Podcasts about Kiki Sanford

This week marks the beginning of Embodied Ethics in The Age of A.I., a six-week online course led by writer and teacher Joshua Schrei, host of The Emerald Podcast.  This course is, in large part, inspired by an episode he wrote last year called “So You Want To Be A Sorcerer in The Age of Mythic Powers” — exploring the mythic dimensions of tech innovation and calling for a reclamation of initiatic mystery schools in order to provide us with the requisite self-mastery to wield tools like generative language models. I'm honored to be part of the all-star crew lined up to co-facilitate this course and as part of our pre-game sync and prep, I met with Josh to talk about the forces we've unleashed and how to live responsibly in a world where tech is, in Arthur C. Clarke's words, now undoubtedly “indistinguishable from magic.” We explore the need to pace ourselves and anchor novelty production in ecologies of accountability; what it means to raise kids well amidst the A.I. revolution; and why humans cannot seem to stop invoking power and powers greater than our understanding.If you enjoy this conversation, join us — and several dozen other awesome people — from 4/18-5/16 to learn and grow together and answer the call to better ourselves in service of this great historical unfolding!(Big big thanks to former Center for Humane Technology Innovation Lead Andrew Dunn, founder of The School of Wise Innovation, for everything you've done to help inspire and organize all of this…)Right after this course I will be in Denver for the 2024 ICON Future Human Conference and would love to see you there!  Use my link to grab yourself a conference pass and spend 5/16-5/19 with me and folks like Daniel Schmachtenberger, Marianne Williamson, Ken Wilber, Jeremy Johnson, Layman Pascal, and many more…✨ Support This Show & The Family It Feeds:• Subscribe on Substack or Patreon for COPIOUS extras, including private Discord server channels and MANY secret episodes• Make one-off donations at @futurefossils on Venmo, $manfredmacx on CashApp, or @michaelgarfield on PayPal• Buy the music on Bandcamp. This episode features:Tålmodighed (from Live at The Chillout Gardens, Boom Festival 2016)Gamma Pavonis (from Pavo: Music For Mystery)The Cartographers (from Get Used To Being Everything)• Buy the books we discuss at the Future Fossils Bookshop.org page and I get a small cut from your support of indie booksellers• Browse and buy original paintings and prints or email me to commission new work✨ Mentioned & Related Links:“Modern culture is ‘ahead of the one.' Modern culture is rushing to get somewhere.”* Josh Schrei on Howl In The Wilderness Podcast Episode 120Sam Arbesman's Cabinet of WondersDetermined: A Science of Life Without Free Will by Robert SapolskyRick Rubin and Dan Carlin discuss magicMichael Garfield w/ host Kiki Sanford on This Week In Science Episode 965“Information overload is a personal and societal danger” by Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteThe Glass Cage by Nicholas CarrFuture Fossils 172 - Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Systems Thinking, Fractal Governance, Ontopunk, and Queering W.E.I.R.D. ModernityCenter for Humane TechnologyThe Age of Em by Robin Hanson“Scan Lovers” from How to Live in The Future by Michael Garfield at Boom Festival 2016Wisdom 2.0 Summit”The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” by Marc AndreessenIron John by Robert Bly“The Model Isn't The Territory, Either” by Douglas RushkoffDarwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and The Evolution of The Noosphere by Richard Doyle“Chief Philosophy Officer” by Peter Limberg“The Next Tech Backlash Will Be About Hygiene” by Jonnie Penn at TIME MagazineDouglas Rushkoff at Betaworks in 2023: “I Will Not Be Automated”Zohar Atkins (Website, Twitter)My comments on “Hallucination Is Inevitable: An Innate Limitation of Large Language Models” by Xu, et al.“For The Intuitives” (Part 1, Part 2) on The Emerald Podcast This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe

