Jim al-Khalili talks to the astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell about missing out a Nobel Prize, sexism in science and a strange smudge in the data from a radio telescope. While others dismissed this smudge as insignificant, Jocelyn revealed a series of strange flashing signals. They might have been evidence of faulty radio telescope or even messages from a little green man; but Jocelyn thought otherwise and her determination to get to the bottom of it all, led to one of the most exciting discoveries in 20th century astronomy, the discovery of pulsars, those dense cores of collapsed stars.
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Tagged with “life”
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The Life Scientific: Jocelyn Bell-Burnell
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On Point: George Church and Synthetic Biology
Synthetic biology can sound kind of bland. Like polyester pants. Nylon stockings. Synthetic – no big deal.
But think about it. Synthetic biology. Biology fully, deeply, maybe radically remade by man. It’s well underway.
Re-engineering biology to make food, fuel, medicine. Seeds that grow into houses. Stronger, smarter humans. Maybe even bring back the dead. The extinct
My guest today has written about finding an “extremely adventurous” woman to give birth to a Neanderthal. And he’s not kidding.
This hour, On Point: synthetic biology creating new and very old life.
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Doppelgangers | This American Life
Calamari is on one side of the plate, sliced hog rectums are on the other. Which is which? We got a tip about a meat plant selling pig intestines as fake calamari, wondered if it could be true, and decided to investigate. Doppelgangers, doubles, evil twins and not-so-evil twins, this week. Fred Armisen co-hosts with Ira Glass.
Tagged with doppelgangers this american life
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Seth Godin on the good life project
Tagged with seth godin good life
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Paul Davies: Are we alone in the universe?
Is intelligent life trying to communicate with us from space? Professor Paul Davies explores the potential and limits of research into the origin and evolution of life, and the search for life beyond Earth. Has ET maybe visited our planet ages ago and left us a message? At the Australian National University, Paul Davies discussed his latest book The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe?
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The Quest for Immortality — FastForward Radio
Hosts Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon discuss the quest for immortality, which has been with humanity for a long time — perhaps since the very beginning, and which has done much to shape the world in which we live. New organizations are emerging with a whole new take on the proposition that life can be extended indefinitely.
How do we get from here to there? The phases might look something like this:
Life Extension
Durable Digital Replacements
Substrate Mobility
Immortality
So, will some of us live forever? And what does that even mean?
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How Companies Are ‘Defining Your Worth’ Online
One of the fastest-growing online businesses is the business of spying on Internet users. Using sophisticated software that tracks people’s online movements through the Web, companies collect the information and sell it to advertisers.
Every time you click a link, fill out a form or visit a website, advertisers are working to collect personal information about you, says Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. They then target ads to you based on that information.
On Wednesday’s Fresh Air, Turow — the author of the book The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth — details how companies are tracking people through their computers and cellphones in order to personalize the ads they see.
[Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]
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Dimitar Sasselov: The Life of Super-Earths
Astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, director of Harvard’s Origins of Life Initiative, joins us to discuss his new book "The Life of Super-Earths" and to explain why he thinks planets larger than Earth offer the best prospects for finding life as we know it.
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Robert J. Sawyer on Humanity 2.0 Robert J. Sawyer on Humanity 2.0
What will it mean to be human in the future? Uploading consciousness into virtual worlds and prolonging life through biotechnology are already being contemplated. Canada’s leading science fiction writer, Robert J. Sawyer, offers his insights in a lecture entitled Humanity 2.0, produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada.
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Cambridge Nights: Juan Pérez Mercader on Life and Astrobiology
http://cambridgenights.media.mit.edu/index.php/2011/juan-perez-mercader
Juan Pérez Mercader talks to us about the origins of life and astrobiology. Juan Pérez Mercader directs the Synthetic Life project at Harvard’s Origin of Life Inititative.
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