Science Clear+Vivid Podcast

Science Clear+Vivid Podcast

With support from The Kavli Foundation, Clear+Vivid presents this special series on the power of basic scientific research – from the pure to the practical. What is curiosity-driven research? Why does it matter? How does it play a role in transforming our lives? Where does basic research take place and by whom? Why is investing in basic research essential to society? Host Alan Alda leads conversations with 10 guests discussing these topics and more, each sharing their point of view and experience about basic science and their personal stories – what got them interested in or involved in science. Science Clear+Vivid runs concurrent with Clear+Vivid Season 10 (October - November) and will be released each Thursday.

Episodes

September 1, 2021 42 mins

A scientist fluent in the atomic properties of materials like glass and steel and wood, Anna Ploszajski wanted the hands-on experience of how craftspeople use them. The result is her book, Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning Through Making.

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You may not realize it, but you are subtly revising and updating your memories all the time – to keep them, as Daphna Shohamy puts it, “nimble,” and so better able to help you chart both the present and the future.

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As a young Italian physics student, Caterina Vernieri was lucky enough to join the team hunting for the most elusive and highly-prized fundamental particle of all – the Higgs boson – just as it was found. She is now leading a team building the detector that may reveal the Higgs’ secrets.

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Having helped develop and install a camera to gaze the heavens with unprecedented resolution, Marcelle Soares Santos was part of the team that used the camera to capture an unprecedented record of a massive cosmic explosion.

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August 4, 2021 42 mins

An unknown but very clever cockatoo in Sydney Australia invented a novel way of raiding trash bins. Teaming with citizen scientists, Lucy Aplin and her team tracked how cockatoos throughout the city soon picked up the same trick.

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July 28, 2021 40 mins

Tiny satellites, catching a ride to space, can improve weather forecasting and even help spot planets outside the solar system.

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With ultra-thin fibers and minute magnetic particles, Polina Anikeeva and her team are developing new ways to tap into the brain. Her ultimate goal is to understand and treat brain diseases like Parkinson’s.

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Dangling from a balloon the size of a football stadium miles above the South Pole, a payload built by astrophysicist Abby Vieregg peers down at the ice looking for messenger particles from the most energetic places in the universe.

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July 7, 2021 43 mins

She not only cares passionately about the large and ferocious animals she studies. Rae Wynn-Grant also has a passion and a talent for getting the rest of us to care about them too.

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June 30, 2021 40 mins

The mightiest events in the entire universe – when black holes collide – create ripples in space-time now being detected by the most sensitive instruments ever built – and are opening up a new era in astronomy.

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Beronda Montgomery suggests we humans have a lot to learn from the surprising ways plants connect, communicate and collaborate.

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Alan and Science Clear+Vivid’s executive producer Graham Chedd preview the new season.

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June 9, 2021 35 mins

It’s not often that cuttlefish go viral, but that’s what happened when Alex Schnell published the results of her experiments showing that cuttlefish perform well in a version of the famous marshmallow test used to test self-control in children. 

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By coaxing skin cells to become brain cells in a dish, Alysson Muotri hopes to learn how early brain development can go wrong in conditions like autism or epilepsy – and how our brains differ from those of our cousins, the Neanderthals.

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May 26, 2021 39 mins

During brain surgery, Dr. Edward Chang can record the brain’s electrical activity while the patient speaks – then reproduce the spoken words. His goal is to develop a device that will give a voice to people who have lost their ability to speak.

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While still working on her PhD Shriya Srinivasan invented a way that allows someone with a missing limb to move and feel their prosthesis as naturally as if it were part of them.

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May 12, 2021 37 mins

Ev Fedorenko is in awe of her 3 1/2 year old daughter’s ability to soak up language – and as a neuroscientist, Ev’s goal is to one day understand how her daughter’s brain is doing it. Meanwhile she is tackling questions like – can we think without language? And just where in the brain is language anyway?

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May 5, 2021 28 mins

Audrey Winkelsas has a rare genetic disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy. While it limits her physical abilities, it has helped ignite her passion for science as she works at the laboratory bench – aided by her mother – to find a novel medication to help SMA patients manage the disease

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April 29, 2021 39 mins

Brothers Eugene and Kevin Shenderov escaped with their parents from the Soviet Union shortly after being exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl explosion. They are now physician researchers whose personal experience shapes both their research and their relationship to their patients.

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As a Black female professor, Chanda Prescod Weinstein is a rarity in her field. And she relishes the fact that everything that we see and experience in our lives – including the stars in the sky – are themselves rarities in the cosmos.

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid

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