ScienceMatters:The Podcast of GT College of Sciences

What is “memory clutter”? Can we make it go away? Audrey Duarte, an associate professor in the School of Psychology, uses magnetic resonance imaging and special tests in her Memory and Aging Lab to discover what causes obstacles in the brain’s pathways as people age.

By day, she’s Jennifer Leavey, senior academic professional in the School of Biological Sciences. When she straps on a guitar, Leavey becomes Leucine Zipper, leader of the rock band Zinc Fingers. For a change of pace, ScienceMatters samples the band’s science-inspired songs. Leavey shares how the band uses music and other media to teach science.

Simon Sponberg, a professor with joint appointment in the School of Physics and the School of Biological Sciences, studies how animals move through their environments. Among his unusual research methods is placing moths on joysticks so they can “play” video games in virtual reality.

Possible scenarios for the birth of stars, galaxies, and black holes come alive in the data crunching and visualizations of John Wise, a professor in the School of Physics. Wise explains how his simulations and visualizations – some of which have won awards – help researchers “rewind” space and time back to the origins of the universe.

Massive whale sharks headline the Ocean Voyager exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium. Its tiniest residents are the ones that concern Nastassia Patin. The School of Biological Sciences postdoctoral researcher studies the exhibit's microbiome, and what she’s learning may help keep all aquariums clear and healthy.

The parasite that causes leishmaniasis, a scary flesh-rotting disease, is tough to beat, says School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor and Chair M.G. Finn. It usually ravages equatorial countries but is now in North America. Finn is teaming with Brazilian scientists to work on a potential vaccine.

Jenny McGuire, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences, has a tough commute to her summer research site: an 80-foot drop into a deep, dark Wyoming cave. McGuire studies fossils to better understand climate change’s impact on animal and human populations.

ScienceMatters’ inaugural episode takes us back to the first day of the 2017-18 school year. As Georgia Tech welcomed students with a solar-eclipse-viewing, campus-wide party, School of Psychology researchers recreated the eclipse experience for a blind man by giving voice to data in real time.

Georgia Tech researchers help a blind man “hear” the 2017 solar eclipse, search for vaccines against deadly parasitic diseases, and rappel deep into caves in search of fossils. Here’s a preview of what’s to come in the inaugural season of ScienceMatters, the podcast of the Georgia Tech College of Sciences.

Why, indeed, does science matter? Former College of Sciences Dean and Sutherland Chair Paul Goldbart explains the need for evidence-based thinking. Also, the College adds a neuroscience degree, and School of Physics researchers help detect the collision of two neutron stars.