataloging and galactic classification!
The news cycle is dominated by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes, COVID-19. We uncover the science behind the pandemic and answer your questions.
If your timing is right and your skies are clear, you can catch a glimpse of the International Space Station orbiting over your neighborhood. Find out how, and also hear a little more about life in space.
If you've visited the museum, you've likely met our 65-million-year-old resident triceratops fossil. Ever wonder how Cliff first came to us? Hear the story of his arrival first-hand.
Our first episode looks at our namesake. What is a pulsar, and why was its first observation nicknamed “Little Green Men”? The Planetarium’s Talia Sepersky explores the story behind these amazingly powerful deep space objects.