Mr Science Show

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation undertakes research and development in nuclear science and technology. This has wide application including nuclear medicine, atmospheric monitoring, materials engineering, neutron scattering and climate change research.

ANSTO is also very active in science communication, and one of their major community engagement projects is Fact or Fiction, a 90 minute show where the audience watch clips of

classic sci-fi hits before voting

on whether the technology featured is actual science fact or pure

science fiction. Once the audience voting has been conducted, an ANSTO

scientist critiques the science featured in the film. They have also run a Fact or Fiction Survey, the results of which are illustrative of the general public understanding of science in everyday life. Another effort ANSTO is conducting is Neural Knitworks, where knitted neurons join together to create a textile brain installation.

I spoke with Rod Dowler from ANSTO's Discovery Centre about their science communication efforts, and in particular, Fact or Fiction. Listen to this show here:

In the podcast, we mentioned a song about hoverboards. I would have loved to have put it in the show, but that wouldn't be legal. So if you'd like to hear it, stream it  below or buy it from iTunes right here:

Over the Easter break, I spoke with Lish Fejer on ABC 666 Canberra on her Experimentarium segment. We spoke on various things to do with science blogging and podcasting, and matters Easter related including:

To learn more about Royal Jelly, tune into Episode 137: Can your environment change your DNA in which I spoke at length with Professor Ryszard Maleszka from The Australian National University’s College of Medicine, Biology and Environment about the molecular differences in over 550

genes in the brains of worker and queen bees that are a result of the queen bee

eating royal jelly at a young age.

On determining the speed of light using a microwave, see the post Instascience by Tom Gordon in which he uses paper. We used chocolate and it worked pretty well, albeit very messily. You will enjoy trying this at home, and failing just gives you another shot! Note in the broadcast I mentioned that the speed of light was 2.97 x 108 when it's actually 2.99792 x 108 (please forgive such a grievous error...)

Listen to this show here - the audio is courtesy ABC 666 Canberra:

Here is a nicely produced video on how to do this - I started out making one and made a mess of my kitchen.

Complex network analysis is an area of network science and part of graph theory that can be used to rank things, one of the most famous examples of which is the Google PageRank algorithm. But it can also be applied to sport. Cricket is a sport in which it is difficult to rank teams (there are three forms of the game, the various countries do not play each other very often etc.), whilst it is notoriously difficult to rank individual players (for how the ICC do it, see Ep 107: Ranking Cricketers).

Satyam Mukherjee at Northwestern University became a bit famous when The economist picked up his work (more famous than when we picked it up!) and he has published extensively on complex network analysis as applied to cricket rankings. I had a very interesting chat with Satyam about his various works concerning the evaluation of cricket strategy, leadership, team and individual performance, and the papers we discuss in the podcast are listed below. One of the more interesting findings was that left-handed captains and batsmen are generally ranked higher than their right-handed counterparts, whilst this is not true for left-handed bowlers.

Tune in to this episode here:

 

 

 

 

and performance index arXiv arXiv: 1206.4835v4

 

to cricket matches arXiv arXiv: 1201.1318v2

In part 2 of the Spiderman series, Dr Boob looks at the amazing properties of spider silk and how Peter Parker might harness various technologies to appropriately use it.

It's the final show from Dr Boob for a while and we will miss him greatly! But he's not disappearing completely - show him you care over on twitter - @doctor_boob

Tune in to this episode here.

Cover by Nippoten

Songs in this episode:

Hebber Zepherin / CC BY-NC 3.0

Loveshadow / CC BY-NC 3.0

This is our last Science of superheroes for a while so we thought we'd look at one of the big guys. Over two episodes, Dr Boob examines Spiderman and in episode one, he specifically looks at how to manipulate Peter Parker's DNA using a virus to transport engineered DNA into his cells. It is by changing his genetic structure that we can allow him to have his superhero abilities, which for Spiderman are largely exaggerated spider traits as well as something called a "Spidey sense".

Tune in to this episode here.

Cover image from NanAmy-BoT

Songs in the podcast by:

Loveshadow / CC BY-NC 3.0

Nitropox@CCmixter / CC BY-NC 3.0

I recently attended the 20 year anniversary of the Sydney University Faculty of Science Talented Student Program. That was an intimidating event! The evening was hosted by Adam Spencer and featured an in-conversation

with Professor Bryan Gaensler, Dave Sadler (Bryan's former

mathematics high school teacher) and Alison Hammond, a current TSP

student. The kind people at the Sydney Uni Faculty of Science have allowed me put the audio up here, so a big thanks to them - all attribution, love and praise should be sent their way. It was a very interesting evening to hear what encouraged one of Australia's most well-known scientists into astrophysics, along with the always witty Adam Spencer.

Tune in to this episode here.

The two songs used in this episode are by Keytronic / CC BY-NC 3.0 and Jeris / CC BY-NC 3.0

In the second of a two part series on zombies, this week we go deeper in the dark world of the undead. In part one we managed, through a combination of drugs, to create zombie-like creatures who were sluggish and largely brain-dead. This week we have a shot at recreating the zombies of films such as I am Legend - creatures created through the transmission of a virus, who are filled with rage and enjoy the taste of brains. Topics covered include:

Somehow we ended up proposing a "Planet of the zombie apes" movie idea, and a methamphetamine-infused biodome. It might not pass an ethics committee. Tune in to this episode here.

In the podcast we use a few songs, all licensed under a Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)

I As We by Speck

Big John by copperhead 

What It All Boils Down To by texasradiofish

Above image from ABC Open Wide Bay

Zombies have been fodder for science fiction books and movies for years, but could we actually create one in the lab? And why indeed would you want to do this? Surely the whole "eating brains" concept would mean that making one is probably not in your best interests.

This week on the podcast, Dr Boob takes us on a journey through zombie science fiction, Haitian zombies and zombie-style animals in nature, including a fascinating scenario where ants are hijacked by a fungus. This episode is part 1 - next time we will tackle, among other things, brain parasites, eating brains (cultural, cooking and animals that do

it), mad cow disease, the 'zombie' bath salts attacks (face eating), and

a mathematical model of a zombie pandemic.

We have looked at zombies in the past. In the post Correlation of the Week: Zombies, Vampires, Democrats and Republicans we looked at how the political party of the US presidency seems to influence the style of science fiction movie made during their presidency. A recent upsurge in zombie films could augur well for the Republicans next time round, although there are still plenty of vampire films and TV shows around.

The song at the end of the podcast is by copperhead / CC BY-NC 3.0

Tune in to this episode here.

Time travel is one of the more interesting plot devices in scifi movies. In this episode and the second in the series, Dr Boob takes us on a journey through parallel universes, causal loops and the nature of time-lines. We look at Back to the Future, the Terminator series, Futurama, Looper, Red Dwarf and Twelve Monkeys. By the end, it got a bit deep and my brain hurt! There are a few spoilers in this episode, if somehow you haven't seen these classic time travel movies. And please excuse my cold!

A good reference for attempting to explain the logic of time travel in the movies is Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies.

Tune in to this episode here.

We still exist!

This week we're inhabiting the nexus of science, pop culture and science fiction. The topic of discussion is Time Travel and how it is portrayed in the movies. There's a little bit of philosophy, a little bit of physics, a dash of the paranormal, and a lot of Dr Boob, who is once again the driving force of this podcast!

If you are interested in Andrew Basiago and Project Pegasus, which is mentioned in this show, you can find more here. If you want to organise your own time traveller convention, or if you can think of a good experiment that BOOB could stand for, let us know.

This is part one of a two part series on time travel and the movies - part two will be out shortly.

Tune in to this episode here.