Tag: conference on world affairs

Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America. 

Poisoning the Well (starts 2:00)  Boulder science writer Sharon Udasin discusses her new book,  Poisoning the Well:  How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America.  The book chronicles how these chemicals have ended up in our soil , drinking water, our bloodstreams . . . including in Colorado.  She also explains what we can do about these sometimes useful, but far too often, health-endangering chemicals.

Sharon will speak April 8th at the Boulder Bookstore.

Other events discussed in this show are the CU-Boulder Conference on World Affairs and the Dinosaur Ridge Raptorthon

Special thanks to Simon Roberts and his youtube channel, Environmental Chemistry Explained, for the song, “Forever Chemicals.”

Producer and Host: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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COVID-19: ACE, Targeted Therapies, Old & New Medicines

Antimicrobial Regeneration Consortium LogoThis episode talks about research about COVID-19, angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), and targeted therapies, and our feature is an interview with CU-Boulder scientists Anushree Chatterjee and Prashant Nagpal. This husband and wife science team explains why there may be a downside to adapting old medications to fight Covid-19.  They’ll also explain their anguish about why creating new “drugs” to fight Covid-19 cannot happen as fast as they or anyone would like.  They have founded the Antimicrobial REgeneration Consortium, with the goal of speeding up the creation and availability of antimicrobial medicines.  They are also developing a way to give people a tiny dose of nanoparticles–basically incredibly tiny microchips, preprogrammed to specifically target a disease such as Covid-19  (see our earlier discussions with them).

Host: Beth Bennett, Angele Sjong, Shelley Schlender, Joel Parker
Producer: Joel Parker, Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:23 — 25.1MB)

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An Astronomical Journey with Michelle Thaller

616418main_M_Thaller-226This special edition of How on Earth is produced in conjunction with the Conference on World Affairs.  Our guest a participants of the Conference: Dr. Michelle Thaller, assistant director of science at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.  Her path has taken her from Harvard to Georgia State University to Caltech to NASA. Dr. Thaller has studied hot stars, colliding stellar winds, binary star evolution, evolved stellar companions, and infrared astronomy.  She is one of the regular hosts of the Discovery Science Channel shows: “How the Universe Works” and “Space’s Deepest Secrets” and hosts the podcast “Orbital Path” on public radio.

Host / Producer / Engineer /  Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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Across the Universe – You Can’t Get There From Here

grinspoon-perkowitz-galaxy
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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Biomimicry: A New lens on Technology and Innovation

 

Farnsworth2015Institute_logo_bannerToday’s special edition of How on Earth, brought to you in conjunction with this week’s Conference on World Affairs is a conversation on Biomimicy as a new lens to view science and technology with Margo Farnsworth. 

Margo has coached two Top Twelve graduate teams for the International Student Biomimicry Challenge and currently serves as a Biomimicry Institute education fellow. She is also on the board of both the Missouri Prairie Foundation and South Carolina’s Experience Green. She has worked as a park ranger, science teacher, and mammalogist. With degrees in science education and parks administration, her professional accomplishments include research in environmental education, qualitative mammal studies, and involvement in numerous local and state environmental boards and committees. Farnsworth has written pieces for the Center for Humans and Nature as well as Treehugger, and has two biomimicry book projects pending.  She joins us live for an in-depth talk about how Biomimicry has the potential for changing scientific culture.

Moderated, Produced, Engineered by Kendra Krueger
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:42 — 19.9MB)

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Conference on World Affairs Special with SETI’s Seth Shostak

One of the SETI Institute’s telescopes in the Allen array. (2007 photo courtesy of Colby Gutierrez-Kraybill and used under a Creative Commons license.)

Welcome to a special episode of How On Earth with Dr. Seth Shostak, the Senior Astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute. We’ve been listening for their tell-tale signal for 50 years with no luck, but Seth says that he’ll bet a cup of coffee we’ll hear from them in the next few decades. We explore what might happen if we find these brainy aliens or if we don’t find them at all. It’s part of the Conference on World Affairs.

Host: Jim Pullen
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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Kinetic Sculptures Refocus the Human Perspective

Jeff Lieberman's art redefines the way people see themselves and their world. Image courtesy of Jeff Lieberman.

Jeff Lieberman is a jack of all science trades, and many non-science trades too, actually.  He is a mechanical engineer, a design consultant, a photographer, composer and kinetic sculptor. He hosts the Discovery Channel’s “Time Warp” TV show, has performed at Carnegie Hall, and gave a TedX talk at Cambridge.  But the common thread that runs through Lieberman’s various endeavors is his use of technology to elicit a sense of wonder.  His science/art combination challenges and shifts human perspectives on the universe (start time 6:05).

Hosts: Breanna Draxler and Beth Bartel
Producer: Breanna Draxler
Engineer: Jim Pullen
Additional contributions: Shelley Schlender and Jim Pullen
Executive Producer: Joel Parker

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:55 — 21.9MB)

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