Experimental

What’s a Higgs Boson, and why should we care? Episode 21 by Scott Unger (Click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the full text transcript) On July 24, the universe reluctantly gave up one more of it’s grand secrets, a particle that may fit squarely into the missing part of the Standard Model that physicists use to explain the universe and all the matter in it. This discovery is likely the Higg’s Boson… But what’s a Higg’s Boson, and why should we care? Listen to the Podcast to find out! Don’t forget to Subscribe and share on Twitter and Facebook! Links of interest: Here’s a great video on the Higgs Boson from our friend Hank Green’s YouTube Series “SciShow. You should check out more of his videos - the ones on the 4 fundamental forces are AWESOME: The Large Hadron Collider at CERN Scott Unger is the producer / director of Experimental. He’s also a career science communicator with a background in Microbiology, and spent seven years working in a series of laboratories before moving into science writing. Scott is an alumni of the Banff Science Communications Program. Learn more about Scott from his LinkedIn résumé.

Radiation Warnings in Sapphire… For the FUTURE! Episode 20 by Jennifer Gagné (Click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the full text transcript) What will humans leave behind for the future to find? How about large quantities of radioactive waste? Stored underground in caverns, what happens when super-intelligent archaeologist space reptiles show up in 60,000 years and unearth our radioactive waste? Would be kind of good if we left them a warning… But how do you make sure the warning survives the generations? SAPPHIRE! Listen to the podcast to find out more…  Jennifer Gagné is a trained journalist, who decided politics weren’t for her, but quantum mechanics was. After school, she peeked into a newsroom, but decided to find something a bit closer to her love of science. She is currently basking in knowledge at TRIUMF, Canada’s national lab of particle and nuclear physics, where she gets to nerd out as a communicator of science. She is also an alumna of the Banff Science Communications Program, where she found her kinfolk. Outside of her day job, she tells people stories of giant whales at the Beaty Museum, and tends to her pet Henry, an iron clad beetle that lives on her kitchen table and eats apples.

Voyager’s Discoveries at the Solar System’s Edge Episode 19 by John Rennie (Click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the full text transcript) For the past 35 years, NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft have been speeding away from the sun. And although they completed their exploratory missions to the outer planets in the late 1980s, the probes have continued to send back readings from the void beyond Pluto. As a result, almost any day now—maybe tomorrow, maybe in just a couple of years—Voyager 1 will do something that no object made by human hands ever has: it will leave the solar system. And the data that the Voyager spacecraft are sending back to Earth about the edge of the solar system is quite surprising! Listen to the Podcast for more… For more information about the Voyager mission, visit NASA’s Voyager website. John Rennie (www.johnrennie.net, @tvjrennie) is a science writer, editor and lecturer based in New York City. For 15 years he served as editor in chief of Scientific American. Currently, he writes “The Gleaming Retort” for the PLoS Blogs science blogging network and “The Savvy Scientist” column for SmartPlanet.com, among other projects. He is on the faculty of the Banff Centre Science Communications Program and of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University.

There’s More Than One Way to Trap An Ant: How a Pitcher Plant Uses Its Lid to Capture Prey Episode 18 by Niki Wilson (Click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the full text transcript) Hovering over the rim of the pitcher plant Nepenthes gracilis is a lid that protects the pitcher from being flooded by rain. But a recent study has discovered that the lid is much, much more. In this species, the lid acts as another trapping mechanism, allowing insects to be “flicked” off the lid by rain drops and into the digestive fluid in the pitcher below. Listen to the Podcast for more… Research article on this subject: With a Flick of the Lid: A Novel Trapping Mechanism in Nepenthes gracilis Pitcher Plants Niki Wilson is a science writer living in Jasper. She hails from an environmental science and biology background, but traded the field for the computer screen. She writes a regular column, On Science, for the Jasper Fitzhugh, and podcasts for Parks Canada and Experimental. She has freelanced for the Canadian Science Media Center, and is an affiliate of the Banff Centre Science Communications Program. See more of her writing at www.nikiwilson.com.

Global Energy: Future without fossil fuels Episode 17 by Scott Unger (Click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the full text transcript) Global climate change brought on by the consumption of an ever dwindling supply of fossil fuels is having tremendous and far reaching negative impacts on the environment we humans depend on.  A solution to the on-coming global energy crisis is desperately needed, and this is what the Waterloo Global Science Initiative Equinox Summit proposed - a blueprint on how we as a society can constructively move to eliminate carbon based fuels from our energy grids over the next fifty years, and ensure that all the people of earth have access to abundant and affordable electricity. Learn more Waterloo Global Science Initiative website Read the Equinox Blueprint: Energy 2030 CNET: MIT flow battery breaks mold for cheap storage Integral Fast Reactors - Fast Neutron Reactors Thorium Accelerator Driven Reactors - Accelerator-Driven Nuclear Energy Scott Unger is the producer / director of Experimental.  He’s also a career science communicator with a background in Microbiology, and spent seven years working in a series of laboratories before moving into science writing.  He is an alumni of the Banff Science Communications Program. Learn more about Scott from his LinkedIn résumé.

