Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchHalloween Special: Schrodinger’s Cat
Episode 18
Kim talks with George Gibson about Schrödinger’s cat. This cat is a thought experiment proposed by Erwin Schrödinger, and taken up in correspondence …
3 years, 8 months ago
Lisa Feldman Barrett, "Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain" (Mariner Books, 2020)
Episode 183
Have you ever wondered why you have a brain? Let renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett demystify that big gray blob between your ears. In Seve…
3 years, 8 months ago
Robert P. Crease, "The Leak: Politics, Activists, and Loss of Trust at Brookhaven National Laboratory" (MIT Press, 2022)
Episode 329
In 1997, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory found a small leak of radioactive water near their research reactor. Brookhaven was--and is--a …
3 years, 8 months ago
Nadine Weidman, "Killer Instinct: The Popular Science of Human Nature in Twentieth-Century America" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Episode 12
A historian of science examines key public debates about the fundamental nature of humans to ask why a polarized discourse about nature versus nurtur…
3 years, 8 months ago
The Surprising World of Wasps
Episode 125
Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:
What inspired Professor Sumner to study wasps. That time she ate a slug. Her grad sc…3 years, 8 months ago
On Einstein's Discoveries
Episode 44
Before Albert Einstein, our understanding of space, time, and gravity hadn’t really shifted from the theories that Sir Isaac Newton developed in the …
3 years, 9 months ago
On Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"
Episode 43
Charles Dawin’s 1859 book The Origin of Species introduced his famous theory of evolution. Darwin developed his theories of life and evolution after …
3 years, 9 months ago
Fred Spier, "How the Biosphere Works: Fresh Views Discovered While Growing Peppers" (CRC Press, 2022)
Episode 131
How the Biosphere Works: Fresh Views Discovered While Growing Peppers (CRC Press, 2022) offers a simple and novel theoretical approach to understandi…
3 years, 9 months ago
Beronda L. Montgomery, "Lessons from Plants" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Episode 20
We know that plants are important. They maintain the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. They nourish other living organisms…
3 years, 9 months ago
History, Space, and Getting Things Wrong
Episode 11
In today’s episode of How To Be Wrong we welcome Dr. Steven Dick, retired Chief Historian at NASA and one of the leading historians of space explorat…
3 years, 9 months ago