Talk That Science

In this episode we talk about 3D printing on Earth and in Space. We have a range of guests from the physics' soft matter group: Mazi Jalaal, Jackson Wilt and Olfa D'Angelo. Soft matter is a type of soft material, examples include tooth pasta and chocolate spread. As you can imagine, it is harder to print these materials than solid materials. We talk about what soft matter is, what the challenges of printing it are and finally how printing it in space is different than on earth.

Nature itself is circular. Trees produce fruits that birds can eat, and their feces in return replenish the soil so that new trees can grow. If a bird builds a nest it simply uses branches from the tree that will decompose into the soil again. For us humans it now seems almost impossible to go back to such a circular ecosystem. While the bird’s nest will deteriorate into the soil again, we have started to design and build products in such a way that the materials cannot be recycled. The Dutch government has aimed to make our economy circular in 2050. This means that we need to start designing products in a circular way. In this episode, we will talk with Deborah Sumter and Christiaan Maats about what can help designers make their products more circular. Christiaan Maats coaches sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship at a company called Circo and similar work at Noorderwind. Deborah Sumter recently finished her PhD thesis about what competencies designers should acquire in order to design circular products and services.

Tracklist

1. Masahiro Sugaya - Future Green

2. Daisuke Miyatani - Memories of Furniture

3. Shiho Yabuki - Ki No Nagare

4. Catching Flies - Ghosts

5. Max Cooper - Circular

6. HNNY - Montara

7. Seb Wildblood - Sketches

8. L’Indécis - Soulful

9. Acid Pauli & Nu - 12

10. Tycho - Circular Reeducation

How often do you use Google Translate? I do quite often. It is so easy to go from one language to the other. But suppose you want to communicate with a deaf person, or you are deaf yourself. Then Google Translate is of no use, because deaf peope speak sign langue. There are 70 million deaf and hearing impaired people in the world, but there is so far no tool to translate a written language to a sign language. But this is about to change. Our guest this episode, Floris Roelofsen, is currently working on a project to develop an avatar that can speak sign language. We will talk about the importance of sign language, about how it differs from written languages and about how we can develop such an avatar.

— Tracklist —

1. Charles Writh & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Express Yourself

2. BROCKBEATS - More Silence

3. SparkySynth - The Robots Are Talking

4. Rival Consoles - Vibrations On A String

Floris Roelofsen is associate professor at the University of Amsterdam. You can find out more about his research on his webpage: www.florisroelofsen.com.

In STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), but also in areas like philosophy and law, women and racial minorities are underrepresented. In the Netherlands only 35% of the people who pursue a career in academics in STEM are women. At the University of Amsterdam, only 4% of the Dutch staff has a non-Western background. In this episode, we invite Rosie Zheng and Merel Dap to talk about their experiences as young women of color in science. They explain how micro-aggressions can lead to the feeling of not being welcome in science. We talk about how as soon as we start school, we start believing that girls cannot be as smart as boys. When women want to go into academia they need to work way harder then men to be taken seriously, get funds and positions and have their articles get published. We also discuss how the underrepresentation of minorities in science can lead to racist and sexist scientific developments. For example, in Artificial Intelligence and medical science, techniques will be developed that disadvantage women and people of color. At the end, we brainstorm about how we can tackle these problems.

Tracklist:

Wildfires - SAULT

More women - Saâda Bonaire

VV Violence - Jessy Lanza

Emancipense - Yelle

Every day, we deal with causation. We assume that when we shoot a billiard ball against another it will start rolling, we assume that when we smoke we will have a bigger chance of getting lung cancer, and we think about how human activities can impact climate change. In all these cases, we assume that one event A can cause another event B. Dean McHugh, a phd student of philosophy and linguistics, studies how people use words like “because” and “cause” in order to determine how we understand the concept of causation. Different understandings of causation can have practical implications for society, especially in the law. In this episode, we will talk about how the outcome of a lawsuit can depend on how we understand causation. Thijmen Nuninga is finishing his phd in law and gives us many examples of how causation is crucial to determine responsibility. We talk about the Urgenda case and whether the Netherlands is responsible for climate change, about if we can understand discrimination because of sexual orientation as discrimination because of sex, and about how to determine whether a heavy smoker got lung cancer because there was asbestos in his work environment.

Tracklist:

‘Cause I’m a man - Tame Impala

Goed te doen - Meetsysteem

Discoscience - Ventolin

The media have covered many of the recent achievements of artificial intelligence: there are chess-computers that can beat humans, there is Sofia the robot who has been granted actual citizenship and with the help of deep fakes, fake videos are easily created. It is often assumed that artificial intelligence has achieved this success by virtue of its brain-like computation and, therefore, its ability to imitate human cognition. In this episode, we examine what it means for a machine to think like a person, and whether that is ultimately possible. We do this with our two guests: Nynke Boiten and David Knigge. Nynke is currently doing the master Brain and Cognitive Science at the University of Amsterdam, where she focuses on computer models of the brain. David Knigge is studying Artificial Intelligence, also in Amsterdam. He is writing his thesis, in which he tries to build an artificial intelligence system that can recognize pictures.

