Host: Beth Bennett
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:01 — 25.6MB)
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Diatoms: Ecology and Aesthetics
Category: Episodes
Cell Phones & Cancer // Narcotics Prolong Chronic Pain
Cell Phones & Cancer (Starts 1:00) A $25 million study reports cell phone radiation boosted brain cancer in rats . . . and rats exposed to radiation lived longer. Frank Barnes, CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, explains these paradoxical findings and implications for people. (Related stories — 2011 Cell Phone Radiation and 2014 An Electric Silent Spring)
Narcotics Prolong Chronic Pain (Starts 11:35) CU-Boulder neuroscientist Peter Grace explains his team’s new findings about how and why morphine can prolong chronic pain. Rats with induced nerve pain received morphine for 5 days; their pain lasted nearly three months — twice as long as the nerve pain for rats that got no morphine. This is one of the first studies to test long-term effects of treating chronic pain with opioid painkillers. (Related story: KGNU call-in show on the opioid addiction epidemic)
Host/Producer/Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:07 — 23.0MB)
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Our Microbes, Ourselves: Soil Bacteria Treat Stress Disorders
Microbes and Stress Resilience (starts 5:13) If you’re worried that some dirt still clings to your skin under your fingernails after planting or weeding in the garden, fear not. In fact, the more you feel and even breathe its fumes, the better, research suggests. As part of our series called “Our Microbes, Ourselves,” we explore today a newly published study that adds to a growing body of research into the benefits of certain soil and gut microbes on our mental and physical health. Dr. Christopher Lowry, an associate professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, discusses with host Susan Moran the study, which he led. It shows that a common soil bacterium called M. vaccae can boost the immune system to help fight stress and inflammation. The research, published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted on mice, but the health implications for humans are far-reaching.
Hosts: Joel Parker, Susan Moran
Producer: Susan Moran
Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:20 — 25.9MB)
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GoldLab Symposium: Standing Together—Health Care for Our Common Good
((Starts 00:00)) Today we speak with Larry Gold, founder of the GoldLab Symposium that brings scientists and thinkers from around the world to share their perspectives about health and healthcare. The theme of this year’s symposium is: Standing Together—Health Care for Our Common Good
Host / Producer / Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:16 — 25.0MB)
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2016 Graduation Special (part 2)
In this follow-up episode of our “Graduation Special” we talk with three more guests graduating with science Ph.D.’s from the University of Colorado in Boulder. They join us to talk about their thesis research, their grad school experiences, and what they have planned next:
Carleigh Samson – Environmental Engineering Program
Topic: Modeling Relationships between Climate, Source Water Quality and Disinfection Byproduct Formation and Speciation in Treated Drinking Water
Patrick Barbour – Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Topic: Property-Guided Synthesis of Tricyclic Indolines to Confront Antibiotic Resistance in Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus
Greg Thompson – Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
Topic: Advances in a Microphysics Parameterization to Predict Supercooled Liquid Water and Application to Aircraft Icing
Host / Engineer : Shelley Schlender
Producer : Joel Parker
Executive Producer : Shelley Schlender
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:47 — 25.4MB)
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2016 Graduation Special (part 1)
The graduation season is upon us and our guests in today’s show will be graduating with science Ph.D.’s from the University of Colorado in Boulder. They join us to talk about their thesis research, their grad school experiences, and what they have planned next:
Greg Salvesen – Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences
Topic: Rethinking Accretion Disks Around Black Holes
Jesse Nusbaumer – Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
Topic: An Examination of Atmospheric River Moisture Transport and Hydrology Using an Isotope-enabled Climate Model
Odessa Gomez – Environmental Engineering Program
Topic: Characterizing Responses of Primary Biological Aerosols to Oxidative Atmospheric Conditions
Host / Producer / Engineer : Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:28 — 25.1MB)
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Foundations for Leaders Organizing for Water and Sustainability // Quantified Self
(Starting at 6:30) FLOWS bridges social justice and environmental issues. FLOWS provides leadership training opportunities, green job skills, and free energy and water upgrades while building partnerships between CU students and staff and community members. They partner with and work primarily for low-income communities for water and energy conservation (the communities most in need of lower energy and water bills). They joined us to talk about their new training program coming up this May. Find out more about their program here .
(Starting at 20:14)Michael Skirpan is a PhD candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Computer Science Department. He worked with a collaborative team to create a project called quantified self, an immersive data experience that debuted the last weekend in April. Listen in to hear more about this half performance-half data experience and find out when it will be happening again here.
Hosts:Kendra Krueger
Producer: Kendra Krueger
Engineer: Kendra KRueger
Additional contributions: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:33 — 26.1MB)
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The Most Perfect Thing: A Bird’s Egg
((Starts 00:00)) We speak via Skype with Renowned English Ornithologist Tim Birkhead, about “The Most Perfect Thing.” That’s the title of his new book. It’s all about taking a scientific look inside, and outside, a bird’s egg.
Host: Shelley Schlender
Producer:Shelley Schlender
Engineer:Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:02 — 24.8MB)
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A History of Water in Colorado’s Front Range
Host Beth Bennett interviews Bob Crifasi, author of A Land Made of Water (starts at 4’55”). Bob works in water management and planning and is an environmental scientist with over 25yr experience. He was the Water Resources Administrator for the city of Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks Dept. He has served on board of directors of 11 ditch companies and as the president of several, supervising all aspects of ditch operation.
Hosts: Beth Bennett, Alejandro Soto
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Additional contributions: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:14 — 23.1MB)
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Across the Universe – You Can’t Get There From Here
This special edition of How on Earth is produced in conjunction with the Conference on World Affairs. Our guests are two of the participants of the Conference: astrobiologist Dr. David Grinspoon and physicist Dr. Sidney Perkowitz. In keeping with the traditional format of the conference panels, our guests will start by talking about their interpretation of the topic “Across the Universe – You Can’t Get There From Here”, and we’ll go from there and see where in the universe we end up.
Host / Producer / Engineer : Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:30 — 23.3MB)
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