Fingerprint Hand Gun // High Altitude Observatory

Kai Kloepfer - Designer of Fingerprint Smart Firearm Technology
Kai Kloepfer – Designer of Fingerprint Smart Firearm Technology

Fingerprint Hand Gun.  (starts at 5:45) How on Earth’s Shelley Schlender talks with Boulder teen scientist Kai Kloepfer, who is creating a “Smart Gun” that won him first prize in engineering at the INTEL international science fair and a $50,000 grant from the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation.  Kloepfer’s goal is to prevent accidental shootings of children.  His gun fires only when the user’s fingerprint is authorized.

High Altitude Observatory - Hawaii location
High Altitude Observatory – Hawaii location

High Altitude Observatory.  (starts at 11:35) Director Scott McIntosh talks with How on Earth’s Joel Parker about the observatory and its 75th year celebrations.

 

 

 

Hosts: Joel Parker, Kendra Krueger
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Headline Contributors: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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Grazing the Niobrara // Savory Institute

Using ATVs as "wolves" to move a herd of cattle
Using ATVs as “wolves” to move a herd of cattle

Mooo-ving Cattle Near the Niobrara (starts 4:28) We talk with Steve Hicks, director of the USFW  Niobrara Wildlife Refuge complex near Valentine, Nebraska and join the Rocking Arrow Ranch on a cattle moo-oo-vve designed to help maintain the quality of wild grasslands

 

savory institute mexico-1963-2003
“Before” and “After” holistic grazing adopted on a Mexican pasture – courtesy the Savory Institute

The Savory Institute (starts 10:05)  We talk with Boulder’s grazing think tank, The Savory Institute, founded by Allan Savory, about holistic grazing strategies that have the potential to restore grasslands that have been degraded through overgrazing . . . or undergrazing.

Hosts: Shelley Schlender
Producers: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Headline contributions: Daniel Strain, Beth Bennett

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Student Dust Counter reaches Pluto

newhorizons nearing Pluto
New Horizons Spacecraft Nearing Pluto (artist rendition)

(Main Feature Start Time 6:00) We talk with CU students, former students and their advisor about how a student built science instrument called the Student Dust Counter managed to travel billions of miles on the New Horizons spacecraft, and what happens with its project to study space dust, now that it’s near Pluto.

Hosts: Shelley Schlender, Kathy Frasier
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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Gold Lab Symposium//Mapping Pain in the Brain

 

"The Tug of War for Better Healthcare" courtesy Gold Lab Foundation
“The Tug of War of Healthcare” courtesy Gold Lab Foundation

GOLD LAB SYMPOSIUM (start time: 4:26) We talk with Larry Gold, Founder of the Gold Lab Symposium, about this Friday/Saturday, free symposium at CU Boulder.  (check the website for previous talks, or to register for this weekend’s seminar).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boulder Chronic Pain Counsellor Charles Horowitz
Boulder Chronic Pain Counsellor Charles Horowitz

MAPPING CHRONIC PAIN   (start time: 15:56)  We visit a Chronic Pain Support group led by Boulder therapist Charles Horowitz, and we talk about “mapping pain” with Harvard Scientist Clas Linnman and CU-Boulder Scientist Tor Wager, who are uncovering new techniques for mapping pain in the brain that are helping to validate chronic pain and might someday guide better treatment.

 

 

HEADLINES   (start time: 1:00)  Bats use “telephoto” sound, new pathway for blocking malaria, Fiske Planetarium Events, CU Boulder Tree WalkIntel Science Finalist from Boulder’s Fairview High.

Hosts: Beth Bennett, Kendra Krueger
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Headline contributions: Daniel Strain, Beth Bennet

 

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Moonshine // Parkinson’s Network Exercise

Former_moonshiner_John_Bowman_explaining_the_workings_of_a_moonshine_still_American_Folklife_Center
Former moonshiner explaining a still at American Folklore Center (courtesy wikimedia)

The Science of Moonshine  (starts 3:55) We talk with a Boulder scientist who has a home still for making high-proof brandy from backyard apples.  It’s illegal to make your own liquor, even if you only sip it with friends and never sell it.  So our moonshiner remains anonymous.

