Author: Joel Parker

https://howonearthradio.org/ not owned, operated, or controlled by Boulder Community Broadcast Association, Inc. (KGNU) or any legal affiliates, and and those entities are not responsible for the content on the website. Contact via our contact page https://howonearthradio.org/about/contact for any DMCA concerns.

The Scale of the Universe

How big is the universe – not just in the scale of  distance but also the scale of time?  What do those…astronomical…scales mean about us humans on Earth and how can we understand and measure such vast expanses? In this episode, our guest, astronomer and author Dr. Jeff Bennett, helps us wrap our minds around these ideas as we discuss his book The Scale of the Universe. We look back at the Big Bang, the possibility of the existence and meeting aliens, and when events such as the formation of our solar system, the appearance and demise of the dinosaurs, and the evolution of humans fit into the “Cosmic Calendar”.

Host: Joel Parker
Show Producer/Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:25 — 37.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Into The Unknown (Part 2)

Into The Unknown (starts at 9:05) What do we know about the universe, and how do we know we know it? Conversely, what do we know we don’t know, what don’t we know that we don’t know, and why not?

To help us unravel these age-old philosophical questions in the context of current science, our guest is Dr. Kelsey Johnson, who received her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado.  Dr. Johnson is a Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Virginia, and the former president of the American Astronomical Society. She is the founder of the Dark Skies, Bright Kids program, and wrote the children’s book Constellations for Kids. Her most recent book is Into The Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos. In this episode, Dr. Johnson takes us into that unknown, and talks about what we know, what we might know, and what we might never know.

Part 1 of this interview is available here.

We begin this show with some pre-Halloween spooky science news.

Host: Joel Parker
Show Producer/Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Additional contributions:Benita Lee, Jack Armstrong, Shelley Schlender

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:45 — 36.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Into The Unknown (Part 1)

Into The Unknown (starts at 7:57) What do we know about the universe, and how do we know we know it? Conversely, what do we know we don’t know, what don’t we know that we don’t know, and why not?

To help us unravel these age-old philosophical questions in the context of current science, our guest is Dr. Kelsey Johnson, who received her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado.  Dr. Johnson is a Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Virginia, and the former president of the American Astronomical Society. She is the founder of the Dark Skies, Bright Kids program, and wrote the children’s book Constellations for Kids. Her most recent book is Into The Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos. In this episode, Dr. Johnson takes us into that unknown, and talks about what we know, what we might know, and what we might never know.

Part 2 of this interview is available here.

Host: Joel Parker
Show Producer/Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Additional contributions: Shelley Schlender, Mac Hebebrand, Lorraine Healy

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:53 — 36.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Science Journalism with Miles O’Brien // Acetaminophen and Autism

This episode features Miles O’Brien, a science journalist who has been a correspondent for PBS News and CNN. He talks about his experience breaking in to science journalism, past and current science reporting, public and political views of science, the value of scientific research, and some particular stories including beavers, prostheses, and climate change research in Antarctica. This feature is an interview by KBUT‘s Toni Todd and shared with us via Rocky Mountain Community Radio.

And we also have a report on the recent government claims about autism and use of acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) during pregnancy, which is disputed by researchers and medical groups.   We provide the full transcript of the press conference held by SciLine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science with Brian Lee, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University.

Host: Joel Parker
Show Producer/Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Additional contributions: Shelley Schlender

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:00 — 37.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Climate Change, Astronomy, Canine Astronauts

Climate change. Astronomy.  A canine astronaut. They intersect in our guest, astronomer and author Dr. Jeff Bennett. Among other things, we focus on climate change and policy – present and future.

Dr. Bennett got his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado, and he served two years as a Visiting Senior Scientist at NASA Headquarters, where he was the first scientist hired within a science division specifically to leverage science missions for education. As an author, Dr. Bennett has written college textbooks in astronomy, mathematics, statistics, and astrobiology, and a freely available, interactive digital textbook about Earth and Space Science for middle- and high-school students.  He also has written popular books that include a series for children about an intrepid astronaut dog named Max, who goes to the Moon, Mars and elsewhere.

