Ever Wonder? from the California Science Center

Last fall, we opened a brand-new exhibit called Fire! Science & Safety, which invites our guests to explore Casa Del Fuego, Apartment 911 as a fire danger detective, seeking out fire and burn hazards to make their families, pets, and homes safer—both inside the home, as well as outside threats like wildfires.

It’s been pretty rainy in California lately, so wildfires have largely faded from the headlines. But throughout 2020 and 2021, we heard about one giant catastrophic megafire after another. It seemed like our state was always burning.

Ever wonder why California has so many wildfires?

There are many factors at play here—climate change, drought, dead trees, longer fire seasons—but we can also learn a lot about what’s happening today by looking at our past. We talked to Dr. Jared Dahl Aldern (@JaredDahlAldern), an environmental historian and a fire practitioner, who has a wealth of experience researching the history of fire in California, as well as learning from and working with Indigenous people who use fire to take care of the land. He walked us through some important events in our state’s history—from the Gold Rush to the formation of the National Forest Service—that help explain why there’s so much fire today.

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This summer, we opened a brand-new exhibit called Life! Beginnings in our World of Life gallery. Life! Beginnings invites our guests to discover how humans and all living creatures reproduce, develop, and pass on their genes in order to bring new life into the world.

Through interactive and immersive experiences, guests can explore the human journey from conception to birth, see how a mother’s body changes throughout pregnancy, and learn about reproductive health.

Do you ever wonder how doctors help keep people healthy during pregnancy and childbirth?

Dr. Kimberly Gregory is an OB-GYN and professor at Cedars-Sinai, as well as a scientific advisor for our exhibit Life! Beginnings. Dr. Gregory is on a mission to make childbirth a safer and more positive experience for everyone. She came on the show to tell us more about her work and share some useful advice for creating your own reproductive life plan.

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Folks often say that dogs are a human's best friend. The Science Center doesn't have any dogs on display (well at least not since our temporary Dogs! exhibit closed), but we sure do have lots of other terrestrial animals to take care of. And our keepers--the folks who do that work--really care about our animals. Do you ever wonder how keepers develop a relationship with the animals they take care of?

Josh Hestermann leads the team who takes care of everything that lives on land at the Science Center. He shares what it's like to gain the trust of a military macaw and what goes into taking care of all the terrestrial animals you might see when you visit.

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When this episode airs, NASA will be just one day away from landing another rover on Mars. On February 18, the Perseverance rover will reach the surface of the Red Planet, capping off a journey that started with a rocket launch last July.

In an earlier episode, we talked with Matthew Frost about Perseverance’s robot arm, and how it works to collect samples from the Martian surface. But that robot arm becomes a lot more useful when you can drive it around Mars. And that takes a whole team of dedicated rover drivers back here on Earth.

Do you ever wonder who drives a Mars rover?

We were lucky to chat with Hallie Abarca, a former Mars rover driver and software engineer on the Perseverance rover at NASA JPL. She talks about what it was like to drive other Mars rovers, working on “Mars time,” and a new JPL website where you can virtually drive across the surface of Mars from your home.

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The deep sea is a mysterious place full of many different life forms! Some that may seem strange yet incredibly amazing to us. But how can we learn more about these creatures if the deep sea can be so hard to explore!? 

Do you ever wonder what creatures live in the deep sea? 

In today’s episode the Science Center interns; Nathan Arriaza, Gerardo Martinez, Jose Cornejo, and Jason Mejia have a conversation with Senior Educator here at the California Science Center, Brittany Munson. She tells us all about her month-long deep-sea exploration on the ship Nautilus, studying deep sea ecosystems and some of the cool living things she encountered! 

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For the first few episodes of this podcast, we'll take you behind the scenes of the California Science Center to meet some of the people who design and develop exhibits.

Imagine for a minute that you're visiting a science center or a museum. You're looking at an exhibit and… you probably have questions. Good thing there's some text posted nearby to help explain what's going on.

These bits of interpretive text are called exhibit labels, and you can find them all over museums. If you've been to a museum, you've read a label. Do you ever wonder who writes them?

In this episode, we talk to Jennifer Lawrence, the senior exhibit developer at the California Science Center whose job it is to write pretty much everything you read while looking at and playing with our exhibits.

Have a question you've been wondering about? Send an email to [email protected] to tell us what you'd like to hear in future episodes.

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The field of robotics has advanced a LOT over the past couple of decades, and part of that has to do with advances in the fields of computer science and artificial intelligence. Algorithms that help robots function and interact with the world are all around us, from the search engines we use to the facial recognition function in our phones.

But these algorithms can have problems. This past September, for example, Twitter users discovered that photo previews, which use machine learning to crop photos to the most interesting part, appeared to favor white faces over Black faces.

We know that humans aren't perfect, but… Do you ever wonder if robots can be biased?

Ayanna Howard (@robotsmarts) is a roboticist, professor, director of the HumAnS Lab, and chair of the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She is a leader in the field and has many accomplishments, but one area of her work that caught our eye is her research on how algorithms and robots can be biased.

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Before we go on break for the holidays, we’re releasing another bonus episode. We introduce Devin Waller, who will be joining the show as co-host for the next few episodes. As our first season wraps up, we answer a question from one of our listeners:

Do you ever wonder why our galaxy is a spiral?

And we also give a teaser of what’s coming next season! 

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Giant sea bass. Desert tortoise. Leopard shark. These are all examples of creatures you can see on display when you visit the California Science Center. And just like you or me or any of the pets you might have at home, these critters can get sick.

Do you ever wonder who takes care of all these different animals when they need to go to the doctor?

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Brittany Stevens, a veterinarian here at the Science Center. She'll tell us all about her vet exam room, how she cares for so many different kinds of animals, and even what it's like to do surgery on fish.

Have a question you've been wondering about? Send an email to [email protected] to tell us what you'd like to hear in future episodes.

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We are starting a new series on robots! We've seen some pretty amazing advances in robotics in just the past few years. Maybe you've seen videos of humanoid robots that do backflips or robot hummingbirds that can hover in midair. Now, a video of a single back-flipping robot is pretty amazing. But what if you could get a whole team of robots--hundreds or even thousands of robots--to cooperate with each other? 

Do you ever wonder what would happen if robots worked together?

Kirstin Petersen is a roboticist and professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. And in her lab, she builds cooperative teams of robots, called robot swarms, that are inspired by insects like ants, termites, and bees. We talked about the challenges of getting huge numbers of robots to communicate with each other and how studying nature can offer solutions.

Have a question you've been wondering about? Send an email to [email protected] to tell us what you'd like to hear in future episodes.

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