Science! With Friends

“If we want to stop treating soils like dirt, we first need to develop the eyes to see them.”

In this episode, Jocelyn and Bradley are joined by soil whisperer and IF/THEN Ambassador Dr. Yamina Pressler, who introduces us to the “underground rainbow” beneath our feet and the complex and wondrous ecosystems that work and play there. Besides the many critical services soils perform in sustaining life on Earth, Yamina helps us to appreciate their stunning beauty and diversity. She shares her research on how fire and drought affect the soil, as well as her passions for writing, painting, and running. The friends discuss the joys and rewards of being “and” people, and Yamina tells us about some of the creative ways she has found to combine her many interests while raising awareness about soil and how we can all help to preserve it.

You can find Yamina on Twitter @yaminapressler, and you can learn more about her amazing work at https://yaminapressler.com/ and at the links below:

Writing: https://medium.com/@yaminapressler
Art: https://yaminapressler.com/artist
For the Love of Soil: https://www.fortheloveofsoil.org/
Educational Resources: https://www.fortheloveofsoil.org/educate
Will Run For Soil: https://www.willrunforsoil.com/

The IF/THEN initiative:
https://www.ifthenshecan.org/
https://twitter.com/IfThenSheCan

Subpar Parks: https://subparparks.com/
...
Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
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Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) , Produced and edited by Vince Ruhl.

How does a gecko know there’s an earthquake? Van der Waals start shaking!

This week, Jocelyn and Bradley are joined by AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador, herpetologist, and lizard lassoer Earyn McGee, who shares stories of some of her favorite lizards and the tricks they can do—including how Van der Waals forces help geckos climb walls. Earyn explains how radioisotopes in lizard toe clippings (!) are helping her learn more about their diet and the effects of climate change on desert ecosystems. She shares her challenges, struggles, and triumphs as a woman of color in spaces dominated by white men. The friends also discuss Earyn’s efforts to share her knowledge and love of lizards through her wildly popular Twitter game #FindThatLizard, and the wily lizard fugitive who inspired it.

You can find Earyn on Twitter @Afro_Herper, and you can learn more about her amazing work at the links below:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/earyn-mcgee-08494973
https://www.patreon.com/FindThatLizard
https://www.alieward.com/ologies/saurology

The IF/THEN initiative:
https://www.ifthenshecan.org/
https://twitter.com/IfThenSheCan

Subpar Parks: https://subparparks.com/

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) , Produced and edited by Vince Ruhl.

"I wanted to be a priest. They said, 'Girls don't do that.' I wanted to be captain of the national cricket team. They said, 'Girls don't do that.' I wanted to be a scientist. They said, 'Girls don't do that,' and I said, ‘I AM SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR NEGATIVITY.’”

Friends, meet Dr. Ritu Raman: engineer, innovator, AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador, force of nature! In this enlightening, joyful, and inspiring episode, Ritu shares with Jocelyn and Bradley how her experiences growing up a child of engineers in India, Kenya, and the U.S. shaped her desire to use science to solve problems. She tells us about her first research experience chaperoning rat frat parties, which led her to think about how living tissue could be used to develop a new kind of robot that can adapt and change in response to its environment. From her research on bio-bots to translational medicine, Ritu is pioneering a new approach to “building with biology.”

You can find Ritu on Twitter @DrRituRaman, and you can learn more about her amazing work at the links below:

https://rituraman.com/publicity/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubu-kMnODNI&list=PLl7sKEovQyENcvIW6Wkd3YhAUYjaLcKhN
https://events.technologyreview.com/video/watch/ritu-raman-inventors-tr35-2019/

The IF/THEN initiative:
https://www.ifthenshecan.org/
https://twitter.com/IfThenSheCan

Parry Gripp’s “Neon Pegasus”: https://youtu.be/EiO9_PJ0h8Q

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) , Produced and edited by Vince Ruhl.

It’s a subject so complex, so challenging, so utterly intractable that it makes many physicists cower in fear. Yet it’s also ubiquitous: it explains why aircraft stay aloft and how tadpoles breathe, and you experience it every time you brush your teeth or put ketchup on your fries. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the phenomena of fluid dynamics.

Jocelyn and Bradley are joined this week by the indomitable Dr. Nicole Sharp: aerospace engineer, fluid dynamicist, superstar science communicator, and AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador. Nicole tells us about her science journey, from her earliest childhood memories to her discovery of fluid dynamics, and how her passion for sharing “the physics of all that flows” led her to create the website FYFD. Trust us, friends: by the end of this episode, you too will be saying, “F*** yeah, fluid dynamics!”

