Category: Episodes

 

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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HEADLINES:

1. Diabetes Drug Metformin – University of Pennsylvania Researcher Morris Birnbaum reports in Nature that Metformin blocks a hormone that tells the liver to melt muscle to make more blood sugar. (Go here for an extended interview with Morris Birnbaum)
2. Climate Change – Research shows that timely political action has a bigger impact than waiting.
3. Boulder Cafe Scientifique – Tonight’s Cafe Sci features CU Boulder researcher Monique LeBourgeois (who we interviewed in detail in previous broadcast) on the topic of kids and sleep.

MAIN FEATURES:

We talk with scientists who are part of two new University of Colorado – Denver studies about alcohol and marijuana – 1) Ben Crost presents a study of marijuana use versus alcohol use which concludes that the minimum drinking age of 21 increases marijuana use among teens (until age 21, alcohol use is lower and marijuana use is higher.  After age 21, alcohol use goes up and marijuana use goes down).  Daniel Rees and Mark Anderson are among the authors on a study of Medical Marijuana and Traffic Fatalities that view the question of who uses what from the other side.  Their study looks at an exception to the rule – the 16 states and District of Columbia with some years now, have had medical marijuana laws.  In these Medical Marijuana states, teen use of marijuana appears to rise at age 18 (that’s the age at which teens no longer need to have their parent’s permission to get a Medical Marijuana card. )  But even more interestingly, in these Medical Marijuana states, traffic fatalities go down.  These authors look at why. (Go here for extended interviews with Crost and Anderson)

We also discuss the new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that analyzed the link between Body Mass Index (BMI) and death.  BMI is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared study.  The study concluded that while very obese people were likely to die sooner than others, people who were moderately overweight, or even slightly obese, were less likely to die than were people of normal weight, or people who are thin.  Medical doctor and researcher on aging, Ron Rosedale, puts this study in historical perspective, pointing out that the British Medical Journal the Lancet published a similar study in 2006 that concluded that BMI is not a very useful measure of health, and other measures, such as waist to hip ratio and certain hormone levels, might be better at predicting health and longevity. (Go here for an extended interview with Ron Rosedale)

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

Additional Contributions:  Susan Moran

 (Click below to play audio.)

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:10 — 21.2MB)

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We bring you a look back on the world of science, from our colleagues with a pulse on the world-wide science news of the year, the producers at BBC Science in Action.

Headlines:  

1. Chemicals that make drinking water cleaner, might increase allergies to food
2. Rumors run amok about “historic” Mars Mission press conference
3. West Nile Virus, Lyme’s disease, and Dengue fever on the rise

Main feature (6 minutes in):  We’re in that time of year when animals hibernate.  Before they started their long winter’s nap, they fattened up, so they can make it through the winter.  According to CU Health Sciences researcher, Richard Johnson, we humans also evolved to put on weight to make it through leaner times.  But for us, it’s not a change of seasons that gets the weight gain started.  It’s a specific trigger, called, “Sugar.”  Specifically a kind of sugar called fructose, found in honey, fruit juice, corn syrup, and even regular table sugar.  In his new book, The Fat Switch, Johnson traces the increasing availability of this fructose sugar among humans and how it has now made people fat, and sick for thousands of years.  For instance, you think the pharoahs were all buff, and skinny?  Many mummies have lots of skin folds, which means that, as living humans, many were fat.  Johnson also talks about kings who loved sugar so much, sometimes they made sugar statues . . . and ate them . . . leading many to be very fat and prone to modern diseases such as diabetes and heart attack and stroke. Now let’s listen in, as How on Earth’s Shelley Schlender talks with Dr. Richard Johnson, about how sugar affects children.  They begin with how too much sugar can make a person’s body get stuck, storing the sugar as fat.

Hosts: Joel Parker and Susan Moran
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Jim Pullen

Listen to the show:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:47 — 34.0MB)

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