The Lab With Brad

Animals, lies and language

An honest signal is useful for the one sending and receiving it. But, dishonest signals tend to destabilize the ability to communicate. How did human language develop when words make it so easy to fib?

Here’s a link to the wild dolphin project.

Wild Dolphin Project

Here’s a video about ongoing attempts to communicate with dolphins in the wild.

Searching for Language in Dolphins

Here’s an article about one of many theories regarding the differences and development of primate and human language.

Human Language Rooted in Monkey 'Song,' Scientists Suggest

Prey or play

When differing animals meet, they sometimes communicate. Sometimes threats, sometimes lies, sometimes laughter. We take a look at interspecies communication.

Here are two different videos—with the same name!—on animal laughter.

Do Animals Laugh?

Do Animals Laugh?

Here’s an article about animal vocalizations during play.

Dogs Do It, Birds Do It, and Dolphins Do It, Too.

Here’s a video on the mimic octopus.

The Mimic Octopus

Here’s an article about dolphins getting high on pufferfish.

Dolphins Seem to Use Toxic Pufferfish to Get High

And here’s an article about how dogs and horses make friends.

Dog & Pony Show: New Study Sheds Light on Interspecies Play

Ah, those babbling bacteria

We begin a new subseries this week on language and communication. For starters, let’s have a looksee at how single-celled organisms chat.

Here’s a quick video about the bobtail squid.

Facts: The Bobtail Squid

Here’s an article, rather technical, on how glowing bacteria influence the development of their bobtail squid host.

Glowing bacteria in Hawaiian bobtail squid cause changes throughout host

Here’s a quick reference page about aliivibrio fischeri.

Better Know a Microbe: Aliivibrio fischeri

And here’s a long and technical video about the glowing bugs and their bobtail host.

The Hawaiian bobtail squid - Vibrio Fischeri association

Accidents and asteroids

We didn’t notice it was going to be asteroid day until yesterday, but by coincidence, today is all about asteroids.

Here’s something on an attempt to experiment with moving asteroids around.

DART, NASA's test to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth

Here’s something on the end of the dinosaurs, a good reason to want to move asteroids around.

How an asteroid ended the age of the dinosaurs

Here’s an FAQ about the computer thing I get excited about at the end of this episode.

THOR on ADAM Fact Sheet

Here’s a short video on asteroids.

What Are Asteroids And Where Do They Come From?

Here’s a site about “Asteroid day,” the holiday we didn’t know we were celebrating.

Asteroid Day

Here’s a bit about the Tunguska event, another good reason to want to nudge asteroids into different orbits.

The Tunguska Impact--100 Years Later

Here’s a page on the NEAR Shoemaker mission, the first landing on an asteroid.

NEAR Shoemaker

And here’s a bit on OSIRIS-Rex, NASA’s mission to return samples from an asteroid to Earth.

NASA’s First Asteroid Sample Return Mission, OSIRIS-Rex, is a Success

Robots chasing tail

Once thought a portent of doom, or a sign of the impending death of kings, nowadays a comet makes a good target to launch a mission at.

Here’s a site on the comet interceptor mission.

The European space mission that plans to ambush a comet

Here’s an article on the comet near the sun that is no more.

Telescopes watch the sun bake a comet to death

And here are some sites on the biggest comet known.

Behold: The biggest known comet in our solar system

Giant comet was active way farther from the sun than expected, scientists confirm

Five years of the lab, for reasons

We’ve been putting out episodes on science for five years. There’s no end in sight. You’re welcome, or we’re sorry, depending. In celebration we relax with a freeform episode, even drink a couple of beers. We do drift passed a bit of science, but only by accident.

From Pluto, with love

If you count it as a planet, it is the furthest away and smallest. Whether or not you think it’s a planet, it might harbor life.

Here are a few links that cover the ongoing debate over Pluto’s status as a planet.

Pluto should be reclassified as a planet, scientists argue

Pluto and the Solar System | IAU

Here are links that talk about how Pluto might have one of them subsurface oceans.

Pluto has likely maintained an underground liquid ocean for billions of years

Liquid water may have erupted from Pluto's icy volcanoes, study finds

Pluto Might Have a Liquid Water Ocean?!

Here are a couple of things on Pluto’s giant icy heart.

New Horizons Spacecraft Displays Pluto’s Big Heart

And here’s a quick article on Pluto’s oddball orbit.

Pluto’s Orbit is Surprisingly Close to an Unstable Zone

There’s something on the wing!

High winds, a segmented ring and other oddities confound us as we take a trip to Neptune.

Here’s an article about cryovolcanism, like our volcanoes, only much colder.

Cryovolcanism in the Solar System

Here’s a video about Triton and its oddities.

The Bizarre Characteristics of Triton

Here’s an article about the capture of the moon Triton, and how it may have cleared out the Neptunian system.

How Neptune’s Triton Destroyed Nearly All Of Its Moons

Here’s an article about Neptune in general.

Neptune: The farthest planet from our sun

And here are a couple of videos about the eighth planet.

Neptune 101

What If You Fell Into Neptune?

Uranus, as a whole

Jokes aside, we take a more complete look at Uranus, the sideways planet.

Here are a couple of videos about Uranus.

Uranus 101

The Bizarre Characteristics Of Uranus

Here’s something on the latus rectum, just so you know I’m not making it up.

What is Latus Rectum of Parabola?

Here are a couple of things about how it might be raining diamonds.

Neptune Rains Diamonds, And Now We Might Finally Know How

Diamonds Raining in Uranus and Neptune Planet captured

And here’s an article about the mysterious heating of the Uranian atmosphere.

What Caused the Sudden Heating of Uranus's Atmosphere?

A brief probed toward Uranus

Unexpected issues caused a very short episode about the seventh planet. Gave us a chance to go ahead and snicker at its name.

Here’s a link to our episodes on computers computing and the history thereof.

Ep270: Stone age computers

Here’s a link to episodes on space and space travel.

Ep 288: From stones to strings to space

Here’s a link to our episodes on robotics and automation

Ep 311: Building brain bits for bots based on big beasties

And it all comes together with the first episode about robots and automation in space and space travel.

Ep 323: Robots orbiting the Earth

And here are a couple of links to articles about how NASA is considering a visit to Uranus.

NASA has been ignoring Uranus. That may soon change.

Uranus is a very weird planet. Here's why astronomers want to send a probe to it