 

 

Gary Sobel leading class
Gary Sobel leading warm up session for Parkinson’s Network Exercise Class (courtesy Shelley Schlender)

Parkinson’s Network Exercise Class (starts 7:35) Gary Sobel leads an exercise class for people with Parkinson’s Disease.  He talks about his own experience with exercise, and movement disorder specialist Heather Ene, MD, PMR/Neurology, shares the reasons physicians have moved from asking Parkinson’s patients to avoid exercise, to encouraging exercise.

Hosts: Kendra Krueger, Beth Bennett
Producer, Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Kendra Krueger

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Red Meat & Mice // Loren Cordain – The Paleo Diet

Ajit Varki UC-San Diego
Ajit Varki UC-San Diego

“Sugar” in Red Meat – Cancer in Mice? (starts at 6:10) We talk with Ajit Varki, a researcher at the University of California in San Diego whose latest mouse studies  reveal a potential inflammatory compound in red meat — a “sugar” called sialic acid.  (For more, listen to our extended version of this interview)

 

 

Loren Cordain  Founder of the Paleo Diet movement
Loren Cordain Founder of the Paleo Diet movement

Paleo Diet – Avoid Grains and Beans (starts at 9:10) We talk with Colorado State University scientist Loren Cordain, founder of the Paleo Diet movement. He and his colleagues have study humans and the influence of diet. For health and athletic performance, Loren recommends avoiding modern foods that are high in grains, sugar, salt, legumes and additives.  Instead, he says, eat like our paleo ancestors – fruits and vegetables and fats and meat.    (For a fee, you can subscribe to Loren’s latest podcasts at his website.  Fro free, you can listen to older podcasts.  Find out more at thepaleodiet.com.

Today’s show also includes a look back at some of our favorite science stories from 2014.

Hosts: Shelley Schlender, Susan Moran
Producer, Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producers: Jane Palmer, Kendra Krueger

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Red Meat Sugar Glycans and Inflammation – Extended Version

Ajit Varke UC-San DiegoI’m Shelley Schlender for How on Earth.  Up next is an extended interview with University of California in San Diego scientist Ajit Varki  about his team’s new mouse study that indicates that a “sugar” in red meat, called sialic acid, can trigger inflammation when fed to mice.  This sugar is intriguing because it’s a molecule that two million years ago, our human bodies made on their own.  It differs from the current sialic acid made in our bodies by just one atom of oxygen.  Yet the mouse studies indicate that might be enough to cause an immune system reaction in the lab mice.  More research and human studies will be needed, to determine whether or not a similar reaction occurs in susceptible humans.  Now here’s Ajit Varki.

 

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Animal Weapons – The Evolution of Battle (Doug Emlen)

AnimalWeapons-238x238We talk with biologist Douglas Emlen, who says that the evolution of animal weapons, in everything from dung beetles to saber tooth tigers, has him very worried about our HUMAN weapons (starts 4:20)

. . . and listeners are invited to join the Sunday, December 14th  73rd Boulder Audubon Christmas Bird Count

 

 

Hosts: Jane Palmer, Beth Bennett
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producers: Kendra Krueger, Jane Palmer

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Frontrange Bioneers // Green Electricity or Green Money?

Bioneers logo web2(4:00) Kendra talks with local organizers about the upcoming Front Range Bioneers conference

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smart Grid Meter(11:20) Shelley talks with Tim Schoechle about his new position paper for the National Law and Policy Institute, Green Electricity or Green Money?

Hosts: Shelley Schlender, Kendra Krueger
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producers: Jane Palmer and Kendra Krueger

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Solar Flares — High-Tech Armageddon?

Coronal Mass Ejection (Solar Flare) courtesy NASA
Coronal Mass Ejection (Solar Flare) courtesy NASA

Recent headlines  warn that Coronal Mass Ejections, better known as Solar Flares, could trigger a high-tech Armageddon, disabling power and communication on a global scale, for months.  Today we talk with Boulder scientists Dan Baker, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and Doug Biesecker,  National Space Weather Prediction Center, about the risks from Solar Flares, what to worry about, and what is being done to protect us.

In today’s science show, we also feature upcoming talks on Science.
* This Wednesday at 7 PM, How on Earth’s Joel Parker will talk about Chasing Comets: The Rosetta Mission, at the Denver Science Museum.
* This Friday at 7:30, Conservative Christian and Prominent Atmospheric Scientist, Katharine Hayhoe, will talk about, Climate Change with Mind & Heart,” at Boulder’s Chautauqua Auditorium.

Hosts: Shelley Schlender
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Additional Contributors: Susan Moran, Jane Palmer
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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