Tag: Joel Parker

Sounds Wild and Broken

Nature’s Songs and Cries (start time: 0:59) In this week’s show David George Haskell, a biologist at the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tenn., talks with How On Earth’s Susan Moran about his newly published book, Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction. The book is at once a meditation and an urgent call to action.

Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker
Producer: Susan Moran
Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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KGNU Fund Drive with The Last Stargazers

On this week’s show  – part of the annual KGNU Spring Fund Drive – we play excerpts of an upcoming interview with astronomer and author Dr. Emily Levesque about her book, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy’s Vanishing Explorers. The book is a modern history of observational astronomy, and shares an inside look at the lives and stories of astronomers past, present, and possible future.

Thanks to independent publisher Source Books for offering several copies to KGNU to help with the fund drive, and to those listeners who donated and received copies of the book.

Hosts: Joel Parker, Susan Moran
Headlines: Benita Lee, Beth Bennett
Show Producer & Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive producer: Susan Moran

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Science On Stage

ScienceShorts800x400

Sometimes it seems that science and art are completely different worlds but that has not always been the case. There is a long history of artistic scientists and scientific artists.  In this edition of How on Earth, we talk about the alchemy of transmogrifying science into theatre.

Our guests include two scientists and two playwrights who collaborated to create plays inspired by scientific research as part of a theatre project produced by the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company.  The production is called “Science Shorts“, which will be streaming the performances online Thursday through Sunday this week, January 21-24.  The production will feature readings of four short plays by Colorado playwrights, and four short talks by the local scientists who inspired their work.

Our science guests are geophysicist Dr. Neesha Schnepf and biologist Ashley Whipple, and our playwrights are Nigel Knutzen and Ellen K. Graham.  Neesha and Nigel collaborated on creating the play Trinal, which takes three different perspectives on tsunamis and their impact.   Ashley’s and Ellen’s play, On The Rocks, follows American pikas and what they have to teach us about resilience in the face of environmental and other stress.

Host & Producer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:54 — 37.0MB)

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Recycling Lithium-ion Batteries

figure from Xu et al. 2020, Joule, vol. 4, p. 2609
Figure from Xu et al. 2020, Joule, vol. 4, p. 2609

Our lives have been changed by lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries which are everywhere: in our cell phones, cars, toys, power tools and grid energy storage. Indeed, the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the three scientists who invented and developed them.  As the world manufactures more and more Li-ion batteries, what are the challenges and opportunities for recycling them?  How can we prevent the batteries from ending up in landfills where the toxic metals inside can leak out?   In this episode, we talk with Dr. Zheng Chen, a professor of nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author on the paper “Efficient Direct Recycling of Lithium-Ion Battery Cathodes by Targeted Healing” published a few weeks ago in the journal Joule. 

Hosts: Jill Sjong, Joel Parker
Feature: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Show Producer: Joel Parker
Engineer: Sam Fuqua

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:14 — 37.4MB)

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Clean – The New Science of Skin

31hxj3045QLHow clean is “clean”?  How do you get clean, and how important is it…could it actually be advantageous to your skin and general health to not try to get too clean?  We talk with medical doctor and author Dr. James Hamblin about his new book “Clean:  The New Science Of Skin“.

Hosts: Chip Grandits, Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Jill Sjong
Show Producer and Engineer: Joel Parker
Additional Contributions: Shelley Schlender

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:21 — 25.0MB)

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Formation of Pluto and Its Ocean

plutoFive years ago today on July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft made the first reconnaissance of Pluto, collecting data that continue to be analyzed and provide surprises of this distant world.  On this 5th anniversary of the Pluto flyby, our guest is Dr. Carver Bierson, who is a planetary scientist at Arizona State University.  Carver has been involved with the New Horizons mission, and recently published a paper about Pluto based on data from the mission.  We talk with him about results in the paper titled: “Evidence for a Hot Start and Early Ocean Formation on Pluto”

Host / Producer : Joel Parker
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett

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2020 Graduation Special

diploma-and-graduation-hatWith graduation season is upon us, today’s edition of How on Earth is our annual “Graduation Special”. Our guests in the studio today are scientists who have or will soon receive their Ph.D. in a STEM-related field.  They talk about their thesis research, their grad school experiences, and what they have planned next.

image Hayley Sohn – CU Boulder, Materials Science and Engineering Program
Topic: Large-Scale Patterning and Dynamics of Topological Solitons in Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals

 

Portrait2015_crop (1)Clement Zheng – CU Boulder, ATLAS Institute
Topic: Everyday Materials for Physical Interactive Systems

 

IMG_6285Jennifer Berry – CU Boulder, Chemistry
Topic: Development and Application of Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometry for Measuring Terrestrial and Exoplanetary Organic Nitrogen

Host / Producer : Joel Parker
Engineer: Maeve Conran

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Corona Virus: Therapies and Transmission

nCoV-1This week on How on Earth, we are still producing off site. Beth and Angele give an update on treatment and transmission of the corona virus and Shelley interviews CU Boulder scientists Anushree Chatterjee and Prashant Nagpal who explain the pros and cons of using old medicines to fight Covid-19, and they describe some new “medicines” in the future, and how to speed up their development.

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

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Miracle Brew (encore feature) // COVID-19 // Drying Towels

This week on How On Earth, we present an Encore Feature from January 2018 about the science and art of brewing beer with guest Pete Brown, author of Miracle Brew.  This episode also includes new headlines about current research about COVID-19 and about the science of drying towels outside.

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

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:56 — 25.6MB)

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Space Mining

image credit: DSI/Bryan Versteeg
image credit: DSI/Bryan Versteeg

Space Mining [starts at 9:20] Stars have been called “diamonds in the sky,” but there are other valuable and more accessible resources up there.  Asteroids might be the next gold rush, though for resources other than gold, if there are ways to actually get there and mine them.  Can we do that? And, even if we can, does it make economic and environmental sense to do it?  Joining us for this episode of How on Earth is Dr. Matt Beasley, a Senior Program Manager at Southwest Research Institute, and he is a planetary scientist who has been involved in the development of space mining concepts.

Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Producer: Joel Parker
Headlines: Angele Sjong, Joel Parker
Engineer: Joel Parker

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:51 — 23.7MB)

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