AMSEcast

Dr. Angela Creager is the Thomas Siebel Professor in the History of Science at Princeton University and a member of AMSEF's National Advisory Committee. She spoke with us about her book Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine.

AMSE Science Report David Rooney

David chairs the Electrical Timekeeping group and acts as pass steward of the Worship- ful Company of Clockmaker. David has authored several books, including Spaces of Congestion and Traffic, Politics and Technologies in 20th Century London Mathematics How It Shaped Our World.

Dan Falk is an award winning freelance writer and broadcaster specializing in science stories, and was a 2011/12 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.

Acclaimed science journalist and space historian Andrew Chaikin has written extensively about our exploration of space including his book, A Man on the Moon, which became the basis for HBO's miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon.

I grew up watching the Big Red Machine, the wonderful Cincinnati Reds of the 1970's, and have kept my love of baseball since those glory days. I was excited to talk on an episode of AMSEcast, our podcast, with Will Carroll about his books The Science of Baseball: The Math, Technology, and Data Behind the Great American Pastime, and The Science of Football: The Math, Technology, and Data Behind America's Game. One area we talked about was the use of data in sports, including the incredible detail now possible in analyzing each and every baseball pitch.

Remember playing with magnets when you were a kid and wondered what brought the opposite poles together and especially what kept the like poles apart. It turns out the force experienced is one of the most fundamental in the universe – electromagnetism. Along with gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces, it comprises the foundation for, well, everything. We spoke about this topic on the podcast, AMSEcast, with Alanna Mitchell, author of The Spinning Magnet: The Electromagnetic Force that Created the Modern World – and Could Destroy It.

Welcome to the AMSE Science Report. I'm Alan Lowe, Executive Director of the American Museum of Science and Energy, and the K-25 History Center, both located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. On an episode of our podcast, AMSEcast, I had the pleasure of talking with Bethany Brookshire about her book Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains. In our discussion Bethany emphasized that defining a creature as a pest, whether it is something smaller like a rat or snake, or larger, like a coyote or an elephant, is based in large part on our culture. It is a subjective perspective, and because of that, Bethany argues that we can examine and change our views - if not eliminating our fears, at least gaining respect for many so-called pests. Here is Bethany:

Today I want to discuss mathematics! I'm sure some of you love math and see not only its usefulness but also its beauty. I have not counted myself among that number. Ever since bouts with trigonometry and calculus, I have steered as clear as possible from math. But as the executive director of two museums devoted to teaching STEM, I feel hypocritical in not embracing the last part of that acronym. So I calculated that by talking to experts on our podcast, AMSEcast, about this topic, I would find a new appreciation of math and that was indeed the case when I spoke to Raphael Rosen about his book, Math Geek: From Klein Bottles to Chaos Theory, a Guide to the Nerdiest Math Facts, Theorems, and Equations.

Working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory McCarthy works on the integration and deployment of next-generation fission technology, from concept to industry and regulatory adoption.