The Wow! Signal Podcast

This is the last recording I will make for this podcast. It is time to finally move on.

I began this podcast with Episode 1 near the end of 2012 when I was in my mid 50s. Although we have been on a very long hiatus since Episode 50, I had the intention that when I retired I would either bring the podcast out of hiatus or permanently end it. As I got closer to that time, I understood that I only wanted to restart the podcast if I could put a fair bit of time and energy into it and put out frequent, quality content. Like the previous episodes, the new ones would be commercial free, audio only, go as deep as we could on our core topics, and would sometimes refer to Douglas Adams.

Now that I am retired, and things are much more real, I have decided that I am not going to do this. I won't revisit all my thinking about this, but part of it is that similar content is now widely available on multiple platforms, often accompanied by skillfully produced video. David Kipping's Cool Worlds is a good example.

So, while I am not necessarily exiting podcasting forever, I am going to meet the commitment that I made to myself not to fade the Wow! Signal without notice, but to unambiguously announce the end of the podcast while expressing my deep gratitude to everyone who participated and who made the content much, much better than I could have made it by myself. I'm proud of our 50 Episodes and 34 Bursts - shorter, more focused episodes - and even the pubs I hosted and enjoyed immensely.

The podcast rss feed and the wowsignalpodcast.com domain will remain up for some time to come, but if you want to listen to any past episodes, I suggest you go to wowsignalpodcast.com and download the .mp3 files that interest you to listen to them at your convenience. I will have many of the episodes available on YouTube as well. If there is an episode you would really like a transcript of, I can probably supply one - just get in touch and I'll see what I can do.

I'm going to thank everyone I can think of, and I apologize in advance if I left anyone out. I'll start with the folks who actually helped me create the podcast, and often had the idea for an episode or burst: Daniela DePaulis, Nick Nielsen, James Garrison, and Mike Mongo. I'm sorry I've been out of touch and hope we can meet up someday.

Now, my many great guests. I'll list their names now. Some of them appeared more than once. There were people I never had on that I regret missing, and if you think I should have emailed you with an appearance request, you may well be right.

Our first guest was Antonio Paris, founder of Aerial Phenomena Investigations. This was followed by:

Geoffrey Landis (twice)

Nikola Danaylov

David Grinspoon (3 times)

Seth Shostak

Bing Garthright

Duncan Forgan (twice), Isaac Stott, Ben Wright McGee

Fraser Cain

Paul Shuch

Geoff Marcy + Ana Heras

Daniel Cartin

Nicholas Joll

Heath Rezabek, Robin Hanson

Steven Dick, Betul Kacar

Duncan Lunan , Alan Penny

Abel Mendez (twice)

Bob Dixon

JL Galache + Duncan Lunan

Tom Barbalet

Andrew Siemion

Martin Elvis

Bradley Schaefer

Tabetha Boyajian

Stella Kafka

Bradley Schaefer

Douglas Vakoch (twice)

Nathaniel Comfort

Ben Montet

Doug Vakoch

Jon Lomborg

Frank White

Sofia Sheikh

Daniel Oberhaus

Beatriz Villarroel

Julia Demarines

Adam Dipert

Stella Kafka

Paolo Costaño

Wade Roush

David Skogerboe

Chelsea Haramia

Thomas Moynihan

In addition, the following people were guests on Bursts:

Mike Mongo

Nora Noffke

Daniel Cartin

Jeff Nosanov

Josh Grindlay

Jason Hessels

Beatriz Villarroel (twice)

Tabetha Boyajian (twice)

David Blank

Also, thanks to our Patreon donors and our Wow! Signal Pub participants, and Erin Carr and Joyce Abma for voiceover help.

Finally, thanks to all the musicians who let me use their music: Ahleuchatistas, Mike Griffin, DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd, Sleep Research Facility, House Band of the Universe, George Hrab, Eben Brooks, and many others.

Well, everything ends sooner or later, and this podcast is ending now. It ran for 12 years, we had a good run, and I am happy I did it.

I hope I'll run into you in real life, or on other platforms or in other projects. I have largely curtailed my social media presence in recent years, but you can still find me on Bluesky. Hey, we may even do another pub someday. See you there?

We welcome back Professor Abel Mendez from the University of Puerto Rico to tell us about recent research into data from the Arecibo radio telescope focused on cold hydrogen clouds and a proposed natural explanation for the Big Ear Wow! Signal that we covered in depth in Episode 19.

We recommend you download the draft paper so you can follow along.

