Author: Joel Parker

The Last Stargazers, Part 2

We feature an interview with astronomer and author Dr. Emily Levesque about her book, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy’s Vanishing Explorers.  In today’s episode, we talk with Dr. Levesque about the history and future of astronomy.  We hear about how astronomical observing at some of the premier telescopes in the world has changed over the decades, and we get a preview of what the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory has in store for the next generation of astronomers.

Host, Producer, Engineer: Joel Parker

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:43 — 36.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The Last Stargazers, Part 1

We feature an interview with astronomer and author Dr. Emily Levesque about her book, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy’s Vanishing Explorers.  In today’s episode, we talk with Dr. Levesque about how one becomes an astronomer and what a typical – and sometimes not so typical – night’s work is like at an observatory with highly sophisticated scientific instruments in very remote and difficult locations.

Host, Producer, Engineer: Joel Parker

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:27 — 37.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

KGNU Fund Drive with The Last Stargazers

On this week’s show  – part of the annual KGNU Spring Fund Drive – we play excerpts of an upcoming interview with astronomer and author Dr. Emily Levesque about her book, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy’s Vanishing Explorers. The book is a modern history of observational astronomy, and shares an inside look at the lives and stories of astronomers past, present, and possible future.

Thanks to independent publisher Source Books for offering several copies to KGNU to help with the fund drive, and to those listeners who donated and received copies of the book.

Hosts: Joel Parker, Susan Moran
Headlines: Benita Lee, Beth Bennett
Show Producer & Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive producer: Susan Moran

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:40 — 39.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

2021 Graduation Special

diploma-and-graduation-hatWith graduation season 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.

(Photo by Patrick Campbell/University of Colorado)

Kate Doubleday – CU Boulder, Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering
Topic: Development and Application of Probabilistic Solar Power Forecasts for the Day-Ahead Unit Commitment

 

IMG_5538Jason Silver – CU Boulder, Chemical and Biological Engineering
Topic: The Role of Stiffness and YAP/TAZ Mechanotransduction during Muscle Regeneration

 

ulibarri_headshotZach Ulibarri – CU Boulder, Physics
Topic: Experimental Studies of the Genesis and Detectability of Complex Organic Molecules and Isotopic Ratios in Hypervelocity Impact Ice Spectra

Host / Producer : Joel Parker

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:23 — 37.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Science On Stage

ScienceShorts800x400

Sometimes it seems that science and art are completely different worlds but that has not always been the case. There is a long history of artistic scientists and scientific artists.  In this edition of How on Earth, we talk about the alchemy of transmogrifying science into theatre.

Our guests include two scientists and two playwrights who collaborated to create plays inspired by scientific research as part of a theatre project produced by the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company.  The production is called “Science Shorts“, which will be streaming the performances online Thursday through Sunday this week, January 21-24.  The production will feature readings of four short plays by Colorado playwrights, and four short talks by the local scientists who inspired their work.

Our science guests are geophysicist Dr. Neesha Schnepf and biologist Ashley Whipple, and our playwrights are Nigel Knutzen and Ellen K. Graham.  Neesha and Nigel collaborated on creating the play Trinal, which takes three different perspectives on tsunamis and their impact.   Ashley’s and Ellen’s play, On The Rocks, follows American pikas and what they have to teach us about resilience in the face of environmental and other stress.

Host & Producer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:54 — 37.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Recycling Lithium-ion Batteries

figure from Xu et al. 2020, Joule, vol. 4, p. 2609
Figure from Xu et al. 2020, Joule, vol. 4, p. 2609

Our lives have been changed by lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries which are everywhere: in our cell phones, cars, toys, power tools and grid energy storage. Indeed, the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the three scientists who invented and developed them.  As the world manufactures more and more Li-ion batteries, what are the challenges and opportunities for recycling them?  How can we prevent the batteries from ending up in landfills where the toxic metals inside can leak out?   In this episode, we talk with Dr. Zheng Chen, a professor of nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author on the paper “Efficient Direct Recycling of Lithium-Ion Battery Cathodes by Targeted Healing” published a few weeks ago in the journal Joule. 

Hosts: Jill Sjong, Joel Parker
Feature: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Show Producer: Joel Parker
Engineer: Sam Fuqua

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:14 — 37.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Clean – The New Science of Skin

31hxj3045QLHow clean is “clean”?  How do you get clean, and how important is it…could it actually be advantageous to your skin and general health to not try to get too clean?  We talk with medical doctor and author Dr. James Hamblin about his new book “Clean:  The New Science Of Skin“.

Hosts: Chip Grandits, Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Jill Sjong
Show Producer and Engineer: Joel Parker
Additional Contributions: Shelley Schlender

Listen to the Show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:21 — 25.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Formation of Pluto and Its Ocean

plutoFive years ago today on July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft made the first reconnaissance of Pluto, collecting data that continue to be analyzed and provide surprises of this distant world.  On this 5th anniversary of the Pluto flyby, our guest is Dr. Carver Bierson, who is a planetary scientist at Arizona State University.  Carver has been involved with the New Horizons mission, and recently published a paper about Pluto based on data from the mission.  We talk with him about results in the paper titled: “Evidence for a Hot Start and Early Ocean Formation on Pluto”

Host / Producer : Joel Parker
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:32 — 26.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

2020 Graduation Special

diploma-and-graduation-hatWith 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.

image Hayley Sohn – CU Boulder, Materials Science and Engineering Program
Topic: Large-Scale Patterning and Dynamics of Topological Solitons in Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals

 

Portrait2015_crop (1)Clement Zheng – CU Boulder, ATLAS Institute
Topic: Everyday Materials for Physical Interactive Systems

 

IMG_6285Jennifer Berry – CU Boulder, Chemistry
Topic: Development and Application of Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometry for Measuring Terrestrial and Exoplanetary Organic Nitrogen

Host / Producer : Joel Parker
Engineer: Maeve Conran

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:10 — 24.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

COVID-19: ACE, Targeted Therapies, Old & New Medicines

Antimicrobial Regeneration Consortium LogoThis episode talks about research about COVID-19, angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), and targeted therapies, and our feature is an interview with CU-Boulder scientists Anushree Chatterjee and Prashant Nagpal. This husband and wife science team explains why there may be a downside to adapting old medications to fight Covid-19.  They’ll also explain their anguish about why creating new “drugs” to fight Covid-19 cannot happen as fast as they or anyone would like.  They have founded the Antimicrobial REgeneration Consortium, with the goal of speeding up the creation and availability of antimicrobial medicines.  They are also developing a way to give people a tiny dose of nanoparticles–basically incredibly tiny microchips, preprogrammed to specifically target a disease such as Covid-19  (see our earlier discussions with them).

Host: Beth Bennett, Angele Sjong, Shelley Schlender, Joel Parker
Producer: Joel Parker, Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

Listen to the show:

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:23 — 25.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS