The KGNU Science Show
On today’s show we featured an interview with Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, who is principal investigator on NASA’s New Horizons mission. He told us about a fourth, tiny moon orbiting Pluto—found last month by his team during observations in support of New Horizons, which will arrive at Pluto in 2015. Here’s an extended version of that interview.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:16 — 9.4MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Here’s a longer version of my interview with Anjali Bhatara, which aired on today’s program. Dr. Bhatara is with the Laboratory of the Psychology of Perception at the University of Paris, where she studies the interactions between music and the brain, the mind and the emotions. She has published several papers on music perception in people with autism—especially their ability to pick up on the emotional cues in a song, and how it might be related to their ability to detect emotional cues in speech. I began by asking her which aspects of sound are relevant to musical perception.
Listen to the interview:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:27 — 15.1MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Today we announce a contest to find new theme music for How On Earth! Our current theme has served us well for more than 20 years, but we feel it’s time to change our tune. We’re looking to local musicians for that new “How On Earth” sound. Check out our Contest Page for more information, and to listen to and comment on submitted music.
Joining us in the studio today is Tom Wasinger, the Grammy-winning producer of our long-standing theme. We talk with him about the history and creation of that theme, and about his hopes for this new theme music contest. We also hear from Anjali Bhatara, of the Laboratory of the Psychology of Perception in Paris. She studies the way music affects the brain, the mind, and the emotions (hear an extended version of this interview). And we’ll get some advice on selecting a memorable new theme from music expert Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect and founder of the Institute for Music, Health, and Education here in Boulder.
Hosts: Ted Burnham and Tom Yulsman
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Producer: Ted Burnham
Listen to the show:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:25 — 21.4MB)
Subscribe: RSS
On the show this morning we asked our guest, University of Colorado earth scientist Roger Bilham, about the possibility of a major earthquake in the Himalayan region. He confirmed that the region was overdue for a major quake and that people living in poor, rural areas would certainly be at risk from building collapse if — or when — such a quake were to occur.
Just a few hours later, Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan was hit with a magnitude 7.2 quake. How On Earth contributor Tom Yulsman, who hosted the interview with Bilham, has more details and further comments from Bilham at the CEJournal blog.
UPDATE: It appears that the epicenter was in a relatively unpopulated area. About 200 mud-wall homes were destroyed, but there were very few casualties. Contrast that with the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, during which around 75,000 people died — most of them buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
