Author: Shelley Schlender

Smoke Free Casinos Reduce 911 Calls (starts at 2:41) Colorado’s ban on smoking up at Central City and Black Hawk casinos has not only reduced second hand smoke.  It’s reduced the number of 911 calls for ambulances.    A new study in this week’s journal, Circulation, reports that ambulance calls to casinos in Gilpin County fell 20 percent after smoking was banned.  For more, we speak with the study’s lead author Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education

Mirrors and Water = Hydrogen Fuel (starts at 7:40) We hear how to make hydrogen fuel, from water,  sunshine and mirrors, from  Chris Muhich, a PhD student at CU-Boulder whose dream is to create affordable, clean burning hydrogen available to everyone.

Hosts: Shelley Schlender & Jim Pullen
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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The world is awash with artificial lights – so much so that most of us never experience the night sky like our ancestors did. So what?  Does it matter?  Is it simply an inevitable and acceptable result of progress?  Here in the studio with us today to talk about the personal and global effects of light pollution and the loss of dark skies at night is Paul Bogard who has written the book The End of Night. Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light,

Hosts: Joel Parker, Shelley Schlender
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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The Voodoo Doll Task – (begins 5:30) Scientists have few ways to accurately measure agression.  How on Earth’s Garth Sundem talks with University of Kentucky psychology professor, Nathan DeWall, about a new fix. It’s called the Voodoo Doll Task. DeWall’s recent studies include over thirteen hundred subjects, and an upcoming research paper shows his voodoo doll task works darn well. What does an angry person do when holding a voodoo doll and a handful of pins, or when presented with a computerized version of the doll? The answer could indicate that person’s desire to carry out the aggressive action in real life.

Drones for Climate Science – (begins 15:00) These days they get a bad rap because of their use by the government to snoop on people, and even to kill terrorists. But unmanned aerial vehicles – often called  “drones” – are increasingly being used to save the planet, or at least to measure and understand a slice of it.  For more, How on Earth’s Susan Moran talks with Doug Weibel  who is part of a CU-Boulder science and engineering team that designed an unmanned aerial vehicle , or UAV, that they’re about to take to Alaska’s Arctic Circle. The aircraft –called DataHawk — is meant to help them better grasp how Arctic sea ice is melting, especially in the summer in areas where it used to persist for many years.

Hosts: Susan Moran, Shelley Schlender
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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We talk with Larry Gold about this year’s Gold Lab Symposium at CU-Boulder.  It features, “The Biological and Social Evolution of Healthcare: Rube Goldberg and Time.  Friday, May 17th – Saturday, May 18th, 2013, Muenzinger Auditorium, University of Colorado Boulder.  NOTE:  After the conference, speaker presentations will be posted at the Gold Lab Symposium site.

Hosts: Joel Parker, Jim Pullen
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:41 — 22.6MB)

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Headlines:

1. Climate Change Accelerates Changing Climate Zones – CU-Boulder and CIRES Scientist Irina Mahlstein (starts at 1:00)
2. Family Dogs Harber Family Microbes – CU Boulder Scientist Rob Knight (and the American Gut Project) (starts at 2:26)
3. Sound from the Big Bang – from John G. Cramer (starts at 4:45)

Mapping Pain in the Brain (starts at 7:30 )

If you hit your thumb with a hammer, you feel physical pain.  Terrible sunburn? Pain.  A muscle cramp?  Pain.  In each case, you know it’s pain.  But how a body senses this pain has been elusive.  Surgeons have tried to cut out what they think of as the brain’s pain center.  This often doesn’t work, and it has side effects.  Painkilling drugs?  Sometimes they help, sometimes they cause addiction.  Understanding the brain’s pain circuits might help scientists find better ways to deal with pain.  Last week, CU-Boulder researchers took a step in that direction by publishing a magnetic resonance imaging  map that they believe shows the signature of physical pain response within the brain.  The lead researcher on this project is Tor Wager.  Wager is the director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience laboratory at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Hosts: Joel Parker, Chip Grandits
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:35 — 22.5MB)

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Tom’s River (starts at 5:03) Susan Moran interviews Dan Fagin, author of the new book Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation.  You’ve likely heard of the chemical contamination of Love Canal at Niagara Falls, in the mid-1970s. And the leukemia cluster linked to water pollution in Woburn, Massachusetts,in the mid-80s — made famous by the book Civil Action. But you may not have heard of another cancer cluster –- also linked to industrial chemicals – this one in the small town of Toms River, N.J. Fagin’s book about Tom’s River is far more than a gripping investigation of one town’s struggle; it is a cautionary and illuminating tale about the complexities of finding a causal, not just associative, link between pollution and cancer. And it is a story for anyone concerned about whether the air they breathe, and the water they drink is in jeopardy.

 

2013-03-26 Making Fire on KGNU’s How on Earth Science Show from Shelley Schlender on Vimeo.

Making Primitive Fire (starts at 15:40) Roger Wendell interviews Michael and Lorritta Slayton, who are longtime practitioners of primitive fire making and survival skills. Teaching at rendezvous, schools, and outdoors shows Michael and Lorritta have delighted thousands with their “Backup to the Bic”  demonstrations – how to create a lifesaving fire during an emergency when matches and high-tech lighters won’t do the trick.  Primitive fire making focuses on very old, but tried and true ways of making fire. Today, Michael “Big Smoke” and Lorritta “Flint Woman” Slayton will teach us about Bow Drill Fire Sticks and the flint-and-steel methods for creating fire – assuring us that what we learn from the past will make us wiser for the future.

Hosts: Susan Moran, Roger Wendell
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Jim Pullen
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:45 — 22.7MB)

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In this spring pledge drive show, How on Earth’s Chip Grandits talks with Neil Shubin, author of the new book, The Universe Within:  Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets and People.  We offer this book to listeners to who call KGNU to pledge their support and bring you more programs like this.  Additionally, we have thank you gifts for listeners who pledge that include, Facing the Wave, Pandora’s Lunchbox, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, and The Fat Switch.  These are all books we’ve featured, along with authors interviewed, thanks to the efforts of your all-volunteer science show team, How on Earth.  You can pledge securely on line to support this show and others at kgnu.org.

Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker, Chip Grandits
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Jim Pullen
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:00 — 22.9MB)

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Headlines:

1. Ice Core Studies
2. How Flu Multiplies
3. Wednesday’s Mini-STEM school features Diana Tomback.  Her topic will be: Evolution and the Origin of Life.

Features:

(5:20 into the show) Shelley Schlender visits the Visindi Circus to learn why some scientists by day become circus performers at night, and how science adds a whole new dimension to circus performances.

(13:00 into the show) Chip Grandits talks with Brian Hynek, for the CU Center for Astrobiology and makes this request:  there are ~17 Billion Earth like planets in the Milky Way according to late-breaking estimates; so in this 10 minute segment, we can just go through the list – Mark will have about 35 ns for each planet to go over the prospects of finding life there.

Hosts: Chip Grandits and Jim Pullen
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender

Additional Contributions: Rabah Kamal

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:33 — 22.5MB)

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