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1. SOS021 Biofuels
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Between the high cost of fuel, and the environmental impacts of fossil fuel use, fuels derived from biological sources are receiving a lot of attention these days. But how efficient are they, and what are the hidden costs (both financial and ecological) of their production and use?
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public date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:59:42 -0600 - (24 MB Type: MPEG)
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2. SOS020 Wet Mars / White Mars
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After a break (thanks to a surge of activity at work and home), SOS is back -- this episode, with a two-threaded take on recent events on the red planet. Tune in to hear both the human and geological history of water on Mars, and a bit of background on the argument you'll hear running in the backgr
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public date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:23:26 -0600 - (21 MB Type: MPEG)
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3. SOS019 The Evolution of the Theory of Evolution, Part 2 of 2
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In episode 18, I talked about the development of evolutionary theory leading up to Darwin and his contemporaries. Now it's time to turn to the man himself -- so with the background... well... in the background, I'll talk about what Darwin did and didn't do. I'll also talk about a number of cases in
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public date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:15:11 -0700 - (29 MB Type: MPEG)
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4. SOS018 The Evolution of the Theory of Evolution, Part 1 of 2
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Today, the 12th of February, 2008, is the 199th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Since this has been dubbed "Darwin Day," and all sorts of events are planned for the upcoming year commemorating Darwin's turning the "big 200" (as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of his "Ori
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public date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:46:01 -0700 - (24 MB Type: MPEG)
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5. SOS017 A Tale of Two Craters, and a Shoemaker
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While sorting through pictures for some "Scientific tourist" blog posts, it occurred to me that two of them together told an interesting tale. Listen in on this episode, and find out how two craters -- one in Arizona and one in Bavaria -- helped a man named Eugene Shoemaker reshape how geology is c
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public date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:16:55 -0700 - (22 MB Type: MPEG)
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6. SOS016 Electric Lighting
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Between discussions of global climate change, and the ever-rising cost of energy, people are taking a hard look at the costs of lighting. Listen in to this episode, and I'll attempt to (ahem...) enlighten you on the history and potential future of this technology.
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public date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:09:29 -0700 - (27 MB Type: MPEG)
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7. SOS015 The Solar Cycle
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There's been a recent surge of news about solar activity and the solar cycle -- and of course, variations in solar activity always seem to get brought into discussions of climate change. Listen in this week, and I'll give you some quick background on solar physics, the solar cycle, and how it all i
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public date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 07:29:45 -0700 - (25 MB Type: MPEG)
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8. SOS014 Hybrid Cars
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If you're like many people, you'd like to help do something about climate change through the choices you make and the way you live. Celebrities and the mass media (among others) are presenting hybrid vehicles as a big step forward in this regard. But left out of this rush to technology is any discu
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public date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 07:01:39 -0700 - (20 MB Type: MPEG)
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9. SOS013 A Pigment of His Imagination
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If you've been following the news at all lately, you've probably heard an earful about James Watson -- Nobel laureate, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, and never ending source of nausea-inducing, off-the-wall statements. Watson stirred up a bit of controversy lately by essentially stating tha
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public date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:09:08 -0600 - (26 MB Type: MPEG)
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10. SOS012 Getting to Sputnik
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Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Earth's first artificial satellite -- Sputnik 1. Lots of news sites are covering various aspects of this anniversary -- mostly dealing with what's happened in space in the intervening 5 decades, and what we may see in the future. What seems to be gett
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public date: Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:30:20 -0600 - (29 MB Type: MPEG)
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11. SOS011 Colony Collapse Disorder
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Listen to this episode, and you'll learn about honeybees, how important they are to modern agriculture, and how damaging something called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has become -- at least, in the U.S. and Europe. Also, some recent developments in the study of CCD have received excited (if uneven
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public date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:53:00 -0600 - (20 MB Type: MPEG)
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12. SOS010 Quantum Mechanics
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Now that we've dispensed with the preliminaries, it's time for some much odder physics than you're likely used to -- we're getting down to the sub-atomic level with quantum mechanics. This week's episode is the third in a series on post-Newtonian physics -- and none require you to do any math. If y
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public date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:16:41 -0600 - (18 MB Type: MPEG)
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13. SOS009 Stem Cells
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Stem cells -- everybody talks about them, but how much do all these talking heads really know about them? Listen in to this episode, and you'll get a basic background in stem cells, and why you should care about them. What stem cells are, what they're useful for, what kinds have ethical concerns
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public date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 16:39:38 -0600 - (21 MB Type: MPEG)
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14. SOS008 General Relativity
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Now that we have some of the preliminaries out of the way, it's time to take a quick look at General Relativity. Fortunately for the physics impared, it's actually a bit easier to get your head around than is Special Relativity -- and you get black holes, the big bang, and gravitational lensing in t
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public date: Sun, 20 May 2007 20:27:50 -0600 - (16 MB Type: MPEG)
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15. SOS007 Meet the Neanderthals, Part 2
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Now that you have a little background on the history of Neanderthal studies from episode 5, it's time to dig a bit deeper. This episode is all about how we may be related to them -- as ancestors, or just distant cousins. Recent advances in technology have made it easier to tease information from a
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public date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:57:16 -0600 - (20 MB Type: MPEG)
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16. SOS006 Special Relativity
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So, you may be asking, what's so special about relativity? As preparation for some future episodes, you'll need at least a little background in modern physics. So this week's episode is the first in a series on post-Newtonian physics. If you're new to the podcast, you'll want to check out episode
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public date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:10:41 -0600 - (18 MB Type: MPEG)
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17. SOS005 Meet the Neanderthals
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As a prelude to some episodes on human evolution and our historical relatives, I thought it would be helpful to start out with a bit of history. So this episode is devoted to the history of Neanderthal discoveries, and how those discoveries were viewed culturally.
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public date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 09:36:31 -0600 - (22 MB Type: MPEG)
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18. SOS004 Physics: A Brief History
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In future episodes, I'll be talking about various turning points in our understanding of the universe around us -- so it made sense to me to start with a little historical context. From the first theories of the solar system to the "theory of everything" in under 27 minutes!
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public date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 21:28:37 -0600 - (25 MB Type: MPEG)
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19. SOS003 History in the rocks
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Anti-evolution forces like to make a lot of noise about fossils, in particular about how we don't have a continuous set of fossils showing every step in the evolution of every species on the planet. What they're misunderstanding is that it's hard to make a fossil in the first place -- and harder st
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public date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:48:14 -0600 - (22 MB Type: MPEG)
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20. SOS002 Climate Basics
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Since the fourth IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report is in the process of being released, I thought it'd be a good time to give everybody some background. So this episode is devoted to the basics of climate science, as well as a very brief history of the field. In a future epis
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public date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 17:34:55 -0700 - (23 MB Type: MPEG)
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