Nvidia unveils its 4000 series of GPUs. Nvidia's latest chip features improvements in ray-tracing speed and features, DLSS 3.0, and of course a much higher price point. We breakdown what Nvidia has unleashed and what it means for you. Plus we talk to Dr. Kiki Sanford about how brain-computer interfaces work. Plus OpenAI is now allowing AI art generator DALL-E to edit images with human faces, something that was banned due to fears of misuse.Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Dr. Kiki Sanford, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/dtns. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nvidia unveils its 4000 series of GPUs. Nvidia’s latest chip features improvements in ray-tracing speed and features, DLSS 3.0, and of course a much higher price point. We breakdown what Nvidia has unleashed and what it means for you. Plus we talk to Dr. Kiki Sanford about how brain-computer interfaces work. Plus OpenAI is now allowing AI art generator DALL-E to edit images with human faces, something that was banned due to fears of misuse. Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Dr. Kiki Sanford, Roger Chang, Joe, Amos MP3 Download Using a Screen Reader? Click here Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org Follow us on Twitter Instgram YouTube and Twitch Please SUBSCRIBE HERE. Subscribe through Apple Podcasts. A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible. If you are willing to support the show or to give as little as 10 cents a day on Patreon, Thank you! Become a Patron! Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme! Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo! Thanks to our mods Jack_Shid and KAPT_Kipper on the subreddit Send to email to feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com Show Notes To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Dr. Kiki is an American neurophysiologist and the go to science communicator when it comes to video making. Originally starting out with a PhD in "bird brains" she soon moved to be a science communicator hosting the "This week in science" live and podcast format, running her own boutique video production company as well as serving as vice President of Public Relations at for the non-for-profit Science Talk. In this episode Dr. Kiki and I talked about what different video formats exist and how researchers and research institutions can decide which type is the best for their purpose and their target group. The types of videos that we covered are: Live videos Produced videos Long form videos Short form videos Informational videos Explainer/ Educational videos Entertainment videos If you want to go into easy animation here come three suggestions from Kiki: Videoscribe, Toonboom, and BioRender. Enjoy the show with Dr. Kiki. --- The Science Communication Accelerator Podcast aims to empower scientists, universities, and research organizations to engage publicly and share more science on social media. To do so, the podcast aims to create a knowledge hub for digital science communication by publishing engaging and inspiring episodes with experts in the field of social media and science communication. Please reach out if you are looking for a sparring partner to create your organizational communication or branding strategy (Julius.wesche@scicomx.com). You find me also on Twitter, on Linkedin, and on Instagram.

Dr. Kiki is an American neurophysiologist and the go to science communicator when it comes to video making. Originally starting out with a PhD in "bird brains" she soon moved to be a science communicator hosting the "This week in science" live and podcast format, running her own boutique video production company as well as serving as vice President of Public Relations at for the non-for-profit Science Talk. In this episode Dr. Kiki and I talked about what different video formats exist and how researchers and research institutions can decide which type is the best for their purpose and their target group. The types of videos that we covered are: Live videos Produced videos Long form videos Short form videos Informational videos Explainer/ Educational videos Entertainment videos If you want to go into easy animation here come three suggestions from Kiki: Videoscribe, Toonboom, and BioRender. Enjoy the show with Dr. Kiki. --- The Science Communication Accelerator Podcast aims to empower scientists, universities, and research organizations to engage publicly and share more science on social media. To do so, the podcast aims to create a knowledge hub for digital science communication by publishing engaging and inspiring episodes with experts in the field of social media and science communication. Please reach out if you are looking for a sparring partner to create your organizational communication or branding strategy (Julius.wesche@scicomx.com). You find me also on Twitter, on Linkedin, and on Instagram.

E Ink announced the E Ink Gallery 3 its latest advancement in e-ink technology, Sensor Tower reports the top 100 subscriptions apps in 2021 saw a 41% increase in global revenue, and the BBC reports surgeons at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, England successfully implanted a device into the brain to treat Parkinson's disease in a patient.Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Dr. Kiki Sanford, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/dtns.

