Imagine being an astronaut and planning for a space mission you know you have no chance of joining; a journey that won’t even happen in your lifetime, or possibly even your children’s. We meet the long-term thinkers and planners – the space visionaries not afraid to think outside the square.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/interstellar-travel/4527070
Tagged with space interstellar science
Ann Druyan is an author and television and film writer & producer whose work is largely concerned with the effects of science and technology on our civilization. She was co-writer with Carl Sagan and Steven Soter of the Emmy and Peabody Award winning television series COSMOS, and as the founder and CEO of COSMOS STUDIOS, she is currently working on a reboot of that series. Ann Druyan served as Creative Director of the NASA Voyager Interstellar Record Project to design a complex message, including music and images, for possible alien civilizations. These golden phonograph records affixed to the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, the fastest moving vehicles ever created by the human species, are now beyond the outermost planets of the solar system on their way to interstellar space. They have a projected shelf life of one billion years. She is the author or co-author of several books, including Comet, which was on the New York Times best seller list for two months. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, written with Carl Sagan, was another New York Times best seller. She is also a credited contributor to the best-selling books Contact, Pale Blue Dot, The Demon-Haunted World and Billions & Billions by Carl Sagan. She was the co-producer and co-creator of Contact, a Warner Brothers motion picture, based on the story she co-wrote with Carl Sagan. Directed by Bob Zemeckis and starring Jodie Foster, Contact was released July 1997. Ann Druyan was married for nearly two decades to Carl Sagan, until his death in December 1996, and subsequently she was the Founder of The Carl Sagan Foundation.
http://www.sidrodrigues.com/2013/03/little-atoms-269-ann-druyan-voyager-cosmos-and-carl-sagan/
Tagged with little atoms science interview nasa space book:author=ann druyan
As senior astronomer of the S.E.T.I. Institute in California tells Dick he has no doubt life exists in other parts of the universe, and believes scientists are getting closer to finding it â itâs just a matter of time.
http://www.thestory.org/stories/2012-03/scanning-alien-signal
A longtime environmental activist ripped up genetically modified crops, but now he eats them.
Tagged with science farming gm crops book:author=mark lynas
Rebecca Morelle looks at some of the new research in this growing area of forensics, including the credibility of ear witness accounts and whether it’s possible to distinguish hoax 999 calls from genuine ones.
Tagged with bbc frontiers science forensic phonetics language linguistics
Jim Al-Khalili talks to Jared Diamond about his journey from the gall bladder to global history via a passion for the birds of Papua New Guinea.
Tagged with bbc science interview book:author=jared diamond
Characters on Star Trek suffer frequent misadventures on the holodeck, a room that creates advanced holograms indistinguishable from reality. But now theoretical physicists such as Brian Greene, host of the recent PBS special The Fabric of the Cosmos, are starting to wonder if every object in the universe isn’t some sort of hologram. Greene talks physics and science fiction in this week’s episode of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/05/geeks-guide-brian-greene/
Computer games aren’t just for fun anymore — they’re also valuable research tools. Scientists are taking complex problems — like trying to figure out how proteins fold and how neural networks work — and turning them into engaging games. And they need your help.
Tagged with science games gaming neuroscience
This week’s show is dedicated to a discussion of the six books shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.
Next week the winner of the prestigious Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books will be announced. Previous winners have included Jared Diamond (twice), Stephen Hawking, Steve Jones, Bill Bryson and Stephen Jay Gould.
To discuss the merits of the shortlisted books (see below), Alok Jha is joined by one of the prize judges, Kim Shillinglaw, who is commissioning editor for science and natural history at BBC TV, and by science writer Ruth Francis, formerly of head of press at Nature Publishing Group.
During the course of this week the Guardian will review all the books online. We’re also giving away two complete sets of the shortlisted titles in our usual science trivia competition.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/audio/2012/nov/19/science-weekly-podcast-science-book-prize
This year’s winner of the prestigious Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, James Gleick, discusses The Information. Plus, will we see a Briton on the moon in our lifetimes?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/audio/2012/dec/03/science-weekly-podcast-royal-society-book-prize
Tagged with science information book:author=james gleick