Enjoy the two features we offer today, June 4:
Photo courtesy Tom Anchordoquy
Feature #1 (start time 5:36): Cancer drugs are much more targeted than they were many years ago. But researchers are still trying to find a way to deliver drugs much more precisely to cancer cells, partly to avoid damaging, sometimes lethal, side effects. A huge obstacle has been getting nucleic acids to cross the membrane of cancer cells. A new study has brought researchers closer to crossing this big hurdle. Dr. Tom Anchordoquy, a lead author of the study, speaks with co-host Susan Moran about the study and what it means for cancer patients and researchers. Dr. Anchordoquy is an investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Denver and a professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Feature #2 (start time 15:02): Being an astronaut is a risky job, but perhaps one of the less-known risks is the high levels of radiation beyond the relatively protective cocoon of Earth’s magnetic field. This will be a particularly important problem to address for long-duration deep-space flight such as going to Mars. Until recently there have not been a lot of measurements available of the interplanetary radiation field for the types of radiation that could affect humans. But on the Curiosity rover of the Mars Science Laboratory, there is a radiation detector designed to make those important measurements. The instrument team recently published their initial results. Dr. Don Hassler, Science Program Director at Southwest Research Institute’s Boulder office and the Principal Investigator for the Radiation Assessment Detector on the Mars Curiosity rover, talks with co-host Joel Parker about the results.
Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker
Producer: Susan Moran
Engineer: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Joel Parker
Listen to the audio here:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:40 — 22.6MB)
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Brain Trust (starts at 4:23) When you are trying to make a decision about something important or having a disagreement with someone, don’t you sometimes wish you had a scientist with you – a world expert on the topic at hand – to help you out? In fact, it would be great to have dozens of experts in many fields available, sort of your own personal Brain Trust. Well, luckily 
Drought (starts at 15:10) Given all the rain and snow on the Front Range and beyond lately, you’d think that Colorado is emerging from the persistent drought, right? But last year was one of the hottest and driest on record in the state and some regions have yet to recover. Among those who have suffered the most from the persistent drought are farmers and ranchers. In fact, some have sold off cattle and even shuttered their businesses. That said, high prices have boosted profits for some wheat farmers, for instance. To find out just how badly many farmers and ranchers have been hit by the drought, researchers at Colorado State University have been surveying them annually for a while. Host Susan Moran talks with Christopher Goemans, a resource economist in the 
The Universe Within (starts at 4:40) Within each and every one of us is the history of life on this planet, the planet itself and the entire universe. This is the theme of a new book “The Universe Within.” The author, Neil Shubin, is a professor of Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. Starting with what physically constitutes a human being and what makes a human life possible, Shubin surveys many domains of science to find out what we can learn about what’s out there from what’s inside of us. It’s a fantastically broad scope, bringing together the common history of Rocks, Planets and People. As professor Shubin explains to How On Earth’s Chip Grandits, it is the very concept of this common history that binds all of these topics, which are normally found scattered throughout disparate domains of science and academia.