E Ink announced the E Ink Gallery 3 its latest advancement in e-ink technology. How Truebill has turned subscription cancelling into a reoccurring business? And the BBC reports surgeons at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, England successfully implanted a device into the brain to treat Parkinson’s disease in a patient. Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Dr. Kiki Sanford, Roger Chang, Joe, Amos MP3 Download Using a Screen Reader? Click here Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org Follow us on Twitter Instgram YouTube and Twitch Please SUBSCRIBE HERE. Subscribe through Apple Podcasts. A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible. If you are willing to support the show or to give as little as 10 cents a day on Patreon, Thank you! Become a Patron! Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme! Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo! Thanks to our mods Jack_Shid and KAPT_Kipper on the subreddit Send to email to feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com Show Notes To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Dr. Kiki Sanford had a choice. Continue with what felt like an increasingly frustrating path in academia, or pivot and turn her passion into power. She chose the latter. With a degree in Conservation Biology and a Ph.D in Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology, she'd spent her undergraduate and graduate studies exploring learning and memory – specifically through research on birds. She loved the learning. She loved the science. So she opted to spend her time getting other people just as jazzed about science as she is. Since 2015 she's turned her focus back to her brothers and sisters of science, starting “Broader Impacts” a company that helps researchers and scientists up their communication game making sure that the vast amount of important information being generated in those circles can make it into the world in a meaningful way. Her view of leadership is very much like her view of science – that the mechanisms we use have changed vastly, and the people who use those things, have not. She says it's imperative that we “vaccinate” ourselves – against misinformation, bad actors and those who would use information in the wrong way. She also believes that connection and empathy may be the keys to the future we all need. What motivates people? Why do they do what they do? What does leadership actually mean in today's world? Good questions, right? That's what Cathy Brooks, thought. And it's why she created Talk, Unleashed – a new podcast of entirely candid conversations with fascinating people doing remarkable things. This weekly podcast will feature guests from arts and entertainment to business to technology to food to activism to politics (well, we'll see on that last one). Talk Unleashed invites these influencers to consider the things that have led to them to where they are, the lessons they've learned and how all those things can come together to create a better world. #KikiSanford #DrKiki #DrKikiSanford #ThisWeekInScience #TWIS #ThisWeekinTech #TWIT #Science #research #ScienceCommunication #BroaderImpacts #TalkUnleashed #CathyBrooks #HydrantClub

The stakes have never been higher. The world is more divided than ever before, and a significant part of the issue is that we can't agree on what counts as 'true'. This week's episode features Dr Kiki Sanford: host of the hugely popular 'This Week in Science' and science communicator extraordinaire. Here, she takes on the core challenge of vaccine scepticism, the mechanics of how we come to decisions on what we think is true, and how to make the most of a PhD.

Actor Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf) recounts a terrifying dream that coincided with the death of a close friend. Was it a premonition? Our science experts Dr. Kiki Sanford, Brian Dunning, Natalia Reagan, and Jonathan Pritchard weigh in on what really happened. Plus the hosts dissect some tall tales about Nostradamus and the lonely heart tale of a woman who says that she was "ghosted" by an alien. Please subscribe to I Know What Scares You and review the show on Apple Podcasts. Follow I Know What Scares You on Twitter and Facebook at @IKWSY, and call us with your comments or your own true scary tale at (888) 55-SCARY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We examine the state of Quantum Computing from China’s perspective and how it might impact the wider world.Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Dr. Kiki Sanford, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We examine the China’s construction of a quantum communication network how it might impact the wider world. Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Dr. Kiki Sanford, Roger Chang, Joe MP3 Download Using a Screen Reader? Click here Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org Please SUBSCRIBE HERE. Subscribe through Apple Podcasts. A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible. If you are willing to support the show or to give as little as 10 cents a day on Patreon, Thank you! Become a Patron! Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme! Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo! Thanks to Anthony Lemos of Ritual Misery for the expanded show notes! Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit Send to email to feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com Show Notes To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Many schools closed in the spring, during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Many opened in the fall. Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about what was learned in spring about how coronavirus spreads in schools that might help keep children safe as cases surge once again. Also this week: What makes leaves fall off deciduous trees when they do—is it the short, cold nights? Or is the timing of so-called “leaf senescence” linked to when spring happens? Sarah talked to Constantin Zohner, a lead scientist at the Institute of Integrative Biology at ETH Zurich, about his tree leaf timing study. Sarah also spoke with commentary author Christy Rollinson, a forest ecologist at the Morton Arboretum, about how important these trees and the timing of their leaf drop is for climate change. In the books segment, host Kiki Sanford talks with Ruth DeFries about her book, What Would Nature Do? A Guide for Our Uncertain Times. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). [Image: Joe Cheng/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jennifer Couzin-Frankel See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many schools closed in the spring, during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Many opened in the fall. Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about what was learned in spring about how coronavirus spreads in schools that might help keep children safe as cases surge once again. Also this week: What makes leaves fall off deciduous trees when they do—is it the short, cold nights? Or is the timing of so-called “leaf senescence” linked to when spring happens? Sarah talked to Constantin Zohner, a lead scientist at the Institute of Integrative Biology at ETH Zurich, about his tree leaf timing study. Sarah also spoke with commentary author Christy Rollinson, a forest ecologist at the Morton Arboretum, about how important these trees and the timing of their leaf drop is for climate change. In the books segment, host Kiki Sanford talks with Ruth DeFries about her book, What Would Nature Do? A Guide for Our Uncertain Times. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). [Image: Joe Cheng/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jennifer Couzin-Frankel See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many schools closed in the spring, during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Many opened in the fall. Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about what was learned in spring about how coronavirus spreads in schools that might help keep children safe as cases surge once again. Also this week: What makes leaves fall off deciduous trees when they do—is it the short, cold nights? Or is the timing of so-called “leaf senescence” linked to when spring happens? Sarah talked to Constantin Zohner, a lead scientist at the Institute of Integrative Biology at ETH Zurich, about his tree leaf timing study. Sarah also spoke with commentary author Christy Rollinson, a forest ecologist at the Morton Arboretum, about how important these trees and the timing of their leaf drop is for climate change. In the books segment, host Kiki Sanford talks with Ruth DeFries about her book, What Would Nature Do? A Guide for Our Uncertain Times. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).

