ArcanaImperii

Arianna interviews Dr. Bell Burnell to discuss her discovery of pulsars and other astrophysics topics. Dr. Bell Burnell discovered pulsars in 1967, which was later awarded the nobel prize in physics, although it was given to her supervisor, and not her. She was later awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundemental Physics, and donated all 2.3 million pounds of the prize money to the Institute of Physics to help underrepresented people become physics researchers.

Arianna talks to Kyle York about entrepreneurship and venture capital investing. Kyle York is the CEO and co-founder of York IE, a venture capital firm. He also was the Chief Revenue and Strategy Officer of Dyn, a DNS technology company in Manchester, NH, which was aquired by Oracle. Topics discussed include cloud computing, cybersecurity, venture investing, and career advice for students interested in entrepreneurship.

Arianna speaks with Laura Edelson, a PhD Candidate in Computer Science at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, who is a team member on The Online Political Transparency Project researching political bias of Facebook ads. Laura Edelson previously worked in software engineering at Palantir. Topics will examine ad strategies, international aspects, and the upcoming 2020 election. More money will be spent on Facebook ads in the 2020 election cycle than any previous year. Laura speaks to why universal data transparency is important and why transparency in political ads is vital to ensuring safe and fair elections. 

Arianna Roberts and Gabrielle Roberts talk to Jennifer Patrice Sims, PhD and Chinelo L. Njaka, PhD about their new book, Mixed-Race in the US and UK: Comparing the Past, Present, and Future. Arianna and Gabrielle discuss the similarities and differences in the experiences of mixed race people in the UK and USA. Topics of discussion include the microaggressions mixed-race people face, history of mixed-race in the UK and the US, details on crafting the book together, etc. 

Arcana Imperii's host, Arianna Roberts, will discuss ethics in technology with Professor Mark McKenna. Professor McKenna is a law professor at Notre Dame. He teaches Information Privacy Law and first year Torts class. He is also the the faculty director of Notre Dame's program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He is now running the Technology Ethics Lab at Notre Dame. With the rise of technology and AI, ethics in technology is becoming increasingly important. Arianna will cover topics such as biases in AI, transparent AI/explainable AI, job displacement as a result of technology. etc.

Massachusetts has been one of the hardest hit states during the COVID pandemic, with many healthcare workers serving patients tirelessly to combat the spread. There have been almost 100,000 cases and almost 6,000 dead in Massachusetts alone. On today's podcast we interview Olga Pyatnychko, a registered nurse working in Massachusetts directly with COVID-19 patients. Olga brings her experience and advice onto the podcast, and enlightens us on the current situation within hospitals in America.  

Arcana Imperii begins a series of podcasts on the devastating pandemic of coronavirus. Our first interview is with our local Congresswoman Lori Trahan to focus on the impacts of coronavirus on our region especially regarding education, transportation, and the path forward. In upcoming episodes we'll interview healthcare workers on the front lines fighting to save patients' lives. Lori Trahan is the Representative of the 3rd District in Massachusetts. She was Chief of Staff for Marty Meehan and a graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Business School. In late March, she voted for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act – a historic stimulus package designed to help families, workers, and small businesses stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. In April, Congresswoman Trahan voted for the Heroes Act, legislation that will provides $3 trillion in immediate relief to front line workers, additional financial assistance to working families, and enhance oversight of nursing home facilities.

Arianna and Gabrielle interview Dr. Carolyn Elya on how microbes hijack insect nervous systems to control them. Dr. Elya studies a fungus that infects fruit flies, invading their nervous system and eating them from the inside out. The fungus controls the fly nervous system to climb to a high point in the forest in order to better spread the fungus spores to infect new flies and insects. We speak to Dr. Elya about the complex relationships of the organisms and the impact of climate change on the forest ecosystems.  Dr. Elya is a postdoc at Harvard University, a was a researcher at HHMI, she received a Ph.D from the Molecular and Cell Biology department at UC Berkeley in May 2017. 

Gabrielle and Arianna speak with University of Rochester professor Adam Frank about his new book Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth, a book on climate change, sustainability and alien civilizations. ADAM Frank is a physics professor at the prestigious University of RochesterHis scientific research has focused on computational astrophysics with an emphasis on star formation and late stages of stellar evolution. Currently his work includes studies of exoplanet atmospheres and astrobiology and exo-civilizations. He is the co-founder of National Public Radio’s Cosmos and Culture blog as well as a regular on-air commentator for All Things Considered He has written a number of books, including The Constant Fire: Beyond the Religion and Science Debate. About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang explores the links between changing conceptions of cosmology and the human experience of time. He also wrote, Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos. His latest book is , Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth, which explores both climate change and the search for alien life in the universe. They also discuss the Drake equation for estimating the possibility of alien civilizations (illustration below from SETI.org)

To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the original War of the Worlds broadcast, Arcana Imperii invited the Boxborough Out of the Box Thespians to perform a parody of the War of the Worlds updated to modern times. The radio play stars Gabrielle and Arianna Roberts, Molly Burke, Nicole Bell, and Harini Ganapathy and was directed and produced by Arianna and Gabrielle.  "The War of the Worlds" original broadcast was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on Sunday, October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by famous filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds (1898). The program caused a widespread panic when it was broadcast 80 years ago.  We hope you enjoy our Halloween special.  Arcana Imperii is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. This means that you are free to copy and reuse any of the material (noncommercially) as long as you tell people where they're from

Gabrielle and Arianna speak with Dion Irish, Commisioner of Boston Elections on election security, cyber hacking, voter participation, and fair elections. They discuss how the public can have confidence in the Massachusetts elections and what steps are being done to insure free and fair elections. Dion Irish talks about what election scenarios keep him up at night and the 2018 Midterm elections in November.

