The Edge

There's a paradox in robotics that says: what's easy for humans is hard for robots, and vice versa. Complex calculations, for instance, are the domain of machines. Simple motor tasks like picking up an object, on the other hand, can stump a robot. That's where our guest comes in. Jeff Mahler has spent his career working on improving the capabilities of robotic object manipulation. After completing his postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley, Mahler went on to co-found Ambi Robotics with Stephen McKinley, David Gealy, Matt Matl, and Professor Ken Goldberg, building AI-powered robots for warehouse operations. He talks to us about the state of robot assistants and how soon—if ever—we might expect a full robot revolution.Further reading:TechCrunch article on the launch of Ambi StackUC Berkeley News article on Berkeley's latest breakthroughs in robot learningWIRED article covering Amazon's new tactile-sensing warehouse robot, Vulcan. Mahler et al.'s 2019  Science Robotics paper, which introduces Dex-Net 4.0 Watch Dex-Net 2.0 picking up objectsEpisode transcriptThis episode was written and hosted by Nathalia Alcantara and produced by Coby McDonald.Art by Michiko Toki and original music by Mogli Maureal. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.Support the show

Can we look into the past? Does the universe have an edge? What's so great about a total solar eclipse? Have we been visited by aliens? Astrophysicist Alex Filippenko joins Editor-in-Chief Pat Joseph live onstage to discuss eclipse chasing, dark energy, and the abiding mysteries of the universe. Further reading: Watch the full live conversation with Alex Filppenko on YouTubeBuy your tickets for “Enthralled: What Explains Our Unshakeable Fascination with Cults?” with Poulomi Saha on March 27 This episode was produced by Coby McDonald. Special thanks to Alex Filippenko, Pat Joseph, and Nat Alcantara. Art by Michiko Toki and original music by Mogli Maureal. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.Support the show

Octopuses and humans have very little in common. It's not just a matter of their eight limbs and cool camouflage—we haven't had a shared ancestor for more than half a billion years, before dinosaurs walked the earth. But there's one surprising thing we do seem to share: MDMA makes us both a lot cuddlier. For neuroscientist Gül Dölen, this was a huge insight into the powerful role psychoactive drugs can play in animal social behavior. Now a pioneer in the burgeoning field of psychedelic research at UC Berkeley, Dölen discusses her quest to understand how these drugs could be harnessed as tools in learning and therapeutics. Further reading: Gül Dölen's 2019 Nature paper “Oxytocin-dependent reopening of a social reward learning critical period with MDMA”Gül Dölen's 2018 Current Biology paper “A Conserved Role for Serotonergic Neurotransmission in Mediating Social Behavior in Octopus”UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics launches new online course on “Psychedelics and the Mind”Altered States, a new podcast from from PRX and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics about “what science can tell us about psychedelics and what psychedelics can tell us about ourselves”This episode was written and hosted by Leah Worthington and produced by Coby McDonald. Special thanks to Pat Joseph, Nathalia Alcantara, and Gül Dölen. Art by Michiko Toki and original music by Mogli Maureal. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Don't let the term “climate change” mislead you. It's true that our environment is changing in all sorts of ways as we continue to pollute and exploit and manipulate our planet. But even as we brace for more historic typhoons and biblical floods, there's an invisible and pervasive force that is wreaking havoc on us all: heat. In this episode, we speak with environmental journalist and Berkeley alumnus Jeff Goodell about his latest book, The Heat Will Kill You First, the potentially lethal effects that rising temperatures will have on our lives and on our planet, and what we can do to prepare for it.

Nearly four years have passed since COVID swept the globe, infecting millions and bringing society to a grinding halt. The ensuing months saw strict mask mandates, revolutionary vaccines, new viral strains, and—finally—a return to some sort of normal. With the end of the public health emergency and a sudden disappearance of the once-ubiquitous masks, it's easy to feel like the pandemic is, well, over. But some would strongly disagree with that prognosis—and one group in particular: people suffering from the lasting effects of long COVID. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Kim Rhoads, a Berkeley grad and associate professor at UCSF, about the challenge of diagnosing this post-viral illness, its wide-ranging and often mysterious symptoms, and why you might not want to throw out your mask just yet.

Roughly every second, a star explodes. Beyond treating astronomers to a radiant light display, these dramatic supernova events contain vast amounts of information about the origin, behavior, and ultimate demise of our universe. Berkeley astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance, has dedicated her life to studying really big exploding stars and what they tell us about our ever-expanding universe. She joins us this episode to talk about her own path to star-gazing and the big, existential questions that keep her eyes to the sky.