First up, host Sarah Crespi talks to News Intern Cathleen O'Grady about the growing use of citizens' assemblies, or “minipublics,” to deliberate on tough policy questions like climate change and abortion. Can random groups of citizens do a better job forming policy than politicians? Next, we feature the latest of a new series of insight pieces that revisit landmark Science papers. Sarah talks with Hiruni Samadi Galpayage Dona, a Ph.D. student at Queen Mary University of London, about Charles Turner, a Black zoologist who published multiple times in Science in the early 1900s. Despite being far ahead of his time in his studies of animal cognition, Turner's work was long overlooked—due in large part to the many difficulties facing a Black man in academia at the turn of the century. Finally, in our monthly books segment, host Kiki Sanford chats with author Pia Sorensen about her new book: Science and Cooking: Physics Meets Food, From Homemade to Haute Cuisine. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First up, host Sarah Crespi talks to News Intern Cathleen O’Grady about the growing use of citizens’ assemblies, or “minipublics,” to deliberate on tough policy questions like climate change and abortion. Can random groups of citizens do a better job forming policy than politicians? Next, we feature the latest of a new series of insight pieces that revisit landmark Science papers. Sarah talks with Hiruni Samadi Galpayage Dona, a Ph.D. student at Queen Mary University of London, about Charles Turner, a Black zoologist who published multiple times in Science in the early 1900s. Despite being far ahead of his time in his studies of animal cognition, Turner’s work was long overlooked—due in large part to the many difficulties facing a Black man in academia at the turn of the century. Finally, in our monthly books segment, host Kiki Sanford chats with author Pia Sorensen about her new book: Science and Cooking: Physics Meets Food, From Homemade to Haute Cuisine. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).

First up, host Sarah Crespi talks to News Intern Cathleen O'Grady about the growing use of citizens' assemblies, or “minipublics,” to deliberate on tough policy questions like climate change and abortion. Can random groups of citizens do a better job forming policy than politicians? Next, we feature the latest of a new series of insight pieces that revisit landmark Science papers. Sarah talks with Hiruni Samadi Galpayage Dona, a Ph.D. student at Queen Mary University of London, about Charles Turner, a Black zoologist who published multiple times in Science in the early 1900s. Despite being far ahead of his time in his studies of animal cognition, Turner's work was long overlooked—due in large part to the many difficulties facing a Black man in academia at the turn of the century. Finally, in our monthly books segment, host Kiki Sanford chats with author Pia Sorensen about her new book: Science and Cooking: Physics Meets Food, From Homemade to Haute Cuisine. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

YOUR BRAIN ON GAME What The If there were a VIDEO GAME that could take over your BRAIN? We're going into the arcade, so get your quarters or tokens ready. It's time to play POLYBIUS. So dust off your fanny packs, load them up with coins and get ready to get your BRAIN sucked out of your head. OUR GUEST STAR We are joined by a hero of Philip's, Dr. Kiki from the amazing podcast, This Week In Science! Dr. Kiki Sanford is is an American neurophysiologist and science communicator. After working at the University of California, Davis as a research scientist, she left research work to pursue a career in science communication. Her work has included multiple audio and video programs, including the This Week in Science radio program and podcast and Dr. Kiki's Science Hour, a podcast involving interviews with experts in a given scientific field. Visit her show at TWIS.org and her own website at: www.kirstensanford.com WANNA POLYBIUS OF YOUR OWN? As mentioned in the show, the folks at Numskull Games are making a Quarter Scale Arcade cabinet of POLYBIUS! Check it out and support their Kickstarter campaign if you'd like to see this devilish icon brought to life! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1886976084/the-polybius-quarter-scale-arcade-cab THE DOCUMENTARY Check out the engrossing YouTube documentary that we excerpted in the show: POLYBIUS - The Video Game That Doesn't Exist by Stuart Brown www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7X6Yeydgyg  --- Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Email us at feedback@whattheif.com and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! --- Special thanks to Kyle Crichton and Howard Zheng for their help with the show. --- Want to support the show? Click a rating or add a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app! itunes.apple.com/podcast/id1250517051?mt=2&ls=1 Don't miss an episode! Subscribe at WhatTheIF.com Keep On IFFin', Philip & Matt

Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about how Arctic sea ice is under attack from above and below—not only from warming air, but also dangerous hot blobs of ocean water. Next, Damien Fordham, a professor and global change ecologist at the University of Adelaide, talks about how new tools for digging into the past are helping catalog what happened to biodiversity and ecosystems during different climate change scenarios in the past. These findings can help predict the fate of modern ecosystems under today’s human-induced climate change. And in our books segment, Kiki Sanford talks with author Carl Bergstrom about his new book: Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).

Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about how Arctic sea ice is under attack from above and below—not only from warming air, but also dangerous hot blobs of ocean water. Next, Damien Fordham, a professor and global change ecologist at the University of Adelaide, talks about how new tools for digging into the past are helping catalog what happened to biodiversity and ecosystems during different climate change scenarios in the past. These findings can help predict the fate of modern ecosystems under today's human-induced climate change. And in our books segment, Kiki Sanford talks with author Carl Bergstrom about his new book: Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.

Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about how Arctic sea ice is under attack from above and below—not only from warming air, but also dangerous hot blobs of ocean water. Next, Damien Fordham, a professor and global change ecologist at the University of Adelaide, talks about how new tools for digging into the past are helping catalog what happened to biodiversity and ecosystems during different climate change scenarios in the past. These findings can help predict the fate of modern ecosystems under today's human-induced climate change. And in our books segment, Kiki Sanford talks with author Carl Bergstrom about his new book: Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about how Arctic sea ice is under attack from above and below—not only from warming air, but also dangerous hot blobs of ocean water. Next, Damien Fordham, a professor and global change ecologist at the University of Adelaide, talks about how new tools for digging into the past are helping catalog what happened to biodiversity and ecosystems during different climate change scenarios in the past. These findings can help predict the fate of modern ecosystems under today's human-induced climate change. And in our books segment, Kiki Sanford talks with author Carl Bergstrom about his new book: Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Check out everything Dr Kiki Sanford is doing!  Here is a link to her twitter: https://twitter.com/drkikiAnd her show, This Week in Science! https://www.twis.org/Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate/review it on whatever service you use to listen.Here’s the iTunes link: http://bit.ly/wehaveconcerns And here’s the Stitcher link: http://bit.ly/stitcherwhconcernsJeff on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffcannata Anthony on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acarboniToday’s stories were:Sent in by Geoff Engelstein: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/sports/soccer/soccer-without-fans-germany-data.html?referringSource=articleShareAnd  If you’ve seen a story you think belongs on the show, send it to wehaveconcernsshow@gmail.com, post in on our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/WeHaveConcerns/ or leave it on the subreddit: http://reddit.com/r/wehaveconcerns

Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies how ocean waves disperse virus-laden aerosols, joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how she became an outspoken advocate for using masks to prevent coronavirus transmission. A related insight she wrote for Science has been downloaded more than 1 million times. Read Science's coronavirus coverage. Mikkel Sinding, a postdoctoral fellow at Trinity College Dublin, talks sled dog genes with Sarah. After comparing the genomes of modern dogs, Greenland sled dogs, and an ancient dog jaw bone found on a remote Siberian island where dogs may have pulled sleds some 9500 years ago, they found that modern Greenland dogs—which are still used to pull sleds today—have much in common with this ancient Siberian ancestor. Those similarities include genes related to eating high-fat diets and cold-sensing genes previously identified in woolly mammoths. In this month's book segment, Kiki Sanford talks with Rutger Bregman about his book, Humankind: A Hopeful History which outlines a shift in the thinking of many social scientists to a view of humans as more peaceful than warlike. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). [Image: Muhammad Mahdi Karim/Wikipedia; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Episode page: https://www.sciencemag.org/podcast/stopping-spread-covid-19-and-arctic-adaptations-sled-dogs See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies how ocean waves disperse virus-laden aerosols, joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how she became an outspoken advocate for using masks to prevent coronavirus transmission. A related insight she wrote for Science has been downloaded more than 1 million times. Read Science's coronavirus coverage. Mikkel Sinding, a postdoctoral fellow at Trinity College Dublin, talks sled dog genes with Sarah. After comparing the genomes of modern dogs, Greenland sled dogs, and an ancient dog jaw bone found on a remote Siberian island where dogs may have pulled sleds some 9500 years ago, they found that modern Greenland dogs—which are still used to pull sleds today—have much in common with this ancient Siberian ancestor. Those similarities include genes related to eating high-fat diets and cold-sensing genes previously identified in woolly mammoths. In this month's book segment, Kiki Sanford talks with Rutger Bregman about his book, Humankind: A Hopeful History which outlines a shift in the thinking of many social scientists to a view of humans as more peaceful than warlike. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). [Image: Muhammad Mahdi Karim/Wikipedia; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Episode page: https://www.sciencemag.org/podcast/stopping-spread-covid-19-and-arctic-adaptations-sled-dogs See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies how ocean waves disperse virus-laden aerosols, joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how she became an outspoken advocate for using masks to prevent coronavirus transmission. A related insight she wrote for Science has been downloaded more than 1 million times. Read Science’s coronavirus coverage. Mikkel Sinding, a postdoctoral fellow at Trinity College Dublin, talks sled dog genes with Sarah. After comparing the genomes of modern dogs, Greenland sled dogs, and an ancient dog jaw bone found on a remote Siberian island where dogs may have pulled sleds some 9500 years ago, they found that modern Greenland dogs—which are still used to pull sleds today—have much in common with this ancient Siberian ancestor. Those similarities include genes related to eating high-fat diets and cold-sensing genes previously identified in woolly mammoths. In this month’s book segment, Kiki Sanford talks with Rutger Bregman about his book, Humankind: A Hopeful History, which outlines a shift in the thinking of many social scientists to a view of humans as more peaceful than warlike. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).

Dr. Kiki Sanford makes her ninth appearance on Background Mode. Kiki is a neurophysiologist with a B.S. in conservation biology and a Ph.D. avian neurophysiology from the University of California. She’s a popular science communicator and creator/co-host of This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast and radio show. In this episode, we spend the first segment clearing up some confusion about COVID-19. Mask theory of use, the value of lockdowns, how the U.S. is doing compared to Europe, how blood type affects the body’s response, presymptomatic vs. asymptomatic, and what we know about how the virus survives on surfaces. In part II, we discussed how computer neural networks trained to learn like developing human brains also need something akin to sleep. Also, how dogs have a genetic desire to save their owner from trouble. And more. As always, Kiki is delightful as she makes science both fun and interesting.

First up this week, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel talks with host Sarah Crespi about a rare inflammatory response in children that has appeared in a number of COVID-19 hot spots. Next, Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute and professor of physical geography at the University of Cambridge, talks with producer Meagan Cantwell about tracing the retreat of Antarctica's glaciers by examining the ocean floor. Finally, Kiki Sanford interviews author Danny Dorling about his new book, Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration―and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).

First up this week, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel talks with host Sarah Crespi about a rare inflammatory response in children that has appeared in a number of COVID-19 hot spots. Next, Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute and professor of physical geography at the University of Cambridge, talks with producer Meagan Cantwell about tracing the retreat of Antarctica's glaciers by examining the ocean floor. Finally, Kiki Sanford interviews author Danny Dorling about his new book, Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration―and Why It's Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).   [Image: Scott Ableman/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jennifer Couzin-Frankel; Kiki Sanford See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First up this week, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel talks with host Sarah Crespi about a rare inflammatory response in children that has appeared in a number of COVID-19 hot spots. Next, Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute and professor of physical geography at the University of Cambridge, talks with producer Meagan Cantwell about tracing the retreat of Antarctica's glaciers by examining the ocean floor. Finally, Kiki Sanford interviews author Danny Dorling about his new book, Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration―and Why It's Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).   [Image: Scott Ableman/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jennifer Couzin-Frankel; Kiki Sanford