A particular topic we plan to delve into today with Dr. Bennett is regarding his book titled: “A Global Warming Primer: Pathway to a Post-Global Warming Future”.  A current issue is the EPA’s proposal to rescind the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding. The comment period for the proposed rule change has been extended to September 22. Other issues include the Department of Energy’s recent report critical of climate change research (see rebuttals of the report by Dr. Bennett and others), and whether NASA will continue doing climate and other Earth-based science.

Host: Joel Parker
Show Producer/Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:09 — 35.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The Vera Rubin Observatory

The history of astronomy has many stories of trying to understand our universe, and those stories are connected by a common thread: looking at the sky, whether with our eyes or with increasingly powerful telescopes.  The newest entry in this telescopic journey is the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Located in Chile, this observatory has an audacious goal: to repeatedly observe the entire sky visible from its location every few nights, with a project called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

To talk about the Vera Rubin observatory and its science goals, our guest today is Dr. Tony Tyson, Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Tyson’s research focuses on experimental physics and cosmology, and he is the Observatory’s Chief Scientist.

Host: Joel Parker
Show Producer/Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:24 — 37.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

2025 Graduation Special (part 2)

diploma-and-graduation-hatWith graduation season upon us, today’s edition of How on Earth is Part 2 of our annual “Graduation Special”. Our guests in the studio today are scientists and engineers who recently received their Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in a STEM-related field.  They talk about their thesis research, their grad school experiences, and what they have planned next.

Chloe Long – Aerospace Engineering
Topic: Data-Driven Asteroid Tour Design

 

Amin Taziny – Aerospace Engineering
Topic: Multiscale Continuum-kinetic Modeling of Ionic Emission in Electrospray Thrusters

 

Margaret Perkoff – Computer Science and Cognitive Science
Topic: Bringing Everyone In: The Future of Collaboration with Conversational AI


You can listen to all past year Graduation Special episodes.

Host / Producer: Joel Parker

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:24 — 37.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

2025 Graduation Special (part 1)

diploma-and-graduation-hatWith graduation season upon us, today’s edition of How on Earth is Part 1 of our annual “Graduation Special”. Our guests in the studio today are scientists and engineers who have or will soon receive their Masters or Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in a STEM-related field.  They talk about their thesis research, their grad school experiences, and what they have planned next.

Renee Spear – Aerospace Engineering
Topic: Collision-Free Spacecraft Trajectory Design in Multi-Body Systems

 

Gautam Kavuri – Physics
Topic: Wringing the Bell: Implementations of Cryptographic Protocols Based on Bell Non-locality

 

Dhyey Bhavsar – Aerospace Engineering
Topic: Shape Diameter Computation on Surface Meshes and A Review of Shape Regularization Methods in Level-Set Topology Optimization

You can listen to all past year Graduation Special episodes.

Host / Producer: Joel Parker

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:49 — 39.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The Lucy Mission

image credit: NASA

Our guest today is Dr. Simone Marchi, Institute Scientist in the Solar System Science & Exploration Division at the Boulder office of Southwest Research Institute. Dr. Marchi is the Deputy Principal Investigator for NASA’s Lucy mission.  Lucy will be the first space mission to explore a population of small bodies known as the Trojan asteroids, which orbit out at the distance of Jupiter. Lucy has two “practice” flybys of main belt asteroids: Dinkinesh in November 2023, and Donaldjohanson coming up in just a few days on April 20, 2025.

Producer and Host: Joel Parker

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:58 — 37.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

April Foolish Science

Today is April Fools’ day, when jokes and pranks are played, sometimes among friends and family, sometimes on a more public scale.  But why is there such a day for culturally-accepted foolishness? To delve into the origins and history of April Fools’ Day, we talk with Dr. Angus Kress Gillespie, folklorist and professor of American studies at Rutgers University.

(Image credit: Zurijeta | Shutterstock.com)

You might find it shocking that scientists have a sense of humor, so we also talk with, Dr. Mike Lund from the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the Infrared Processing & Analysis Center / CalTech about the tradition among Astronomers to write and even review  humorous research papers for April Fools’ day. These papers are often posted on the arXiv preprint server, and Dr. Lund, the author of several such papers, also is the editor of the Acta Prima Aprilia that shares some of those papers.

Producer and Host: Joel Parker
Additional contributions: Beth Bennett
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

Listen to the show here:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:00 — 37.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS