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.
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.
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.
This article originally appeared at my Scientific American blog.
Today, the 44th anniversary of the first moon landing with Neil Armstrong’s and Buzz Aldrin’s first steps on the moon, I present to you some great books to read about space travel, each with their own video, whether it is a trailer for a movie made based on the book or a proper book trailer, a more recent phenomenon.
In this episode we have a lively discussion about the genetic roots of cancer, how carcinogens get involved, how to communicate that to the public, and how the public can arm themselves against those who try to manipulate science to suit their own ends.
Today’s conversation was all about biotechnology, clones, research ethics, and mad scientists. What didn’t we talk about!
Our guests were Emily Anthes, author of “Frankenstein’s Cat”, and Terry Johnson and Kyle Kurpinski, authors of “How To Defeat Your Own Clone”.
In this episode, we talk to wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas about combining science and art in her series of books with stories and images about the life of animal families on the African Savanna, as well as her keen interest in conservation and lending her support to small conservation groups doing big jobs around the world.
In this RS! episode we talked with famed moon-walker and space visionary, Buzz Aldrin, about his book, “Mission to Mars”, and his vision for establishing a permanent human presence on Mars. Later in the episode we were joined by Leonard David, Buzz’s co-author on the book, to talk some about their experiences with spreading the idea and engaging the public with the excitement of space exploration.
We teamed up with award-winning filmmaker — and secret evolutionary biologist — Lucy Cooke, for a high-energy discussion about sloths, and frogs, and many other down-trodden and unloved species of animals; making films that entertain and educate; and all sorts of other stuff, including some insider talk about Richard Dawkins & David Attenborough. We also were briefly reminded of the limits of technology and laptop battery lives.
Read Science! Episode 13: Sports Science Edition
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.
11 years ago Read Science!, Video • Tags: athletics, David Epstein, Google Hangout on Air, Jeff Shaumeyer, Joanne Manaster, Read Science!, The Sports Gene, video