The Show About Science

Alan Gratz is the New York Times bestselling author of 18 novels for young readers, including Ground Zero, Refugee, Allies, Grenade, Prisoner B-3087, Projekt 1065, and Ban This Book. His latest novel, Two Degrees, puts climate change front and center as four different kids navigate the threats of global warming. He joins Nate on this episode to talk about the science behind the book.

No spoilers episode: https://on.soundcloud.com/oYW8g

Music on this episode comes from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme song was composed by Jeff, Dan, and Theresa Brooks.

DALL-E 2 is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from written text descriptions. Mark Chen is a research scientist at OpenAI, the company the created DALL-E 2. He joins Nate on this episode to explain how AI is putting the art in artificial intelligence.

Sign up to make your own images with DALL-E 2:

See what my friend, Olivia, and I made with DALL-E 2:

Music on this episode comes from Sounds Like An Earful and Epidemic Sound. Our theme song was written by Jeff, Dan, and Theresa Brooks.

Alan Nathan has been a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois since 1977, but for the past 10 years, he has expanded his research interests to focus on the physics of baseball. His work looks at the dynamics of the collision between the ball and bat and the aerodynamics of a baseball in flight. On this episode of The Show About Science, he joins Nate to talk about what every baseball player should understand about physics and how that knowledge could improve their game.

Read more about Alan's work here: http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/

The History Channel show, “Kings of Pain,” follows wildlife biologist Adam Thorn and professional animal handler Rob “Caveman” Alleva as they get bitten and stung by some of the most dangerous animals and vicious stinging insects in the world. On this episode of The Show About Science, Nate goes behind the scenes to learn how they're working to create a complete and comprehensive pain index that will ultimately help save lives.

"Kings of Pain" returns with a new season on Thursday, May 26th. Learn more here: https://www.history.com/shows/kings-of-pain

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Proteins are one of the main drivers of human diseases. Scientists are now mapping all of the proteins in the human body in a similar way to how the Human Genome Project mapped genes. On this episode of The Show About Science, Neil Kelleher, PhD invites Nate to his lab on the campus of Northwestern University to explain how it all works.

Learn more about Neil's work here: http://proteomics.northwestern.edu/

Why don't I have a tail? That's the question that Bo Xia asked himself when he was a little kid. Bo is now a PhD candidate at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Bo's latest research attempts to answer his childhood question by identifying the mutation that resulted in ancestral humans losing their tails. On this episode of The Show About Science, Nate and Bo talk about his work and why this mutation may have happened.

Read more about Bo's work:

Hidden ten miles south of Hastings, Michigan and only accessible via an old gravel road is the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute, a nature center and biological field station. On this episode of The Show About Science, we meet Ellen Holste, PhD. Ellen is the Community Program Manager at the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute and our tour guide into the amazing world of fungi. Be prepared to learn and have some fun as we scour the prairie for all sorts of fungus.

Learn more about the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute: https://www.cedarcreekinstitute.org/

Listen to more episodes of The Show About Science: https://theshowaboutscience.com/

Special thanks to Sara Lien Edelman at the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute for helping make this episode possible.

Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist at Arizona State University where he leads the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. His research focuses mainly on quantum gravity, the theory of quantum black holes and the nature of time. On this episode of The Show About Science, he joins Nate to talk about the science of time travel.

Learn more about Paul Davies and the Beyond Center: http://beyond.asu.edu/

Wael Farah is a research scientist at the SETI Institute, where he searches the stars for alien life. The Allen Telescope Array (ATA), where Wael conducts his research, is located at the Hat Creek Observatory in Northern California. The ATA is a collection of 42 relatively small dishes (antennas) that are designed to work together for SETI searches.

In this episode of The Show About Science, Nate talks to Wael about how the Allen Telescope Array works, fast radio bursts, SETI, and what might lure extraterrestrial life to earth.

Learn more about SETI and the Allen Telescope Array here: https://www.seti.org/ata