Paper Boys

It's long been known that going to space can have negative effects on the health of astronauts. Space is a harsh environment with too much radiation and too little gravity. There are cardiovascular implications, vision problems abound, and future reproductive issues are a particular concern. A major area of research for space agencies is meticulously checking up on the health of people who have left the Earth, especially since it's such a small group of people. Due to historical barriers, it's even smaller when considering only female astronauts - though that number is growing. So what differences have been observed between the male and female astronauts studied? Do they suffer from the same complications, or are the effects particular to sex? On this episode, James dives into a collection of studies highlighting the ways men's and women's physiologies react to the final frontier.

Find out more, including the papers and articles, on our website, www.paperboyspodcast.com.

It seems every few months, a news article pops up talking about the indestructible Tardigrade - otherwise known as the "water bear" or "moss piglet." These resilient little animals can survive radiation in space, freezing for 30 years, and completely drying out their bodies. So how exactly are they able to do this? James brings in a recent paper diving into the details of Tardigrades' little survival hacks. Read the paper and news articles here.

Some clues have indicated that female brains may stave off aging better than male brains, such as better cognitive ability later in life and longer life expectancies. However, the reason behind these observations remains a mystery. Scientists at the Washington University in St. Louis have applied machine learning to uncover yet another clue in the slowly developing picture of sex difference in the brain - that male brains appear older than their female counterparts of the same physical age. Charlie brings in the paper that has scientists scratching their heads and news outlets spinning. Read the paper and news articles here.

Brain-computer interfaces promise to change everything about our lives in the future, but are still in their early infancy technology-wise. However, you may be closer than you think to being able to talk without moving your mouth at all...James brings in a paper on converting brain waves to speech, and tests Charlie on his robot-listening comprehension while he's at it. Read the paper, listen to the music, and test yourself here.

The Curiosity rover on Mars has some pretty amazing experiments aboard, but curiously enough never had a gravimeter, a device used for measuring the gravitational pull of buried rocks. So how then did scientists manage to weigh a mountain on Mars using years-old data taken by Curiosity? Charlie brings in a paper that reads like a data analysis version of a MacGyver episode. Read the paper and news stories here.

Even though it's our best way of fighting cancer today, chemotherapy can be extremely damaging to the human body. The drugs spread through your entire bloodstream just to target one small tumor. Scientists may have cracked this problem though by inventing a tiny filter injected into your veins. James brings in a paper detailing this amazing breakthrough. Read the paper and news articles here.

There's a giant ice disk hanging out in the Presumpscot River in Westbrook, Maine that's garnered international attention, and rightfully so - it's an extremely rare phenomenon and this is one of the biggest ever recorded. Crazily, the ice disk is spinning completely on its own. Charlie brings in a paper that discovered just how ice disks like this can spontaneously rotate - and let's just say it's cooler than being cool. Read the paper and see the drone video here.