In this episode, Beth speaks with Dr Marc Bubbs, author of Peak: The New Science of Athletic Performance, his book exploring the fundamentals of high performance. He offers science-based strategies on nutrition, training, sleep, recovery, and stress management to optimize performance for all levels of athletes and trainers. You can read more about the book here and you can find his podcast here.
Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us. (Starts 00:00) We speak with science writer Ruth Kassinger about her acclaimed new book, which Kirkus Review describes as “accessible and enthralling.” Nature Science reports that Kassinger’s book, “ is a real pleasure. ” Publisher’s Weekly writes, “ Kassinger turns an obscure subject into delightful reading.”
The PUNCH mission (starts at 8:05) NASA’s new mission to study the Sun is called PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere). In this episode of How on Earth we talk with solar physicist Dr. Craig DeForest, the Principal Investigator of the PUNCH mission. Dr. DeForest is a Program Director at the Boulder office of Southwest Research Institute, and he explains how PUNCH will use polarimetry to study the outer part of the solar atmosphere, the million-degree hot corona, and how it interacts and evolves into the solar wind.
Despite all the advances in modern medical science, a diagnosis of Cancer often casts a pallor of hopelessness, for both the patient and the practitioner. For many types the prognosis is often poor; the cure is often worse than the disease; victory is usually called simply remission, temporary, perhaps fleeting. One might think the inability to find a cure indicates bafflement by our scientists and stagnation in our efforts. According to Professor Michael Kinch, there is in fact a frenzy of activity by scientists and doctors. And a recent spate of breakthroughs, developing treatments based on the inherent powers of our immune systems, represent not a refutation of all we have known before, but a continuation of efforts made by medical pioneers stretching back over a century. His latest book is titled The End of The Beginning: Cancer, Immunity and the Future of a Cure. Kinch was a professor at Purdue University, where he researched breast and prostate cancer. He then went on to found an oncology program at the biotechnology company MedImmune. He is now professor and vice-chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis. Here he shares with Chip Grandits stories from the front lines in the battle with cancer, both past and present. He speaks with what can best be described as a disciplined optimism.
Host: Chip Grandits Producer: Chip Grandits Engineer: Chip Grandits Additional Contributions: Joel Parker Executive Producer: Joel Parker
Yeast & Entropy (starts 2:30) When yeast cells eat sugar and then give off ethanol, it helps us make yeast breads and beer. But WHY would yeast work so hard to metabolize sugar, simply to spit out as ethanol? This is a mystery that Matthias Heinemann is trying to figure out. Heinemann is a professor of molecular systems biology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His research published in Nature shows that yeast spits out ethanol to protect the yeast from “ metabolic overload.” Heinemann has figured out how to predict when this will happen, using the Gibbs Equation, ie through the perspective of conventional biology. Heinemann seeks clues about metabolism by applying some scientific laws that are best known for explaining machines and engines. They’re the laws of thermodynamics. (TRANSCRIPT HERE)
Host, Producer, Engineer: Shelley Schlender Executive Producer: Joel Parker
Air Pollution, Possible Solutions (start time: 2:36) It is ubiquitous and essential to our life. It it is also the cause of some 7 million premature deaths around the world every year, ranking just behind diet, cancer and tobacco as a health risk. That’s the air we breath. Beijing, New Delhi, and London are among the smoggiest, but the Denver metro area isn’t faring so well either. Yet many countries and cities have taken positive steps that have dramatically reduced emissions, from vehicles, smokestacks, crop and animal production, and other sources. Our two guests today have been researching air pollution—its sources, impacts and solutions–and they share their insights and data with How On Earth’s Susan Moran and guest host, journalist Jason Plautz. Beth Gardiner, an environmental journalist based in London, authored the recently published book Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution. And Dr. Frank Flocke is an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and an author of a major study of air pollution sources on the Colorado Front Range.
Hosts: Susan Moran, Jason Plautz Producer: Susan Moran Engineer: Joel Parker Executive Producer: Joel Parker
This week on How on Earth, Beth interviews Nara Milanich, author of Paternity: The Elusive Quest for the Father, and professor of history at Barnard College. For most of human history, paternity was uncertain while motherhood most definitely was not. But in the 1920s new scientific advances promised to solve the mystery of paternity. The stakes were high: fatherhood confers not only patrimony and legitimacy but also a name, nationality, and identity. We explore the new science of paternity, and some of the complexity of this issue. You can find out more about the book here. Host: Beth Bennett Producer: Beth Bennett Engineer: Maeve Conran Executive Producer: Joel Parker
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In the first feature (start time 1:00) KGNU’s Maeve Conran speaks with Antonia Malchik, author of A Walking Life. This book explores the relationship between walking and our humanity, how we have lost it through a century of car-centric design, how we can regain it and more. This part of the interview, produced especially for How On Earth, focuses on the science behind what makes us able to walk. For a pedestrian, walking is a simple as putting one foot in front of another, right? Well from a scientific perspective, there’s quite a bit to it.
In the second feature (start time 13:10), Chip Grandits speaks with Dr. Detlev Helmig, Associate Research Professor at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research. He is one of several Boulder area climate scientists preparing for The MOSAIC expedition, the largest ever Central Arctic research expedition. In September 2019 A German research icebreaker the Polarstern will head northeast from Tromsø, Norway where it will spend an entire year caught up in the shifting Arctic ice. Dr. Helmig talks about the need to improve climate models of the poles, what motivates a such complex, expensive and dangerous expedition and what motivates scientists to take a 2 month stint on board the Polarstern trapped in the Arctic ice.
With graduation season is upon us, today’s edition of How on Earth is our annual “Graduation Special”. Our guests in the studio today are scientists who have or will soon receive their Ph.D. in a STEM-related field. They talk about their thesis research, their grad school experiences, and what they have planned next.
David Reens – CU Boulder, Department of Physics
Topic: Pushing the Limits for Directly Cooled Molecules
Abigail Reens– CU Boulder, Department Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
Topic: Salmonella Within Macrophages – An Extreme Environment: Small Molecule Inhibitors of Bacterial Efflux and the Roles of Bacterial Lipid Metabolism and Mammalian Co-culture During Infection
We speak with Larry Gold, founder of the Gold Lab Symposium that will take place at CU Boulder’s Muenzinger Auditorium this Friday and Saturday. This year’s symposium will feature leading scientists discussing the double-edged swords of our modern treatments for cancer, immunity and autoimmunity. To sign up or learn more, see Gold Lab Foundation.
Host,Producer,Engineer Shelley Schlender Executive Producer: Joel Parker