We're back with something a little different this month. In the wake of this year's historic floods, wildfires, and hurricanes, we asked ourselves: What would it look like to take a more optimistic attitude towards slowing climate change? In that spirit, we're sharing an episode of The Science of Happiness, a podcast co-produced by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and PRX. The first in a miniseries the center is airing called “Climate, Hope and Science,” this episode features an interview with author Rebecca Solnit in which she explores how embracing uncertainty enables people to move beyond climate anxiety and despair to hope and action.

For centuries, doctors have medically treated people differently according to their race because they believed that race was biological. But in recent years, medical professionals and activists have argued that this is both wrongheaded and can be dangerous to people's health. In this episode, we talk to Stephen Richmond, a primary care physician and assistant professor at Stanford, about the movement to abolish biological race from medicine and how race and biology do and do not intersect. 

Car-free streets are no longer just an urban fantasy. In cities across the nation, a movement is growing to return the streets to the people. In this episode, we talk to two advocates about their quest to ‘pedestrianize' Telegraph Avenue and their grand vision for a more walkable, bikeable future.

The teens are not alright! In fact, they're experiencing a sleep crisis. In this episode, we talk to journalist Lisa Lewis about why teens have different sleep needs than the rest of us and how she worked to get more sleep for all Californian teens. We explore sleep hygiene and what it means to restructure society around a vital health need. 

Today, we're featuring the audio version of California magazine's recent cover story, “Into the Ishi Wilderness.” In 1911, a Yahi Native American man walked out of the wilderness near Oroville, California. The famed anthropologist Alfred Kroeber brought him to Berkeley's campus. What happened next is still being hotly debated almost 100 years later. For audio text, please see the feature article, Into the Ishi Wilderness. This episode was written and hosted by Laura Smith and Leah Worthington, and produced by Coby McDonald. Special thanks to Pat Joseph. Art by Michiko Toki and original music by Mogli Maureal.

These days, kids want to be social media influencers when they grow up. But is it a viable career? And what does our ever-growing social media obsession mean for society? In this episode, we talk to TikTok star Talia Lichtstein about her day-to-day routine, how she makes money, and the future of work in the era of social media. 

How is it possible to be blind and able to see at the same time? In this episode, we explore a bizarre, paradoxical neurological condition called blindsight, which challenges everything we think we know about vision—and offers insight into the nature of human consciousness. Leah is joined by a Berkeley researcher and Simon Lewis (JD ‘80), a film producer and survivor of a traumatic brain injury, to discuss how blindsight works and its implications for understanding the origin of consciousness. 

It's not easy coming up with the perfect opening line on Tinder. Should you play it cute? Ask a thought-provoking question? Woo them with a witty remark? One entrepreneur thinks he has the answer: robot-generated text. Artificial intelligence is already helping us compose emails and complete sentences, so why stop there? Laura and Leah talk to the founder of Keys about the possibilities—and dangers—of letting robots do the talking for us. 

You hear about blockchain everywhere: social media, the news, the guy next door. Some say that in a few years, everyone will use it for everything, much like the internet. But right now we're in the early days, and it's pretty Wild West. (Think: early '90s internet.) Laura and Leah talk to Medha Kothari, a Berkeley alum and founder of she256, a non-profit promoting diversity in blockchain, about what blockchain is and why it has the potential to be a fairer technology than the ones we've already built.

Passenger pigeons. Woolly mammoths. Neanderthals. They're all extinct. But what if we could bring them back? And if we could, should we? Geneticists are exploring de-extincting extinct and near-extinct species, but ethical and logistical problems abound. Laura and Leah sit down with a genetic engineer and an ecologist to understand how de-extinction works and the unintended consequences of playing god. Life, uh, finds a way.

Since the first human left Earth's atmosphere in 1961, few earthlings—and even fewer private citizens—have had the opportunity to “boldly go” there. But, with new advancements from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other spaceflight companies, wealthy tourists could soon be booking rooms in hotels in outer space. As with any new industry, the rise of space tourism raises some new, sometimes uncomfortable, questions: Are we colonizing space? Is this just another exclusive vacation experience for the ultra-rich? Why are billionaires spending so much money on space tourism when there are plenty of humans on Earth without food, housing, or health insurance? Laura and Leah speak with the fifth-ever space tourist and one of the minds behind the universe's first space hotel.

