Science Island: Recent Episodes
Leah Hitchings and Grant Burningham
I talk to Dr. Nicholas Weaver about the structural problems with Bitcoin, its historical parallels, and why now probably isn't the best time to throw your money at it.
If you get small enough, to the size of atoms and electrons, things stop making sense to our Newtonian minds. We take a look at what's next in physics. Things like desktop particle colliders and superconductors.
Just 2 years ago, the wait for automated vehicles seemed shorter than wait at the valet stand. But since then, cars that drive themselves seem to be about where they were, with a few major setbacks, and deaths. When will be freed from the menance of driving?
At the core of the fake news epidemic is a story about new technologies and how they can upturn our world in unexpected places. It's a story about ISIS, algorithms and stock prices.
We're not trying to rain on anyone's SuperBowl party, but we're talking about head injuries and football for the conflicted sports fan with "Diehards" author Chip Scarinzi.
Global warming, run away capitalism, ecosystem collapse. Kim Stanley Robinson's futures aren't always happy, but they're grounded in hard science, and we might have to start thinking about them seriously for our own sake.
Ryan Ogliore studies meteorites — they fall all over the Earth, but, if you're looking, they're easiest to find in the desert and the ice caps, where they stand out. Inside, the tell us how our solar system came to be.
It turns out NASA has a whole department dedicated to dreaming big -- taking giant chances on sci-fi technology. Leah Hitchings talks to Ariel Waldman from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program.
Quartz journalist Zoë Schlanger talks about her award-winning Newsweek article on pollution in Detroit. And Pauline Gerrard is the deputy director of a very special project in Canada's far North to monitor pollution's effects on our ecosystems.
Anthony Myint, a world-class restaurateur behind Perennial in San Francisco, talks about how we choose to eat our food can actually reverse global warming.
Berkeley Lab climate scientist Dr. Dan Feldman talks to Leah Hitchings about what is in store for the Earth's climate and the myriad of changes, like wildfires, we will have to deal with as things get warmer.
Do we spend too much of our time imaging distopias and not enough time thinking about the positive changes on the horizon. Grant Burningham talks to writer, author and futurist Kevin Kelly about the positive side of progress.
If you've ever scrolled to the bottom of an article to read to the comment, you know the internet can be a pretty unpleasant place. Leah Hitchings talks to Caroline Sinders about using machine learning to curb online harassment.
It seems like every object in your home is getting "smart" -- and talking to the internet. What does it mean when your home is watching you? Leah Hitchings talks to Mike Kuniavsky.
The author of "The Little Book of Heartbreak" talks to Leah Hitchings about if love is just in your head on Science Island. https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Heartbreak-Wrong-Through/dp/0452298326
We may be eating meat grown in a lab sooner than you think. Join Leah Hitchings and Grant Burningham on Science Island as they host biotech entrepreneur (and Vegan Mafia member) Ryan Bethencourt.