Read Science!

Streamed live on 11 February 2019. Theoretical physicists often will talk about their favorite theories as “beautiful”, and many will use criteria of what they call “beauty” to judge the likely veracity of competing theories, as well as the success of their own work. Most physicists are aware of this–but where does this idea come […]

Streamed live on 15 November 2018. The details of just how our Solar System came to be, starting with a large, rotating solar nebula and ending with our Sun, our planetary companions, and moons and asteroids and comets, have been vague up until recent decades when scientists turned their deductive attention toward those unassuming asteroids […]

Streamed live on 8 November 2018. Probability, statistics, and math–oh my! For some, it’s the stuff of nightmares, but reading Ben’s book makes it all more of a dream. Who ever thought math could be such fun! Our guest in this episode was Ben Orlin, mathematician, bad artist, and author of Math with Bad Drawings: […]

Streamed live on 4 October 2018. By the end of nineteenth century, buying food in American was dangerous–sometimes deadly. “Milk” might contain formaldehyde, most often used to embalm corpses. Decaying meat was preserved with both salicylic acid, a pharmaceutical chemical, and borax, a compound first identified as a cleaning product. This didn’t happen by accident; […]

Streamed live on 6 September 2018. David Quammen returned to “Read Science!” to discuss his latest book with us, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life. When the subject is the entire history of life on Earth, you know we had lots to talk about: the discovery of Archaea as the (contentious) “Third […]

Streamed live on 18 June 2018. We love dinosaurs, and their story is a big one. In this episode we talked with paleontologist Steve Brusatte about his new book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World. Dinosaurs were, by a huge margin, the most successful group of animals […]

Streamed live on 25 November 2013 I refuse to be drawn into cliché : I will not say that this episode was for the dogs, but working dogs, what they do, how they do it, and what they think about it, was the topic for today's episode. We had two splendid guests, knowledgeable on the topic : Virginia Morell, author of "Animal Wise : The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures", and Cat Warren, author of "What the Dog Knows : The Science and Wonder of Working Dogs". We talked about dogs, their human companions, and many of their animal compatriots, with lots of stories, humor, and science. It was a nice treat talking about our species' best friend.

Streamed live on 14 November 2013 Our conversation today was out of this world (go on, try to avoid that pun) when our very special guest was Canadian Astronaut, recent Commander of an ISS Expedition, Twitter phenomenon, and Space Rock-Star Chris Hadfield. We talked about his new book, "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth : What Going to Space Taught Me about Ingenuity, Determination and Being Prepared for Anything". As is our habit, we talked about science, and science outreach, and being prepared for life and everything that might come along, space toilets, and the fact that "it's all going to be on the quiz" sooner or later. For this conversation we were joined by Clara Moskowitz, associate editor at Scientific American, covering space and physics, We recorded this episode in collaboration with Scientific American, and we are grateful to them for their support and most excellent production help. (Yes, for this episode the Google software for the Hangout was not switching the big image to match the speaker, but the audio is good, so bear with us.)

Streamed live on 5 November 2013 Our topic today was all the natural disasters that Earth is prone to : earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, landslides, volcanoes -- all the stuff that disaster movies thrive on, only we were more interested in the reality and the geology that's behind all those disastrous events, not to mention how to communicate that reality to the public. All of those things were things done very well by today's guest, geologist Susan W. Kieffer, in her book "The Dynamics of Disaster", and we discussed quite a bit of that plus some other things as we are wont to do.

Streamed live 17 October 2013 In this episode we talked about everything that makes our world so wonderful with the guy who wrote the book about (nearly) everything: Marcus Chown, author of "What a Wonderful World : One Man's Attempt to Explain the Big Stuff". And, indeed, there's some big stuff in this book -- and our conversation. Cosmology, cell biology, mathematics, evolution, physics, just to name a few. As always, we had a lively, fun, and informative conversation.

Streamed live on 10 October 2013 Our conversation was almost as large as the universe when we talked with Lee Billings, discussing his book "Five Million Years of Solitude : The Search for Life among the Stars". In addition to the scientists and the technology--and the results!--of searching for the existence of planets beyond our own solar system, we pretty much touched on questions relating to life, the universe, and everything, including communicating science, of course. As usual, we had a lively conversation about lots of interesting ideas.

Streamed live on 19 September 2013 Our especially brave guest for our lucky-thirteenth show was David Epstein, author of "The Sports Gene : Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance." As always we had a wide-ranging conversation that included not only engaging topics, amusing anecdotes, and fascinating facts from his book, but a discussion about how to communicate necessary and interesting stories -- about science or most anything else worthy of the time -- that take some time to tell. We had something for sports enthusiasts and science enthusiasts, and for those who happen to be both, all in one great conversation.

Streamed live on 9 September 2013 We talked with Temple Grandin and Richard Panek, authors of "The Autistic Brain : Thinking Across the Spectrum" about autism and sensory disorders and neurological brain-imaging tools and thinking in pictures and thinking in patterns, and lots of other stuff too. As Richard put it, we covered a lot of ground, and our guests were generous with amusing anecdotes and amazing insights. We recorded this episode in collaboration with Scientific American, and we are grateful to them for their support and most excellent production help.

Streamed live on 27 August 2013 Myrmecologist, entomologist, naturalist, writer, and thinker about the human condition, Edward O. Wilson was our guest to talk about his recent book, "Letters to a Young Scientist", what it takes--and doesn't take--to have a successful life in science, and how we can encourage (and must encourage) more people to be involved with science, and more young people to take a path that leads to a career in science. While we were at it we solved many of the world's challenges, enjoyed a chicken-salad sandwich, talked about Base Camp Math, and discussed the book's motto: "You are needed!" We recorded this episode in collaboration with Scientific American in celebration of their 168th anniversary, and we are grateful to them for their support and most excellent production help.

Streamed live on 1 August 2013 Human genomics since the time of the Human Genome Project and the first sequencing of the human genome was our twenty-first century topic, and we covered a lot of ground with three well-informed and interesting interlocutors: Misha Angrist, author of "Here is a Human Being", Kevin Davies, author of "The $1,000 Dollar Genome", and Matthew Herper, science & medicine writer at Forbes Magazine.