During 2020, a year of enormous public health crisis as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, the United States spent $37.4 billion dollars improving and updating its nuclear weapons arsenal and launched a new ballistic missile program. This is a gross misuse of not only tax dollars but scientific research and achievement, says science historian Cliff […]
Re-Imagining the World Post-Pandemic and Wildlife During Quarantine
For today’s show, we try to look for silver linings to the COVID-19 crisis. What can we learn from this moment to build a better world? First up, we talk to Rabbi Michael Lerner about his recent piece in Tikkun, “Don’t Waste an Economic Meltdown,” about using this time to usher in a movement for […]
Academic Failure: Falling off the Shoulders of Giants
It is said that if every experiment worked the first time, a graduate student could earn a PhD in under a year. However, we make the best of our mistakes and saddle up for a rough ride! Perpetual Notion Machine host Kelly Schwartz discusses the role that academic catastrophe plays in the lives of scientists. […]
A groundbreaking study of Sakurajima volcano
Producer Will Cushman speaks with geophysicist James Hickey, of the Camborne School of Mines in the UK. Hickey is a co-author of a study published in the journal Scientific Reports in September on Sakurajima volcano in Japan. The study uses groundbreaking methods to model the dangerous volcano’s magma chamber and forecasts that Sakurajima could produce […]
Art in the Arctic – February 4, 2016
In this episode, reporter Matthew Zmudka spoke to, and made a cyanotype with, local artist Anders Zanichkowsky. Preparing for a three-week expedition to the Arctic, Zanichkowsky takes a research approach to his art and studies concepts of space and light in his work. You’ll hear ice, snow, and water as we make a cyanotype on […]