Arecibo Wow! I: An Astrophysical Explanation for the Wow! Signal

Our episode (#19) with Big Ear scientist Bob Dixon

A previous appearance by Abel Mendez on this podcast.

Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico

The Arecibo Radio Telescope Collapse

The FAST Radio Telescope

Astrophysical MASERs (microwave lasers)

Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: Masers

Population Inversion (Wikipedia)

The Hydrogen 21 cm line

MASERs, Interstellar and Circumstellar, Theory.

Host, editor, producer: Paul Carr

Music: Quincas Moreira (Black Swan), George Hrab (Far), Jason Robinson

Episode 50 of the Wow! Signal Podcast by Paul Carr is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Interview recorded: 11 July 2021

Released: 16 July 2021

Duration: 21 minutes, 33 seconds

Beatriz Villarroel discusses her latest VASCO paper in Nature Scientific Reports, "Exploring nine simultaneously occurring transients on April 12th 1950."

Villarroel+ , Exploring Nine simultaneously occurring transients on April 12th 1950.

Burst 19: Our Sky Now and Then (August 2016)

Episode 41: The Vanishing Sources with Beatriz Villarroel (November 2019)

The Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations project: I. USNO objects missing in modern sky surveys and follow-up observations of a "missing star

The Palomar Digital Sky Survey

Gran Telescopio Canarias

The United States Nuclear Testing Program

Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Music: Ahleuchatistas and Erika Lloyd

Released: 4 February 2021

Duration: 58 minutes 44 seconds

Co-hosts Paul Carr and Daniela DePaulis are joined by author Thomas Moynihan. The subject is the idea of human extinction and how it evolved into our present day understand of Existential Risk.

I am a writer and researcher from the UK. In 2019, I completed a PhD at Oriel College on the history of human extinction. Currently, I am a visiting Research Associate in History at St Benet's College, Oxford University, and I am working for Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute with a grant from the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative. I am interested in the history of existential risk and of existential hope: that is, how people first came to understand the perils and promises that face us as a species. I see this as the central philosophical drama of the modern world: how we came to appreciate our position—and precarity—as intelligent beings within an otherwise seemingly silent and sterile universe. My goal is to reveal how contemporary research into global risks can be seen as part of the wider story of our 'coming of age' as a civilisation and a species.

Thomas Moynihan - https://thomasmoynihan.xyz

X-Risk at MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/x-risk

Mary Shelley - The Last Man

Churchill - Shall We All Commit Suicide?

The Order of the Dolphin

Frank Drakę: A Speculation on the Influence of Biological Immortality on SETI

Natural Selection of Stellar Civilizations by the Limits of Growth

The Jaws of Darkness

The Ethics of METI

Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis

Producer: Paul Carr

Music: Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Solar Arkestra, DJ Spooky

Released: 28 November 2020

Duration: 70 minutes, 39 seconds

Co-hosts Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis engage philosopher Chelsea Haramia on the ethics of sending signals into space that might be received by intelligent beings in the cosmos.

For more information about this episode, include a rich set of links, please see the blog entry for Episode 48 at:

https://wowsignalpodcast.com

Chelsea Haramia received her PhD in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she specialized in ethics. She is now an assistant professor in the philosophy department at Spring Hill College. She is also co-editor of the online journal 1000-Word Philosophy, which houses a growing set of original 1000-word essays on philosophical questions, figures, and arguments aimed at an audience of philosophers and non-philosophers alike. She has published in the areas of normative ethics, bioethics, animal ethics, aesthetics, feminist philosophy, and astrobiology ethics. Her current work involves ethical and metaethical analyses of space exploration and of the search for intelligent life in particular.

Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniel De Paulis

Producer: Paul Carr

Music: DJ Spooky, Nest, Erika Lloyd.

The Wow! Signal is published under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.

Released: 7 November 2020

Duration: 57 minutes, 36 seconds

Co hosts Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis welcome space historian David Skogerboe to talk about the pro-space activism of Arthur C. Clarke.

David Skogerboe is a space historian and science communicator. He recently earned his MSc in the History and Philosophy of Science from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he focused his research on the intersection of space science, science fiction, and science communication. During his masters, he interned at the NASA History Division in Washington DC, where he spent countless hours perusing the most interesting historical reference collections on the planet. He is presently a freelance writer and editor while he awaits the emergence of his first child, and he hopes to soon begin a PhD and a fruitful career as a professional nerd.