Gabrielle and Arianna examine the anniversery of the cracking of the Enigma cypher by cryptologists at Bletchley Park UK. This episode features an interview with Thomas Briggs, head of learning at Bletchley Park UK. We talk about the Enigma machine, Alan Turing, the role of women at Bletchley, and the future of cryptography. We then travel to The International Museum of WWII in Natick, MA to see and operate six Enigma machines there. We speak with Head of Learning and historian Susan Wilkins at the museum and tour the impressive WWII collection.

Arianna and Gabrielle speak with Barbara L'Italien, currently State Senator from the 2nd Essex and Middlesex District. She was previously the director of government affairs for the Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts, Steve Grossman. From 2003 to January 2011 she was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives representing the 18th Essex District. She is running to replace Niki Tsongas for the 3rd congressional district, who is retiring this year.  The conversation covers Barbara's long history in politics, her views on helping the middle class, on vaccines, healthcare, on housing, and other topics. 

In this episode, Arianna and Gabrielle interview 3rd district congressional candidate Alexandra Chandler. Over her career, she's worked to keep the country safe, working in naval intelligence, including protecting the USA from weapons of mass destruction. Alexandra is the first transgender woman running for the 3rd district. A little over a decade ago, while working in military intelligence, she made the decision to live openly as a woman.  While in law school, Alexandra and her wife Catherine lived in New York City. During the 9/11 attacks Catherine was on a subway train under lower Manhattan when the towers fell. Alexandra spent hours not knowing if she survived. That day, Alexandra made the decision to join the intelligence community, where she served for 12 years in Naval Intelligence preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction from countries like North Korea and Iran and targeting arms smuggling to war zones and terrorist groups.  She is now running against a field of over 10 competitors to fill Niki Tsongas' congressional seat, who is retiring. The discussion covers topics such as renewable energy, college affordability, money in politics, cyber security, the midterm elections, and even Lord of the Rings and Shakespeare. 

Gabrielle and Arianna continue to examine candidates for the local 3rd district congressional race in Massachusetts. Today they speak with Dan Koh. Dan served as the Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Boston from 2014 to 2017, and was General Manager of HuffPost Live and the Chief of Staff to Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post. There is a record number of candidates running for the 3rd district to replace retiring Congression representative Niki Tsongas. Gabrielle and Arianna ask Dan about his stand on the issues and his goals in running.   

Gabrielle and Arianna examine the upcoming local race for the MA 3rd district. There are currently 13 Democrats and 2 Republicans in primaries to replace retiring congressional representative Niki Tsongas. Gabrielle and Arianna will attempt to interview several of the top candidates over the next few episodes of Arcana Imperii, to let local voters know more about the issues, priorities, and capabilities of each candidate.  Rufus Gifford is a former U.S. Ambassador and a candidate for U.S. Congress in Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district. He served as the United States Ambassador to Denmark from 2013 to 2017,and was the Finance Director for Barack Obama's presidential re-election campaign in 2012  

Gabrielle is off this week, fencing Epee at the USA Junior Olympics in Memphis! Arianna talks with Dr.Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) a famous astrophysics professor. Our conversation covers the nature of dark matter, a trip into a super massive black hole, time travel, a day in the life of an astrophysicist, careers in STEM, and other topics! 

In this episode of Arcana, Gabrielle and Arianna examine Gerrymandering. What is Gerrymandering? How do we measure it and determine if it is a problem? This episode will examine the politics of gerrymandering with a discussion with Massachusetts Senator Jamie Eldridge, who is driving a bill in MA to create independent districting commissions. Then we will examine the science of gerrymandering by talking with Tufts University mathematics professor Moon Duchin. Prof. Duchin is leading efforts to examine the quantification of gerrymandering and to teach mathematicians and scientists to be expert witnesses and district map makers.   

Welcome to Arcana Imperii, a new podcast by Arianna and Gabrielle Roberts! This podcast will examine mysteries and hidden knowledge behind news, new technology, literature and cultural trends.  Our first podcast will focus on Justice, looking at examples such as Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, who seeks justic within the law, and comic book superheroes, who act as vigilanties and seek justice outside the law. Our guest for this podcast is Mark Zaid, owner of the comic book store Esquire Comics and also a top national security lawyer in Washington DC and professor at Johns Hopkins University.