AMSEcast

A discussion showing casing how science fiction mirrors real life or perhaps the other way around.

Steve Brusatte is an American paleontologist who teaches at the University of Edinburgh. Widely published in journals such as Scientific American and Science, Steve served as the paleontology advisor on the very successful Jurassic World film franchise. We spoke with him about his terrific book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World.

"Dinosaurs diversified and some became colossal and so much bigger really than anything else that had ever lived at that point in time and those dinosaurs still are the biggest animals that have ever lived on land."

Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer-Prize winning author and journalist who writes for the Los Angeles Times. We spoke with him about his books Dealers of Lightning: Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age; Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century; Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the Military-Industrial Complex; and Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America.

"The whole idea of “Big Science” which required so much funding really started with [Ernest] Lawrence and his work at the Manhattan Project and it survived and then continues really to this day through the big labs and these big projects." M. Kiltzik

For 15 years, Linda Deck has served as the Director of the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Prior to her service there, she was, among other roles, Director of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, and Exhibit Developer and Project Manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

An award-winning historian and biographer, Matthew Parker spoke with us on AMSEcast about his book Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time - the Building of the Panama Canal.

Randy Cerveny is a professor of geographical sciences at Arizona State University, and Rapporteur on Extreme Records for the World Meteorological Organization.  He talks with us about all kinds of fascinating weather.

A staff scientist and cosmochemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Greg Brennecka joined us on AMSEcast to talk about his terrific new book, Impact: How Rocks from Space Led to Life, Culture and Donkey Kong.

Giulio Boccaletti, an inter- nationally acclaimed expert on geophysical and ecological science, discusses his book, Water: A Biography, which examines the fascinating history of the connection between water and human society.

Simon Garfield joins us to talk about the fascinating worlds of maps and timepieces, based on his terrific books On the Map:  A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Works and Timekeepers:  How the World Became Obsessed with Time. 

A journalist of fifteen plus years, Kurczy’s work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, The New York Times to name a few. Work and wanderlust have provided Stephen the chance to travel extensively and research a number of topics, including the fascinating basis of our discussion, The Quiet Zone.