The Godfather of Satellites: Arthur C. Clarke and the Battle for Narrative Space in the Popular Culture of Spaceflight, 1945-1995, David Skogerboe, full master's thesis

Apollo 12: Why Don't You Know Me? You Should., David Skogerboe, NASA News & Notes

Wireless World Feb. & Oct. 1945, Scans of Clarke's articles proposing the geostationary satellite

How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village, Arthur C. Clarke (1992), Clarke's overview of the impact of communication technology on society

The Making of a Moon: The Story of the Earth Satellite Program, Arthur C. Clarke (1957), Clarke's pre-history of satellite technology, first published before Sputnik

The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke (1979), Clarke's sci-fi that features the space elevator and "project clean-up"

Arthur C. Clarke's official website

An expansive bibliography of Clarke's work. An impressive reminder of just how hard he pushed to propel humans into space, and keep them there.

Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis

Music: DJ Spooky and Lloyd Rogers

Released: 6 April 2020

Duration: 53 minutes, 55 seconds

Author and podcaster Wade Roush talks about his forthcoming book from MIT Press, Extraterrestrials. The book covers astrobiology, SETI, the Fermi paradox and more for a literate but non-specialist audience.

WADE ROUSH, a Boston-based science and technology journalist, is a columnist at Scientific American and the producer and host of Soonish, an independent podcast about the future. He has served as Boston bureau reporter for Science, senior editor and San Francisco bureau chief at MIT Technology Review, chief correspondent and San Francisco editor for Xconomy, and acting director of MIT's Knight Science Journalism program. He holds a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT.

For more information, please visit us at https://wowsignalpodcast.com

The Extraterrestrial page at MIT Press

Six Strange Facts about Oumuamua

Sofia Sheikh and the Nine Axes

The Vanishing Sources

Where is Everybody?

Stephen Webb's Book on the Fermi Paradox

Natalie Cabrol

Seth Shostak on the Zoo Hypothesis

The MIT Technology Review

The Hub and Spoke Podcast Network

The Soonish podcast

The podcast contact page

Wow! Signal Live

Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Music: Lloyd Rogers and Jason Robinson

The Wow! Signal is released under the Creative Commons Attribution License

Released: 31 March 2020

Duration: 54 minutes, 8 seconds

Co-hosts Paul Carr and Daniela DePaulis welcome Dr. Paola Castaño to talk about her research among the science teams working on the International Space Station.

For more information, please visit our blog at https://wowsignalpodcast.com

Paola Castaño is a sociologist of science. She recently completed a Newton International Fellow funded by The British Academy at Cardiff University and is working on a book about the meanings and valuations of scientific research on the International Space Station. On the basis of ethnographic work following the life course of experiments sent to the station, the book examines the fields of particle physics, plant biology and biomedical research. She has a PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago, and has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, the Free University of Berlin, and Waseda University in Tokyo.

The International Space Station goes under the microscope

Human Research Program Investigators' Workshop 2020: Day 1

Cosmic-ray positron fraction measurement from 1 to 30 GeV with AMS-01

Scott Kelly's genes and NASA's twin study on him, explained

Keyworkers

Daniela De Paulis on the Unseen Podcast

Daniela De Paulis discusses Cogito in Episode 35.

Cogito in Space

Castaño's article on Cogito

The Wow! Signal podcast on Reddit

Our YouTube Channel

Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis

Producer: Paul Carr

Music: DJ Spooky, Blue Dot Sessions, Lee Maddeford, and Lloyd Rogers

Released: 20 March 2020

Duration: 31 minutes, 42 seconds

Astronomer David Blank responded to our invitation to comment on the Villarroel+ paper we covered in Episode 41, which he describes as "very fascinating."

The VASCO project: I. USNO objects missing in modern sky surveys and follow-up observations of a "missing star"

Dorrit Hoffleit and her autobiography: Misfortunes as Blessings in Disguise

Bradley Schaefer and the Harvard Plates

Josh Grindlay, PI of DASCH

The Very Large Array Sky Survey

The VASCO Citizen Science Project

Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Music: Lloyd Rogers

Released: 22 January 2020

Live recording: 20 January 2020

Duration: 66 minutes 45 seconds

Thread: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Host Paul Carr along with Daniela De Paulis and Ciro Villa welcome astronomer Stella Kafka, director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). We talk about the recent and possibly unprecedented dimming of Betelgeuse, among many other astronomy topics.

For complete show notes, please visit https://wowsignalpodcast.com

Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Panelists: Daniela De Paulis, Ciro Villa

Music: Claudio Nuñes, Felipe Sarro (playing Ravel)

Software: Zoom, OBS, Auphonic, Reaper, OS X Mojave

Hardware: Apple, Shure, Focusrite, Cloud, Elgato, Logitech