Tracklist:

What is the Human Machine - Helium

Mindwalk - Robert Schroeder

Robot Motion - Frank Fischer-Goeppingen

ICE - Lorn

The Man Maschine - Kraftwerk

Crawl Up - Satoshi & Makoto

Voices of the Mind - Herbert Bodzin

Cyborg - Egyptian Lover

In this episode, Nicolien and Nikki host the first live show of Talk That Science on Echobox Radio. We introduce you to the people behind Talk That Science, explain what we love about science and why we think that making science more accessible is important. With the live chat on Echobox Radio, we hope to interact more with you, the listener, so you can let us know your opinions and what you want us to discuss in the future. Last but not least, Nico and Nikki talk about their own scientific interests.

From now on, every month we will be going live at Echobox Radio on Thursday at 2pm. The upcoming show will be on the 2nd of September and then every four weeks we will have another one. Go to echobox.radio to listen live and say hi in the chat! Or listen back to the shows on your usual streaming platform.

In this episode, we talk about material culture with Maikel Kuijpers. Material culture concerns that aspect of society that is grounded in material objects. As an archeologist, Maikel is specialized in material use over time. Although archeology focuses on the past, Maikel interestingly enough uses his knowledge to create a more sustainable future. In this episode, we will therefore talk about sustainable material use, craftsmanship and the role of a scientist when bringing a message to the public. Maikel shares many interesting thoughts on this, as he isn't only a scientist, but also author at De Correspondent and director of the documentary “The Future is Handmade”.

— Find out more —

Maikel's work for De Correspondent - https://bit.ly/3ymauPN

Maikel's documentary - https://bit.ly/3ymGdjw

— Tracklist —

1. Ti-de - KOKOROKO

2. Ode to Ancient Rome - Michael Levy

3. Closer - Satoshi & Makoto

4. After Midnight - Skinshape

5. Peri Banu vid sjön - Dungen

6. Abusey Junction - KOKOROKO

7. Mumma Don't Tell - Leifur James

8. Progress - Public Service Broadcasting

Talk That Science is powered by the Student Impact Centre FNWI and Radio Tempo Não Pára.

In this episode, we talk about crystals with Noushine Shadidzadeh, professor of crystallization at the UvA. We can all agree: crystals are beautiful to look at. And this is exactly what Noushine loves about her research field. Interestingly enough, crystals play a huge role in our everyday lives, for example in food - think of salt - and in drugs such as paracetamol. During this episode, we will come across various applications of Noushine’s research: from reducing the amount of salt in food to fortifying salt with rare minerals and even preserving cultural heritage. Well, you get it: crystals are everywhere around you! Listen to this episode and let the science behind crystals be unraveled for you.

— Tracklist —

1. Steve Hiett - Love That Bird

2. Natural Positions - Goloka

3. Pete Beardsworth - Purify

4. Ashra - Oasis

5. Hype Williams - Gelato

6. The Durutti Column - Conduct

7. Mildlife - Phase

8. Jasper Van 't Hof - Associations

9. Verminkte Toekan - Betonkunst & Palmbomen II

Track selection by Waldemar Theodor.

Talk That Science is powered by the Student Impact Centre FNWI and Radio Tempo Não Pára.

In this episode, we must discuss drugs. Many people experiment with recreational drugs like Cannabis and MDMA every now and then. But do we know how they affect our brain? Although some research has been done on their negative effects, it is only recently that scientists started to do research on the medicinal effects of Cannabis, MDMA, ketamine and psychedelics. We talk about this and much more with our two guests: Olivier Otten and Sebastiaan van Bruchem. Olivier is an art student and tells us about his experience with Cannabis and how he felt it helped him with his attention disorder. Sebastiaan, who finished a Masters in Brain and Cognitive Science, explains what science can tell us about the effect of drugs on the brains.

—Tracklist —

00:40 Summer Winds - Vincent

02:06 Aquarius - Prins Emanuel

07:02 Never Heated - Suzanne Kraft

10:46 Bye Bye Macadam - Rone

12:25 Wait - Nuages

14:30 The Edge Of Space - Sombrero Galaxy

20:04 XTC - DJ Koze

22:50 World - Sunshower

28:01 Summer Madness - Khruangbin

31:38 Oblique - Gillespie

36:05 The Most - Weval

Talk That Science is powered by the Student Impact Centre FNWI and Radio Tempo Não Pára.