Life as We Don’t Yet Know It Episode 16 - by John Rennie click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the Full Text transcript) Interplanetary probes and space telescopes have been seeking evidence of life elsewhere in the universe for decades. But would we necessarily know alien life if we encountered it? The biochemistry of any organisms that evolve on inhospitable worlds might turn out to be unrecognizably different from anything ever seen on Earth.  On the other hand, discoveries involving meteorites hint that we shouldn’t be surprised if some aliens also turn out to have deep similarities to terrestrial life. Listen to learn more…. More information about the possibilities of extraterrestrial life: Rennie, J. “Invisible aliens: life as we don’t know it — yet.” The Savvy Scientist column (April 17, 2012). SmartPlanet.com. National Research Council. The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press (2007). Benner, S.A.; Ricardo, A.; Carrigan, M.A. “Is there a common chemical model for life in the universe?” Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. (2004 Dec.); 8(6):672-89. McKay, C.P; Smith, H.D. “Possibilities for methanogenic life in liquid methane on the surface of Titan.” Icarus (2005 Nov.); 178(1):274-76. DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2005.05.018 John Rennie (www.johnrennie.net, @tvjrennie) is a science writer, editor and lecturer based in New York City. For 15 years he served as editor in chief of Scientific American. Currently, he writes “The Gleaming Retort” for the PLoS Blogs science blogging network and “The Savvy Scientist” column for SmartPlanet.com, among other projects. He is on the faculty of the Banff Centre Science Communications Program and of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University.

The evolution of obesity: thrifty or drifty? Episode 15 – by Lesley Evans Ogden (click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the Full Text transcript) The media is flooded with claims about the latest miracle food, exercises guaranteed to make you lean, and a plethora of advice on weight loss. But have you ever stepped back and thought about why humans store fat in the 1st place? Fat storage is critical in the human body. Fat is a major constituent of the membranes of our cells. And our brains are full of fat, since it’s an important component of brain cells, known as neurons. For most of human evolution, excessive human body fat has been relatively uncommon. Listen to find out why… More information about the Evolution of Obesity Journal articles: Prentice, A.M., B.J. Hennig, and A.J. Fulford. (2008). Evolutionary origins of the obesity epidemic: natural selection of thrifty genes or genetic drift following predation release? International Journal of Obesity 32: 1607-1610. doi:10.1038/ijo.2008.147 Speakman, J.R. (2008). Thrifty genes for obesity, an attractive but flawed idea, and an alternative perspective: the ‘drifty gene’ hypothesis. International Journal of Obesity. 32, 1611–1617; doi:10.1038/ijo.2008.161. Books: Power, M.L. and J. Schulkin. (2009). The Evolution of Obesity. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, MD.  Wells, J.C.K.  (2009). The Evolutionary Biology of Human Body Fatness: Thrift and Control. Cambridge University Press. Lesley Evans Ogden, PhD is a freelance science journalist based in Vancouver, BC. Trained as a wildlife ecologist researching the ecology and conservation of migratory birds, she now writes about animal behaviour, ecology, wildlife conservation, green innovation, sustainability, health and fitness. Lesley is an alumna of the 2011 Banff Science Communications Program. More of her writing can be found at lesleyevansogden.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ljevanso. 

Are Pacific Chorus Frogs Spreading a Deadly Infectious Disease? Episode 14 - by Niki Wilson (Click here to directly access the mp3) (Access the Full Text transcript) Pacific Chorus frogs may be helping to spread a deadly infectious disease responsible for the extinction of over 200 amphibian species world wide. The disease, known as chytridiomycosis, is caused by a fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd. The fungus attacks amphibian’s skin, disrupting the absorption of water and important electrolytes like sodium. The condition eventually results in heart failure. Listen to learn more… Niki Wilson is a multi-media science communicator living in Jasper, Alberta. Her articles have appeared in the Jasper Fitzhugh, Canmore’s Highline Magazine and The Wild Lands Advocate. She has produced podcasts for Friends in High Places, and Parks Canada, and has collaborated with the Foothills Research Institute and Parks Canada on several regional public exhibits.  In 2009, Wilson was accepted into the Banff Centre Science Communications Program, and has since become an affiliate. She is a member of the Canadian Science Writer’s Association, and  holds a Master of Environmental Design Degree in Environmental Science. More of her projects can be found at nikiwilson.com. Tweet with her at: twitter.com/niki_wilson

Robots on Drugs Episode 13 - by Lisa Willemse (Click here to directly access the MP3) It’s the perfect marriage between robotics, chemistry, statistics and biology. It’s the latest tool in the arsenal of study against disease. It’s known as high throughput screening, or HTS. Developed by the pharmaceutical industry in the late 1980s, research scientists around the globe are now using it to find new uses for old drugs and if current progress is any indication, it will be responsible for hundreds of new therapies in the near future. See an HTS robot in action:   Lisa Willemse is a science communicator with a particular interest in the science found in our everyday lives. She is an alumni of the Banff Science Communications Program and currently works as Director of Communications for the Stem Cell Network in Ottawa.

Mating with Cavemen Episode 12 - by Sarah Chow (Click here to directly access the MP3) According to a new study, the human genome actually contains up to 4% of the Neanderthal genome. This suggests modern humans and Neanderthals got busy 30 thousand years ago, which eventually lead to the extinct of the caveman population.  Click here to learn more about Neanderthal extinction.