You can find Nicole on Twitter @fyfluiddynamics, and you can learn more about her work at the links below:

FYFD: https://fyfluiddynamics.com/

Star-nosed mole:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-04/eb2-tbf041217.php
https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/

Bird flight:
https://fyfluiddynamics.com/tagged/bird-flight/

Oobleck demonstrations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BleCJJAKkgw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zoTKXXNQIU

Six selfish reasons to communicate science:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/science-blogger/why-communicate-science

Science and writing:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/brandontaylor/i-dont-miss-being-a-scientist-except-when-i-do?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The IF/THEN initiative:
https://www.ifthenshecan.org/
https://twitter.com/IfThenSheCan

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) , Produced and edited by Vince Ruhl.

What’s the big deal about diversity in science? Why is it so important to encourage and empower women and underrepresented minorities to pursue STEM careers?

In this week’s episode, Jocelyn and Bradley argue that diversity is not just a buzzword, but a scientific imperative if we are to produce knowledge that is accurate, comprehensive, robust, and beneficial to society. In particular, the hosts discuss conceptions of “objectivity” in science and the philosophy of science; the importance of social and cultural factors in structuring scientific inquiry; and the role of metaphor in facilitating scientific discoveries. Jocelyn also shares her work as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassador, and she explains how the program is working to inspire the next generation of STEM pioneers.

The IF/THEN initiative:
https://www.ifthenshecan.org/
https://twitter.com/IfThenSheCan

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology
Evolutionary Epistemology: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-evolutionary/

Objectivity by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison: https://www.amazon.com/Objectivity-Zone-Books-Lorraine-Daston/dp/189095179X

The science and math of crocheting:
https://news.yale.edu/2017/11/13/mathematician-share-how-crochet-helped-her-understand-complex-geometry

https://www.ttbook.org/interview/crocheting-unknowable-geometry-spacetime

Harvard GenderSci lab:
https://www.genderscilab.org/

On the “gender-equity paradox”:
https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/women-stem-innate-disinterest-debunked.html

https://www.genderscilab.org/blog/gender-equality-paradox-monkey-business-or-how-to-tell-spurious-causal-stories-about-nation-level-achievement-by-women-in-stem

Middle-school girls in STEM:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/opinion/stem-girls-math-practice.html

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) , Produced and edited by Vince Ruhl.

Look out, T.S. Eliot, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and cheezburger.com! This week, we take another important step toward a Grand Unified Theory of Cats, as Jocelyn and Bradley are joined by Greg Gbur, author of the book Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics. Greg sheds light on the long, rich history of cats and their pet scientists, explaining why the “cat-turning problem” has captured the imaginations of physicists, physiologists, and engineers for well over a century. Greg also shares his research on optics and the future of invisibility cloaks (!!!), and how history and pulp fiction can provide unexpected sources of inspiration for scientific work. Finally, the friends discuss the value of Twitter for building a broader, more inclusive scientific community.

You can find Greg on Twitter @drskyskull, and you can learn more about his work at the links below:

Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics: https://www.amazon.com/Falling-Felines-Fundamental-Physics-Gregory/dp/0300231296

Skulls in the Stars (Greg’s blog): https://skullsinthestars.com/

UNCC faculty page: https://pages.uncc.edu/greg-gbur/

Can Twitter Save Science? https://danco.substack.com/p/can-twitter-save-science

Greg’s Twitter recommendations:
Sophia Gad-Nasr @Astropartigirl
Sarafina Nance @starstrickenSF
Rose DF @_Astro_Nerd_
Raychelle Burks @DrRubidium
Jess Wade @jesswade
Sarah McAnulty @SarahMackAttack
Lisa Buckley @Lisavipes
Lisa @PhysicistLisa

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) and Produced by the Basement Creators Network. You can find them at https://www.basementcreators.network/

Sound Editing by Vince Ruhl

It’s Charles Darwin’s birthday, and the topic of this week’s episode is a natural selection to commemorate the occasion! As part of our recurring series featuring some of the most misunderstood words in science, we’re taking a closer look at that thorny word—“theory”—which is sometimes invoked to undermine the value and validity of Darwin’s pathbreaking work. Jocelyn and Bradley consider how the scientific meaning of the word “theory” differs from its common usage, showing how the progress of science relies on a robust feedback mechanism among facts, theories, and hypotheses. They also discuss how and why our contemporary cultural dialogue on scientific topics benefits from understanding the history of science—and, more specifically, the role celebrated individuals like Darwin do and do not play in that history. Ultimately, the hosts set the record straight on what it really means to say, “Evolution is a theory, not a fact.”

