What You Can Do About Global Warming

solar-panels What You Can Do About Global Warming (starts at 5:20): We interview Craig Hover, author of A World to Come Home To: Ending Global Warming in Our Lifetime. Craig is a licensed professional engineer with more than 30 years of engineering, project and facilities management, financial services and consulting. In his book he lays out a comprehensive vision of implementing sustainable strategies for reducing carbon emissions and reversing the current trends in climate change.

Host: Beth Bennett
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Additional contributions: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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How the Brain Matures

The teenaged brain is wired differently than the adult.
The teenaged brain is wired differently than the adult.

Brains (starts at 4:35) This week on How on Earth we interview Professor Marie Banich, from the University of Colorado here in Boulder. Dr Banich uses cutting edge methodologies, particularly structural and functional MRI, to examine the role of the prefrontal cortex, as well as other brain regions, in executive function. Today she tells us about work that was recently funded by NIH to characterize how these systems change over the course of development.

Hosts: Beth Bennett and Joel Parker
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Are GMOs Environmentally-friendly?

Genetically-modified crops
Genetically-modified crops

GMOs (start time 5:35) An interview with Dr Sharon Collenge, an ecologist at the University of Colorado. Dr Collenge is an advocate of using new genetic technologies to make slight modifications to plant genomes which can increase yield, protect against disease and reduce pesticide use.

Host: Beth Bennett
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Additional contributions: Joel Parker, Beth Bennett
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Neurobiology of Alcohol Abuse

Raising drinking glasses to celebrate - drinking? Image courtesy of Huffington Post
Raising drinking glasses to celebrate – drinking?
Image courtesy of Huffington Post

This week on How on Earth, we speak with Dr Paula Hoffman, a neuropharmacologist – she’s scientist who studies what drugs do in the brain- who works on the genetics of alcohol and other drugs of abuse. Paula reviews the action of alcohol on different neurotransmitter systems of the brain then describes some of the genetic issues which predispose people to risk for becoming alcoholics. Finally she talks about research done in her lab which has resulted in preliminary understanding of genetic networks involved.

Host: Beth Bennett
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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Global Climate Models & Climate Change

Events like heat waves are more likely with climate change. Image courtesy of Heartlander Magazine
Events like heat waves are more likely with climate change.
Image courtesy of Heartlander Magazine

Beth Bennett speaks with Claudia Tebaldi, a climate scientist at NCAR, about her work analyzing climate models to project climate change in the future. She addressed heat waves and local conditions and how these models can be used to make projections in these areas. Start time approx 5 min.

Host: Beth Bennett
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Additional contributions: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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Pluto Flyby // Case of the Rickety Cossack

PlutoPluto Flyby  (start time 1:00): Joel Parker discusses the New Horizons mission from the command center live!

Case of the Rickety Cossack (start time 25:00): Beth Bennett talks to Ian Tattersall about his new book,  a fascinating précis of the study of human evolution and some startling new findings showing that our species is one of many hominids in which natural selection mixed and matched various characteristics and abilities.

Host: Beth Bennett
Show Producer: Beth Bennett
Board Engineer: Maeve Conran
Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Additional Contributions: Susan Moran

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Aging//and not aging

Will we be able to reverse aging some day soon?
Will we be able to reverse aging some day soon?

We talk with Dr Thomas Johnson about his long standing interest in aging and how he used a nearly microscopic worm to investigate this process. Recently, he has transitioned into using mice to identify genes influencing the aging process. Some of his findings have identified potential drugs to slow aging and keep us healthier as we live longer.

Executive Producer: Susan Moran

Producer, Co-host: Beth Bennett

Engineer: Maeve Conran

Cohost: Susan Moran

Additional Contributions: Susan Moran,  Beth Bennett

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Einstein, Niels Bohr and Grandmothers…a Fairy Tale!

An educator and perfomer, Len Barron first developed a piece about Einsteina and Bohr as a one man show, but then decided to evolve the project by enlist the help of 8 grandmothers to tell the story with their own added pizazz.  Not only was lively performance produced, but a process and experience was shared.  This process was captured by documentary film maker Robin Truesdale in a film coming to the Dairy Center this weekend entitled A Beautiful Equation.  Both Robin and Len have joined us today in the studio to tell us more about the film, the process, the scientists and the grandmothers.

4:30pm and 7:30pm Sunday May 31st at The Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, CO

More information at abeautifulequation.com

and tickets available at thedairy.org

Hosts: Beth Bennett, Kendra Krueger
Producer: Kendra Krueger
Engineer: Kendra Krueger
Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Headline contributions: Susan Moran, Shelley Schlender, Beth Bennett

 

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Ancestors in Our Genome

9780199978038We speak with Eugene Harris, Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Geology at Queensborough Community College – part of  the City University of New York – about his new book,  Ancestors in Our Genome. In this feature, we discussed the methods used by molecular anthropologists to determine human evolution from our primate ancestors and several fascinating examples of the application of these techniques, including a discussion of the rise of lactose digestion in northern Europeans.

Hosts: Joel Parker and Beth Bennett
Producer and Engineer: Joel Parker
Additional Contributions: Kendra Krueger
Executive Producer: Kendra Krueger

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Other Rocky Planets are Common!

Kepler444 We talk with astronomer Travis Metcalfe about finding the oldest known planetary system in the Galaxy, and what it means about the formation of planets, the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, and how does one actually find planets around other stars? Headlines include switches in the man-made biological organisms that could possibly be used for bioterrorism, and the finding that chronic malaria infection in migrant great reed warblers  damages telomeres, shortening life in both the adult bird and its offspring.

Hosts: Joel Parker and Beth Bennett
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer Beth Bennett with help from Kendra Kruger
Additional Contributions: Jane Palmer, Shelly Schlender
Executive Producer: Kendra Krueger

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