Five years after 29-year-old, terminally ill Brittany Maynard makes national news by choosing to end her life early, medically assisted death continues to face enormous legal and social barriers. And yet public support of the practice is high. As life-expectancy and palliative care improve, we face new questions: Under what circumstances are people allowed to choose when and how they die? And how might rethinking the conversation and practices around death change our very conception of it? To find out, Laura and Leah speak with California's leading end-of-life doctor and a healthy octogenarian who plans to quit while she's ahead.

Half a century after the counterculture movement swept through the Bay Area and “mind altering substances” were banished from the laboratory, researchers at the new Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics are reviving a long-buried field of research. Is this the beginning of a psychedelic renaissance? Are psychedelics the new frontier in both understanding and treating psychological disorders? And what happens when you “shake the snowglobe” of the mind? Laura and Leah speak with a neuroscientist and a BCSP Senior Guide to find out.

How did video gaming, or esports, make it from your parents' basement to the big leagues? Laura and Leah discuss with student esport “athletes,” an administrator, and a team owner. Also discussed: why Cal is investing in gaming as a career path, whether it should be considered a sport, and the industry's fraught but promising relationship with women gamers. 

After an unsettling encounter with a turkey, Laura resolves to eat less meat and takes Leah on a journey through the alternative meat industry. Will real, flesh and blood meat be obsolete in 15 years, as one industry leader suggests? Laura and Leah discuss with the director of UC Berkeley's Alt: Meat Lab, Dr. Ricardo San Martin, and a former student who is developing a faux-chicken drumstick. (The question on everyone's mind is: if it's vegan, what's the drumstick bone?) Also on the docket: how to turn plants into burgers, why many meat alternatives on the market aren't good for you, the cultural and moral implications of meat-eating, and what the food of the future might look like.  

When a Berkeley student launches an AI-generated blog that goes viral, Leah and Laura wonder if robots will soon replace us all. Will the journalists, novelists, and poets of the future be robots? What does this mean for art? Programmer/poet and Cal grad Allison Parrish reads her own robot poetry and discusses the creative process, experimental writing, and our anxieties surrounding technology. Special guest, editor in chief, Pat Joseph, joins the pod to ponder the question, what's missing from AI-generated art?

As reopenings stall and some companies extend work-from-home indefinitely, Leah and Laura wonder what the future of cities looks like. Will all the yuppies flee to the countryside? Will mom-and-pop retail survive? Architect and professor Vishaan Chakrabarti talks about the major problems facing our cities, why we should ban cars altogether, and how the pandemic may create opportunities for big change.

Can you pick your baby's gender? What about their IQ? And what's to stop people from editing their babies genes to make them glow? Laura and Leah talk to a UC Berkeley researcher, an entrepreneur, and an ethicist about some exciting, and controversial, innovations in genetic engineering and gene selection.

After the Berkeley city council votes to remove gender from the municipal code, Laura and Leah decide to investigate how language changes with the times. They talk to two non-binary students about the singular pronoun “they” and linguist Geoffrey Nunberg about what language will stick, what's a fad, and why language matters. Finally, Berkeley sociologist Cristina Mora talks about the origins of Latinx and why she uses it.

Laura and Leah worry about their digital presence. How much could someone find out about their private lives based on their online behavior? With the help of Steve Trush and Sean Brooks of the UC Berkeley Citizen Clinic, they discover their cyber-insecurities and clean up their acts.

When Boalt Hall loses its name because of the building's namesake's racist views, Laura and Leah wonder if it rights old wrongs or just papers over the past. Should we change the Washington Redskins name? Does removing a statue or a name actually make a difference? Arianne Eason, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, who studies the effect of mascots on minority groups joins the discussion. Then Boalt alum Michael Halloran explains his reasons for opposing the name change, and two recent Boalt grads explain why they were for it.

Laura and Leah discover they use the same mysterious astrology app, The Pattern. They try to figure out how it works, who owns it, and what The Pattern is really doing with their data, which takes them all the way across the country to a mailroom in Manhattan. Along the way, they consult with Serge Egelman, the research director at UC Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute, who reveals the answers to an even scarier question: What access do we unknowingly give away to all apps on our phones?

Welcome to "The Edge," a new podcast from California magazine. With help from UC Berkeley experts, hosts Laura Smith and Leah Worthington explore cutting-edge, often controversial ideas in science, technology, and society. Should you be able to choose your baby's IQ? Are algorithms really smarter than people? As we face a planet devastated by climate change, what is the future of food? All that and more, coming to your ears July 1.