Links:

Darwin’s Darkest Hour (NOVA): https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/darwins-darkest-hour.html

Janet Browne’s Darwin biography
v. 1, Voyaging: https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Darwin-Biography-Vol-Voyaging/dp/0691026068
v. 2, The Power of Place: https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Darwin-Biography-Power-Place/dp/0691114390

The Onion on “Intelligent Falling”: https://www.theonion.com/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-intellig-1819567984

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) and Produced by the Basement Creators Network. You can find them at https://www.basementcreators.network/

Sound Editing by Vince Ruhl

Which is scariest: barn swallows, wolf spiders, or middle-schoolers? If you’re Dr. Matt Wilkins, the answer is “none of the above,” because nothing is scary when you’ve braved the amorous wilds of Romanian hostels and run afoul of Russian military personnel while conducting fieldwork in Siberia.

During this week’s episode, Matt shares these stories—complete with bird calls, Russian accents, and the musical stylings of the “veloci-rapper”— and so much more. He tells Jocelyn and Bradley how a longtime fascination with linguistics gave rise to his interest in animal communication systems, which in turn fueled his interest in science communication and his Galactic Polymath ambitions. The friends also discuss key challenges facing science communicators, including common misconceptions about evolution and how Matt addresses these, and Matt’s advice for scicomm-curious researchers.

You can find Matt on Twitter @mattwilkinsbio, and learn more about his research and outreach projects at http://www.mattwilkinsbio.com/.

Additional links:

SciComm 2020: http://www.scicommcon.org/

Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/cso/

More Recycling Won’t Solve Plastic Pollution:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/more-recycling-wont-solve-plastic-pollution/

“Pygids” video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=IVrJCkWRXOc&feature=emb_logo

Humor as a Learning Tool (SciComm 2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6RgmDcP42M

Numbat Media: A case study in the challenges of starting an outreach project (SciComm 2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5S0tpPlFag

How Much Science is There? (infographic by Randall Munroe): https://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/scicomm/infographic.jpg

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) and Produced by the Basement Creators Network. You can find them at https://www.basementcreators.network/

Sound Editing by Vince Ruhl

In the gripping conclusion to their voyage of quantum discovery, Jocelyn and Bradley move beyond the weird and wild consequences of quantum mechanics to take on the biggest question of all: What does it all mean?

The hosts discuss how different approaches to resolving the “measurement problem” have led to different interpretations of quantum mechanics. In the process, they explore the difference between epistemology (what we know and how we know it) and ontology (the stuff the makes up reality), and how the most popular interpretations of quantum mechanics deal with this distinction. More generally, they discuss why some theories require interpretations in the first place, and if and how we can determine which interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct.

Links:

The Schrodinger Equation: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/schr.html
The Measurement Problem: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Oxford_History_of_Twentieth_Century.html?id=WGvbAApi2roC&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1355219813000397?via%3Dihub
Copenhagen Interpretation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
The Many Worlds Interpretation:
Hugh Everett’s original thesis: https://archive.org/details/TheTheoryOfTheUniversalWaveFunction/mode/2up
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hugh-everett-biography/
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/somethingdeeplyhidden/

Pilot-Wave Model or Bohmian Mechanics:
https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.85.166
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlXdsyctD50

GRW or Objective Collapse Theory: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-collapse/
Quantum Bayesianism or QBism:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-bayesianism-explained-by-its-founder-20150604/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-bayesian/

Quantum Darwinism:
https://arxiv.org/abs/0903.5082
https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.75.715
https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-darwinism-an-idea-to-explain-objective-reality-passes-first-tests-20190722/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27zMdaBgt6g

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail:

Can quantum mechanics cure my eczema? Will it let me time travel to fix a mistake I made in the past? Does it explain why my remote control keeps disappearing, or what happens to the other socks in the dryer? What does “quantum” even mean, anyway?

In the first episode of a two-part series, Jocelyn and Bradley take on another of the most misunderstood words in science. This time, they’re traveling deep into the mysterious and ineffable realm of atoms and subatomic particles to cut through the technical jargon and hype surrounding the word “quantum.” The hosts explain the basic tenets of quantum mechanics, showing how the existence of discrete or quantized energy levels yields non-intuitive results like entanglement, non-locality, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and superposition. Based on this foundation, they also discuss what “quantum” definitely does not mean, from quantum medicine and healing crystals to mysticism and more.

References:

EPR Paper: https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.47.777
Crash Course on Quantum Mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kb1VT0J3DE
Quantum Entanglement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuvK-od647c
Nature article on quantum entanglement: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00120-6?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=aad996b639-briefing-dy-20200117&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-aad996b639-43388869

Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell) and Produced by the Basement Creators Network. You can find them at https://www.basementcreators.network/

Sound Editing by Vince Ruhl