American Museum of Natural History Podcast

This year celebrates 100 years of the National Parks, created by Theodore Roosevelt during his presidency. In this podcast, Darrin Lunde, collection manager at the National Museum of Natural History, presents the story of Theodore Roosevelt and how his lifelong passion for the natural world set the stage for America’s wildlife conservation movement. Drawing on Roosevelt’s diaries and expedition journals, along with Lunde’s own experience as a museum naturalist, he discusses Roosevelt’s life and legacy as a champion of scientific inquiry and wilderness. This lecture took place at the Museum on June 29, 2016.

You've heard the warnings: Zika is coming. There are a slew of guidelines for pregnant women, but how should the rest of us prepare for the arrival of this virus? What can science tell us about the Aedes mosquito that spreads Zika? And what steps are being taken to halt mosquito-borne viruses? In this podcast, a panel of experts including W. Ian Lipkin, professor and Director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University; Catherine Spong, Acting Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health; and Jay K. Varma, Deputy Commissioner for Disease Control at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, discuss the latest plan of attack for dealing with this major disease threat. This panel, moderated by Museum Curator Susan Perkins, took place at the Museum on June 30, 2016.

Meet an all-star cast of scientists who have secrets to share. Explore the frontiers of psychology, biology, and nanotechnology, and discover a side to scientists you’ve never seen before, inspired by NOVA’s The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers and the Museum’s Shelf Life series. Hosted by Faith Salie of NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!,” the program features Museum curators Melanie Stiassny, an ichthyologist, and Mark Siddall, a parasitologist, as well as experimental psychologist Steven Pinker, and nanotech researcher Rich Robinson. The discussion took place at the Museum on May 24, 2016.

Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and home to an astonishingly diverse and unique set of animals and plants. Join Museum scientists Ana Porzecanski and Angelo Soto-Centeno for a lively discussion about their recent expedition to Cuba and the new avenues for scientific collaboration on the island. This lecture took place at the Museum on June 1, 2016.

Americans spend an estimated 92% of their time indoors, yet we know little about the diversity of microbes that exist in the built environment. This collection of microbes is influenced by where we live, whom we live with, and what we do, but it also can have an effect on us and our health. In this SciCafe, geneticist Jack Gilbert presents the most exciting and recent discoveries from this invisible world. This SciCafe took place at the Museum on December 2, 2015. To watch a video version, visit the AMNH YouTube Channel or the AMNH Live section of AMNH.tv.

Eighteen earthquakes of seismic magnitudes greater than 8.0 have struck around the world in just the past decade - an annual rate two and a half times greater than had been experienced over the previous century. Join Dr. Thorne Lay, professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as he discusses how analysis of these earthquakes forced researchers to revise longstanding ideas about the behavior of the Earth beneath our feet. This lecture took place at the Museum on November 12, 2015.

Over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time. This so-called "spooky action," the ability of one particle to affect another instantly across the vastness of space, appears to be almost magical. In this podcast, George Musser, author of a new book on this topic, sets out to explore the phenomenon. This lecture took place at the Museum on November 9, 2015.

Typically the first question asked of new parents is, "Is it a boy or a girl?" But what is the brain biology behind sexual differences? Join Bridget Nugent, a researcher from the University of Pennsylvania, to learn about how sex differences are created in the brain. This SciCafe took place at the Museum on November 4, 2015. To watch a video version, visit the AMNH Live section of AMNH.tv.

Weather not only decides if you should wear a rain jacket - it shapes human lives. In this lecture, author Lauren Redniss considers the danger and beauty of weather, how it informs our history and religions, and the forces that drive meteorological events. This lecture took place at the Museum on October 29, 2015.

According to aerospace engineer Louis Friedman, Mars may be the only destination beyond the moon to see human footprints. In this lecture, join Friedman as he discusses his provocative vision for the future of space travel, one in which exploration beyond Mars may cease to be physical, and instead, be virtual. This lecture took place at the Museum on October 19, 2015.

Bats are known for many remarkable qualities including mammalian powered flight and echolocation. Using CT-scanning technology, Museum scientists are taking a new look at bat skeletons to learn more about how they've evolved such interesting features. In this SciCafe, curator Nancy Simmons and postdoctoral fellow Abigail Curtis, from the Museum's Department of Mammalogy, take an exciting journey inside the world (and bodies!) of bats. This SciCafe took place at the Museum on October 7, 2015.

In Korean spiritual paintings, shamans walking on knives or fairies riding on clouds are both gods and paper images. In this podcast, Museum curator of anthropology Laurel Kendall navigates the journey that shaman paintings make from painters' studios to shrines to private collections and museums, and traverses the borderland between scholarly interest in the material dimensions of religious practice and the circulation of art. This lecture took place at the Museum on September 24, 2015.

The year 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s publication of his general theory of relativity—a theory almost everyone has heard of, but few truly understand. In this podcast, astrophysicist and educator Jeffrey Bennett introduces the basic tenets of Einstein's theory, and underscores its importance to our modern understanding of the universe. This lecture took place at the Museum on September 21, 2015.

Science has uncovered major continuities between the social behavior of humans and other primates, including politics, culture, and morality. In this podcast, primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal explores the similarities between humans and other primates in power politics, transmission of knowledge and habits, empathy, and sense of fairness. This lecture took place at the Museum on May 21, 2015.

One of the fundamental predictions of the Big Bang is the present day existence of relic neutrino produced less than one second after the event. Join Christopher Tully, professor of physics at Princeton University, as he discusses a new experiment called PTOLEMY (Princeton Tritium Observatory for Light, Early-Universe, Massive-Neutrino Yield) and its potential to challenge this core prediction, as well as uncover new properties of neutrinos themselves. This lecture took place at the Hayden Planetarium on June 8, 2015.