Science Fact or Fiction?

This episode is all about the technological innovations from the world of Gattaca. Gattaca was shot in the late 90’s, a time when the world of genomics was exploding, scientists were trying to map the human genome and everyone had grand ideas about what the future of personalised medicine and gene therapy would look like. In this episode Manon tells Lance all about where the current technology is at. Are designer babies a possibility? What does it mean to be able to sequence the human genome and where are we in terms of eradicating genetic diseases?

This is the final episode for the season. Thanks for listening. BYEEEEE

Intro Music by Woody Rolph.

Links:

https://theconversation.com/gene-editing-needs-to-become-more-precise-to-live-up-to-its-promise-123845

https://theconversation.com/designer-babies-wont-be-common-anytime-soon-despite-recent-crispr-twins-108342

https://theconversation.com/how-a-scientist-says-he-made-a-gene-edited-baby-and-what-health-worries-may-ensue-107764

https://theconversation.com/should-we-edit-the-genomes-of-human-embryos-a-geneticist-and-social-scientist-discuss-100355

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07559-8

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07559-8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52jOEPzhpzc&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1AINMKV0ztaqMoJQIeo5yvXu9qXKCX6XRY9hAaNUngSTnyiZdFuy_oys0&ab_channel=MicrobiologySociety

This week, we aren't going to look at a particular science fiction imagining, but something very real. Would you live in a biodome for two years? In 1991, eight Biospherians did just that and the outcome was very interesting.

Join Manon and Lance as they explore the possibility of living under a biodome and how that can potentially allow us to live on planets other than our own!

Intro Music by Woody Rolph.

Links:

https://medium.com/predict/an-engineers-vision-for-constructing-a-massive-lunar-dome-colony-1562ff91bbc5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon

https://www.iop.org/explore-physics/moon//how-could-we-live-on-the-moon

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/sunday-review/biosphere-2-climate-change.html

https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/biosphere-2-what-really-happened

https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_poynter_life_in_biosphere_2?language=en

This week we take a look at how Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shaped our current world. We explore what it means to be human through the lens of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and discuss the potential dangers of future AI technology.

Join Manon and Lance as they ask pressing questions: If your vacuum cleaner didn’t want to clean the house would you still make it? And what was going on in the 80’s? Why was the 21st century predicted to be extremely moody and bleak with a forecast of killing some robots and never ending drizzle?

Intro Music by Woody Rolph.

References and extra readings:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191111-are-we-living-in-a-blade-runner-world

Harry Potter AI fanfiction

https://aiweirdness.com/post/162668008357/harry-potter-and-the-neural-network-fan-fiction

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1802/1802.07228.pdf

Machine learning and AI

https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/differences-between-ai-and-machine-learning-and-why-it-matters-1255b182fc6

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/if-the-robots-kill-us-its-because-its-their-job/360924/

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/robots-human-relationships/583204/

Books:

Robot Rules: Regulating Artificial Intelligence, by Jacob Turner

The AI Economy: Work, Wealth and Welfare in the Robot Age, by Roger Bootle

An Anthropology of Robots and AI: Annihilation Anxiety and Machines, by Kathleen Richardson

Would you eat a burger that was grown from a lab? How about plant-based meat in favour of “real” meat? Environmentally friendly and ethically sourced, it sounds like a better alternative. In this episode, we explore whether we are on the verge of becoming like the cult classic Soylent Green and the likelihood of our diet one day consisting of lab grown food.

Join Manon and Lance as they delve into the science of how artificial meat is synthesised.

Intro Music by Woody Rolph.

Links:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lab-grown-meat/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat

https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/20/2811553/scientists-working-to-produce-a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k-V3ESHcfA&ab_channel=MarkRober

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-07-30/australia-joins-lab-grown-meat-industry/11360506

This week we discuss the amazing scientific and cinematic masterpiece that is Contact, based on Carl Sagan’s book of the same name. We debate the likelihood of alien contact, gush over how kick-ass Jodie Foster's character is and look at the galaxy and our place in it.

We talk numbers, what's the likelihood of us finding aliens or aliens finding us. It's an awfully big galaxy out there. Maybe somewhere there is an alien tuning into our radio signals on their commute to work.

As Arthur C. Clarke once said, “two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

Intro Music by Woody Rolph.

Links:

https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

http://www.setileague.org/reviews/contact.htm

Book:

Lucky Planet: Why Earth is Exceptional – and What that Means for Life in the Universe by David Waltham

Desert life in Dune, spacesuits, and swimsuit doping. In this episode, we explore the possibility of creating Frank Herbert's fictional stillsuits. How close is a refrigerator to a stillsuit? Could your bathers be considered as “technological doping”? And how comfortable are you with drinking your own fluids? Join Manon and Lance as they explore the technology in Frank Herbert's Dune.

Intro Music by Woody Rolph.

Links:

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/28265/how-is-faeces-processed-in-stillsuits

http://pages.erau.edu/~andrewsa/Project_2/Koch_Cameron/MoistureRecycling_Cameron_Koch/Moisture_Recycling.html

https://ntnuopen.ntnu.no/ntnu-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2610027/no.ntnu%3Ainspera%3A2302082.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/nasaandyou/home/spacesuits_bkgd_en.html#:~:text=Spacesuits%20supply%20astronauts%20with%20oxygen,small%20bits%20of%20space%20dust.&text=Spacesuits%20also%20protect%20astronauts%20from%20radiation%20in%20space.

https://www.symscape.com/blog/swimsuit-banned-as-technology-doping

Gene editing, GMOs and bringing back the woolly mammoth. In this episode we explore everything from the science in Jurassic Park to modern day genetics and gene editing technologies. Just how likely are you to ever see a velociraptor next to the lion cage at the zoo, or should we just be happy with our new grocery store option, the anti-freeze strawberry.

Intro Music by Woody Rolph.

Book: How to clone a woolly mammoth by Beth Shapiro

Website Links:

https://portlandpress.com/biochemist/article/37/6/18/1429/Jurassic-World-just-how-impossible-is-it

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jurassic-world-can-we-really-resurrect-a-dinosaur/

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/science-behind-the-fiction-are-we-any-closer-to-jurassic-park-actually-being-possible

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44293060

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/humc.2017.29022.int?casa_token=_dU7Lmm7no0AAAAA%3Aha51voJBFg4ZcsnhHCnJbF50UacSN1Gt3HRQcAGXOjo5ePsuUGnNSH1ccs_xqrJjTZqFbVgQxn1vOA&