The James Webb Space Telescope’s revolutionary technology is expected to reveal secrets of every phase of cosmic history—from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies.  In this podcast, we talk with DC-based artist Tim Makepeace about his exhibition Reflections on a Tool of Observation: Artwork Inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope that celebrates the awe-inspiring technology while drawing attention to the fact that it is a human endeavor that reveals the nuts, bolts and wires of the instrument.  Tim is joined by art historian Anne Collins-Goodyear whose research exploring the relationship between art and technology provides thought provoking historical context.

See a selection of pieces from Tim Makepeace’s exhibition, Reflections on a Tool of Observation: Artwork Inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope and visit the CPNAS website to learn more about the exhibition.

Visit Tim Makepeace’s website for more works.

Follow Anne Collins-Goodyear’s current work at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

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It may surprise you to learn that the enormous dinosaur skeletons that wow museum visitors were not assembled by paleontologists. The specialized and critical task of removing fossilized bones from surrounding rock, and then reconstructing the fragments into a specimen that a scientist can research or a member of the public can view, is the work of fossil preparators. Many of these preparators are volunteers without scientific credentials, working long hours to assemble the fossils on which scientific knowledge of the prehistoric world is built. In this episode we speak with social scientist and University of Virginia professor Caitlin Donahue Wylie, who takes us inside the paleontology lab to uncover a complex world of status hierarchies, glue controversies, phones that don’t work—and, potentially, a way to open up the scientific enterprise to far more people.

Read Caitlin Donahue Wylie’s article, What Fossil Preparators Can Teach Us About More Inclusive Science.

Check out Caitlin Donahue Wylie’s book, Preparing Dinosaurs: The Work Behind the Scenes, which is available for open access.

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In the early days of the pandemic, communities began singing together over balconies, banging pans, and engaging in other forms of collective support, release, and creativity. Artists have also been creatively responding to this global event. In this episode, we explore how artists help us deal with a crisis such as COVID-19 by documenting, preserving, and helping us process our experiences. San Francisco artist James Gouldthorpe created a visual journal starting at the very onset of the pandemic to record its personal, societal, and historical impacts. We spoke with Gouldthorpe and Dominic Montagu, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

See a selection of James Gouldthorpe’s artwork from the COVID Artifacts series on Issues.org.

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Social media platforms like Facebook and Spotify analyze huge quantities of data from users before feeding selections back as personal “memories.” How do the algorithms select which content to turn into memories? And how does this feature affect the way we remember--and even what we think memory is? We spoke to David Beer, professor of sociology at the University of York, about how algorithms and classifications play an increasingly important role in producing and shaping what we remember about the past.

Recommended reading:

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Could we create more knowledge by changing the way we do scientific research?  We spoke with NASA’s Psyche mission’s principal investigator and ASU Interplanetary Initiative vice president Lindy Elkins-Tanton about the limitations of “hero science,” and how she is using an inclusive model where collaborative teams pursue “profound and important questions.”

Read Lindy Elkins-Tanton’s essay, Time to Say Goodbye to Our Heroes?

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Every Monday afternoon, the Washington, DC, science policy community clicks open an email newsletter from the American Institute of Physics’ science policy news service, FYI,  to learn what they’ve missed. We spoke with Mitch Ambrose and Will Thomas about this amazing must-read: how it comes together in real time and what it reveals about the ever-changing world of science policy itself.

Find FYI’s Trackers and subscribe to their newsletters at aip.org/fyi.

Visit issues.org for more episodes, conversations and articles. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn! Comments? Questions? Tweet us or email us at [email protected].