OMNIA Podcast

This is an episode about big things. Big like the ocean, which, thanks to its size, absorbs about 30% of all CO2 emissions. Big like the scale of our Earth’s 4.6 billion history, and big like our responsibility to future generations. Can an understanding of and appreciation for the size of our world and the scope of its history, from the beginning of time to dinosaurs to humans, help us take action against climate change and engage in acts of care for the future of our planet and its inhabitants? An oceanographer, a geophysicist, and a historian weigh in.

Guests:

Irina Marinov, Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Science

Jane E. Dmochowski, Senior Lecturer, Earth and Environmental Science

Jared Famer, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History

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Produced by Lauren Rebecca Thacker

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein, Brooke Sietisons, Evan Smith

Interviews by Lauren Rebecca Thacker

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Illustration and logo by Dan Lee

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first two seasons of In These Times. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

This episode addresses early concerns in the public sphere, the media, and even the scientific community, surrounding high-energy particle collision experiments at particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider. These concerns culminated in lawsuits accusing researchers of conducting experiments that could cause the creation of mini black holes or even spell the end of the world. We speak with a physicist who works on such projects about the realities of safety.

Guest:

Evelyn Thomson, Professor of Physics and Astronomy

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Produced by Blake Cole

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein and Brooke Sietisons 

Interview by Blake Cole

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Illustration and logo by Dan Lee

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first two seasons of In These Times. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

The phrase “better things for better living through chemistry” began life in 1935 as a DuPont advertising slogan–an enthusiastic expression of optimism about science, and its potential to solve virtually any human problem. It’s clear that without chemistry, the world would be a very different place. So why, out of all the sciences, is chemistry so little understood, and so often held in low regard by the public?

In this episode, a chemist explains chemistry's public relations problem, and why we need to put our faith in chemistry now, maybe more than ever.

Guests:

Eric J. Schelter, Professor of Chemistry

Madeleine M. Joullié, Professor of Chemistry (Emeritus)

Daniel J. Mindiola, Brush Family Professor of Chemistry and Graduate Chair

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Produced by Loraine Terrell

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein and Loraine Terrell

Interviews by Loraine Terrell

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Illustration and logo by Dan Lee

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first two seasons of In These Times. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

New medications, treatments, and implants that affect our brains have helped thousands overcome ADD, ended seizures, and even show promise for restoring memory lost to brain trauma. But these enhancements have implications for individuals and society. How far can we go? Who gets the enhancements? In this episode, we'll hear from a psychology professor about what’s being done and what we can learn from science fiction.

Guest:

Martha J. Farah, Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Natural Sciences in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Center for Neuroscience and Society

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Produced by Susan Ahlborn

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein and Brooke Sietinsons

Interviews by Susan Ahlborn

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Illustration and logo by Dan Lee

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first two seasons of In These Times. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

If you were writing a book about the history of science denial, the chapter on Darwin would have to be one of the longest. But why? You can argue that we see evolution all the time – it is, after all, why we’re worrying today about the emergence of new variants of COVID-19. Does it boil down to a divide between religion and science that just can’t be bridged? And what’s at risk when what science tells us about evolution is rejected?

In this episode, we'll hear from a philosopher of science and an evolutionary biologist on what it is about Darwinian evolution that has made it a poster child for science denial, and why it’s important to understand the facts.

Guests:

Paul Sniegowski, Stephen A. Levin Family Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Biology

Michael Weisberg, Bess W. Heyman President's Distinguished Professor and Chair of Philosophy

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Produced by Loraine Terrell

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein and Loraine Terrell

Interviews by Loraine Terrell

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Illustration and logo by Dan Lee

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first two seasons of In These Times. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

This episode is about the science of how people talk. We'll get into some of the nitty gritty science, like prosody and intonational variation, but we're really interested in why people resist changes to language. Why did France try to ban "le weekend," and why do some people, like, get so, like, upset when people use the word "like"? An expert in sociolinguistics talks about what our speech says about who we are, and why resistance to change has nothing to do with being right or wrong.

Guest:

Nicole Holliday, Assistant Professor of Linguistics

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Produced by Lauren Rebecca Thacker

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein and Brooke Sietinsons

Interview by Lauren Rebecca Thacker 

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 

Illustration and logo by Dan Lee

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first two seasons of In These Times. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

On this season of the Omnia podcast, we talk to scientists and other scholars about scientific ideas that cause big reactions. We’ll look at stories of science getting knocked around, and standing back up again, in a world full of polarization, politics, misrepresentation, and simple misunderstanding. Welcome to In These Times: Fear and Loathing and Science.  

One of the more unexpected side effects of COVID-19 has been the rise of a new strain of resistance to scientific information. But science denial didn’t start with COVID-19.  Rejection of scientific evidence is part of the history of science itself. How did the search for understanding and truth find itself in the cross-hairs of U.S. politics?

Guests:

Mark Trodden, Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics, Co-Director of the Center for Particle Cosmology, and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy

Donovan Schaefer, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies

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Produced by Loraine Terrell

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein and Loraine Terrell

Interviews Loraine Terrell

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 

Illustration and logo by Dan Lee

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first two seasons of In These Times. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

In Episode 1: Facts vs. Feelings, Mark Trodden commented that most of what we would call modern cosmology is a very recent vintage, including many discoveries from just the past few decades.

In this bonus segment, Professor Trodden discusses what this recent research has to say about the Big Bang, gravitational waves, and the expanding universe.

Mark Trodden is the  Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics, Co-Director of the Center for Particle Cosmology, and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. 

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Produced by Loraine Terrell

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein 

Interview Loraine Terrell

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 

Illustration and logo by Dan Lee

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first two seasons of In These Times. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

In our final episode, we're continuing the conversation about how institutions can perpetuate racial inequalities and the work that remains. We talk to a graduate student whose family has been touched by Penn and slavery across generations, a philosopher who weighs the past and future when it comes to the case for reparations, and a political scientist whose focus on community and repair is not new, but particularly urgent.

Guests:

Breanna Moore, C'15 and doctoral student in history

Daniel Wodak, Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Tulia Falleti, Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies

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Produced by Lauren Rebecca Thacker

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein and Brooke Sietinsons

Interviews by Lauren Rebecca Thacker, Susan Ahlborn, and Loraine Terrell

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 

Illustration by Adriana Bellet

Logo by Drew Nealis

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first season of In These Times. 

To hear the full 1.5 Minute Climate Lectures mentioned in this episode visit the series website. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

Follow Penn Arts & Sciences on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. 

This season, we’ve spoken to experts about how institutions have perpetuated racial hierarchies. Higher education is no exception. In our final two episodes, we’re talking to students and faculty about the work that comes next. This episode features an undergraduate student whose research with the Penn and Slavery Project reveals truths about the relationship between higher education and the perpetuation of scientific racism and a graduate student whose work on bioethics and philosophy of race can offer insights on health disparities and how we might address them.

Guests:

Carson Eckhard, C'21

Ian Peebles, Ph.D. candidate in philosophy

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Produced by Lauren Rebecca Thacker

Narrated by Alex Schein

Edited by Alex Schein 

Interviews by Lauren Rebecca Thacker and Jane Carroll 

Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 

Illustration by Adriana Bellet

Logo by Drew Nealis

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first season of In These Times. 

To hear the full 1.5 Minute Climate Lectures mentioned in this episode visit the series website. 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni. 

Follow Penn Arts & Sciences on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.