Big Science: What's the Big Idea? From Resonance FM: Recent Episodes
Ed Gerstner
Big Science FM began as an experiment borne of a belief that the laws that govern the Universe are simple. Fantastical, astonishing, often unbelievable, but ultimately comprehensible to anyone who wants to understand. For an hour each week, Dr Ed Gerstner and guests explore the ideas that make the Universe tick.
What is it about video games that makes them so addictive? Do we play these things not because they are easy but because they are hard? How hard are they? We asked MIT mathetmaticians Erik Demaine and Alan Guo.
Can racism be treated with heart drugs? A recent study suggests so. Does this mean that we can alter a person's moral values with drugs? And what other possibilities are there for engineering the human condition? We ask Julian Savulescu.
Dogs were the first sentient beings to venture into space. Yet, they know surprisingly little about physics. Chad Orzel, professor of physics at Union College in upstate New York, hopes to redress this.
There are several ways that the public can contribute to the world of scientific exploration. We talk to David Baker and Chris Eibens how the networked computer game 'Foldit' is contributing to the development of new medical drugs.
US Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich declared that if he were elected president, he would build a manned base on the Moon by 2020. Does this make him a visionary or a fantasist? We ask space guru and Royal Society Fellow, Mike Lockwood.
The Large Hadron Collider is working better than expected. And it's collected oodles of data. But have they found the Higgs, yet? We ask Davide Castelvecchi, who flew to Geneva to find out.
Within ten years of the first synthesis of LSD in 1938, it was being used to treat a range of psychiatric conditions, including addiction, anxiety and even headaches. It fell out of favour in the 60s. But the therapeutic use of LSD and other psychoactive drugs could be making a comeback.
In September, physicists announced results suggesting that beams of neutrinos were travelling from Switzerland to Italy at faster than the speed of light, in flagrant violation Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. Was Einstein wrong? And what the hell is a neutrino anyway? We ask neutrino guru Dr Ryan Nichol.
IBM's BlueGene supercomputer can carry out a similar number of operations per second as the brain of a rat. But while a rat's brain takes up a half a cubic centimetre and uses 50 milliwatts of power, BlueGene covers around 600 square feet and uses 400 kilowatts of power. We ask neuroscientist Richard Wingate what we're doing wrong.
In 1929, Frigyes Karinthy wrote a short story suggesting that everyone is connected to everyone else by six or seven degrees of separation. In 1967, Stanley Milgrim did an experiment proving it. And twenty years later, Duncan Watts & Steve Strogatz build the mathematics to describe it. We talk to Samuel Hansen about why this means our friends are more popular than we are.
How did the Universe begin? What made it expand from the size of a grapefruit to billions of lightyears across in a fraction of a second after the Big Bang? And why did it stop? And is ours the only Universe? We ask cosmologists Hiranya Peiris and Matt Johnson.
2011 Nobel Prize in Physics Special. In this show, we talk supernovae, cosmic acceleration, dark energy and the history and implications of this year's physics award to Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Riess, with Professor Ofer Lahav.
Geological evidence suggests that around 650 million years ago, the Earth was covered in ice. It was believed only single-celled organisms could have survived 'Snowball Earth'. Until Adam Maloof found a fossilized sponge predating this by millions of years.
In this episode we discuss the intriguing results hot off the press from Cern's Large Hadron Collider with particle physicist Professor Jonathan Butterworth. Have we found the Higgs particle, yet? And if we had, what would that mean for the future of particle physics?
We assume that modern medicine can distinguish between life and death. But when it comes to ‘brain death’, things aren't so clear cut. In this episode we explore unconsciousness, coma, and the bits in between with neuroscience writer, Mo Costandi.
In recent shows we've been talking about technologies for generating energy. In this episode we look at the flip side with Ralph Clague who's working on green car technologies that use the energy we've got more efficiently.
Conventional nuclear fission won't solve the world's energy problems. Thankfully, it's not the only nuclear game in town. Tonight we explore an alternative nuclear tech, in accelerator-driven subcritical nuclear reactors fueled with thorium. With Dr Hywel Owen from the University of Manchester.
Five months after the nuclear disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiich power plant, the crisis has all but slipped off the front pages. But the crisis continues. Nature reporter, Geoff Brumfiel gives us status update.
How do you make a fly with the same genes you use to make a mouse? It's complicated. But that's what Big Science is all about.
From alcohol to ether and beyond, in this episode we explore the science of anaesthesiology with clinical anaesthetist, Dr Katie Grant.
This week we take a rollercoaster ride through the history of maths. From the four Greek 'mathematics' - geometry, astronomy, arithmetic and music. To fierce opposition to arabic numerals from European accountants. And the disaster that was Isaac Newton.
What so big about nanotechnology? Does it represent a brave new world, or a means to hype more of the same. We ask nanotech guru Tim Harper.
Science is all about truth, right? So anything that is true can be determined by science, right? Probably not.
In the light of events at the Fukushima nuclear plant following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, we discuss nuclear power and the implications of the unfolding situation.
This week we start with the question, what does DNA know about the Universe? But, as usual, we don't stay on topic for long, instead segueing into a much more interesting discussion of Sarah Palin, fruit flies and cancer.
There's more to life than DNA... much more. This week we continue our exploration of proteins, the true building blocks of life. How are they made? And what exactly do they do?
This week we go beyond DNA to the real workhorses of life, proteins. How are they made? What do they do? And how do they interact to build a hedgehog?
This week we continue to ask whether it's meaningful to describe DNA as the blueprint of life. And if the blueprint isn't in DNA where the hell is it?
This week we talk DNA, with Nature's biological sciences editor, Tanguy Chouard. Is it really a blueprint? If not, why not?
Everyone knows about the three states of matter, solids, liquids and gases. But few know about the fourth, plasmas. They're all around us, from neon signs to TVs. And they could provide us with an unlimited source of energy. Eventually.
By the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, physicists increasingly realized that quantum mechanics provided a powerful means of describing the behaviour of subatomic particles. But until that point it only described slow moving particles. When Paul Dirac combined special relativity with quantum mechanics, he found something even stranger, antimatter!
So what the hell is a hadron, and why are they colliding large ones to find a Higgs botswain?
Quantum mechanics is by far and away the most accurate and successful theory that has ever been devised. It’s also the most bizarre. This week, Big Science continues to explore how the particle theory of light built to describe the light emitted by hot things leads to the weird world of quantum.
Quantum mechanics is by far and away the most accurate and successful theory that has ever been devised. It’s also the most bizarre. This week, Big Science explores how the particle theory of light built to describe the light emitted by hot things leads to a wave theory of particles.
To a casual observer, the Universe looks likes really complex. It isn't. In this show we'll discuss how just a handful of building blocks and the idea of beauty (or, rather, symmetry) produces diversity and complexity in the world around us. From atoms and molecules to the opus of science, the Standard Model of Particle Physics.
Wouldn't it be nice if the laws of physics where same everywhere in the Universe, regardless of how fast you were travelling? In this episode Big Science explores the consequences of the laws of electricity and magnetism being the same is all frames of reference - from the constancy of light speed to the bending of space and time.
This week, we continue on from the previous week, to discuss the implications of the fact that the laws of electricity and magnetism, and therefore the speed of light, are always the same regardless of how fast you are travelling. We’re talking the equivalence of mass and energy embodied in the equation E=mc^2, more time bending, and the atomic bomb.