Dr. Kirsten Sanford from This Week In Science is here to answer your technology related questions about COVID-19Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang, Kiki Sanford, Patrick Beja, Joe.Link to Show Notes  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a turning point for one ancient Mesoamerican city: Tikal. On 16 January 378 C.E., the Maya city lost its leader and the replacement may have been a stranger. We know from writings that the new leader wore the garb of another culture—the Teotihuacan—who lived in a giant city 1000 kilometers away. But was this new ruler of a Maya city really from a separate culture? New techniques being used at the Tikal and Teotihuacan sites have revealed conflicting evidence as to whether Teotihuacan really held sway over a much larger region than previously estimated.   Sarah also talks with Rashid Sumaila, professor and Canada research chair in interdisciplinary ocean and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. You may have heard of illegal fishing being bad for the environment or bad for maintaining fisheries—but as Sumaila and colleagues report this week in Science Advances, the illegal fishing trade is also incredibly costly—with gross revenues of between $8.9 billion and $17.2 billion each year.    In the books segment this month, Kiki Sanford interviews Gaia Vince about her new book Transcendence How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time.   This week's episode was edited by Podigy.   Listen to previous podcasts.   About the Science Podcast   Download a transcript (PDF).  ++   [Image: Christian Hipólito; Music: Jeffrey Cook] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a turning point for one ancient Mesoamerican city: Tikal. On 16 January 378 C.E., the Maya city lost its leader and the replacement may have been a stranger. We know from writings that the new leader wore the garb of another culture—the Teotihuacan—who lived in a giant city 1000 kilometers away. But was this new ruler of a Maya city really from a separate culture? New techniques being used at the Tikal and Teotihuacan sites have revealed conflicting evidence as to whether Teotihuacan really held sway over a much larger region than previously estimated.   Sarah also talks with Rashid Sumaila, professor and Canada research chair in interdisciplinary ocean and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. You may have heard of illegal fishing being bad for the environment or bad for maintaining fisheries—but as Sumaila and colleagues report this week in Science Advances, the illegal fishing trade is also incredibly costly—with gross revenues of between $8.9 billion and $17.2 billion each year.    In the books segment this month, Kiki Sanford interviews Gaia Vince about her new book Transcendence How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time.   This week's episode was edited by Podigy.   Listen to previous podcasts.   About the Science Podcast   Download a transcript (PDF).  ++   [Image: Christian Hipólito; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

This week on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a turning point for one ancient Mesoamerican city: Tikal. On 16 January 378 C.E., the Maya city lost its leader and the replacement may have been a stranger. We know from writings that the new leader wore the garb of another culture—the Teotihuacan—who lived in a giant city 1000 kilometers away. But was this new ruler of a Maya city really from a separate culture? New techniques being used at the Tikal and Teotihuacan sites have revealed conflicting evidence as to whether Teotihuacan really held sway over a much larger region than previously estimated. Sarah also talks with Rashid Sumaila, professor and Canada research chair in interdisciplinary ocean and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. You may have heard of illegal fishing being bad for the environment or bad for maintaining fisheries—but as Sumaila and colleagues report this week in Science Advances, the illegal fishing trade is also incredibly costly—with gross revenues of between $8.9 billion and $17.2 billion each year. In the books segment this month, Kiki Sanford interviews Gaia Vince about her new book Transcendence How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).

Dr. Kiki Sanford makes her eighth appearance on Background Mode. Kiki is a neurophysiologist with a B.S. in conservation biology and a Ph.D. avian neurophysiology from the University of California. She’s a popular science communicator and creator/co-host of This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast and radio show. In this episode, we spend the entire first segment discussing the coronavirus. Kiki fills us in on the details you don’t hear about on the nightly news. In segment #2, Kiki tells us the real reason why people under stress get grey hair, how Mars used to have surface water, how the Earth’s sea level is rising faster than expected, and how zebra strips seem to provide good protection against biting insects. As always, Kiki makes science fun and interesting.

Earthworms are easy … to find. But despite their prevalence and importance to ecosystems around the world, there hasn’t been a comprehensive survey of earthworm diversity or population size. This week in Science, Helen Philips, a postdoctoral fellow at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Institute of Biology at Leipzig University, and colleagues published the results of their worldwide earthworm study, composed of data sets from many worm researchers around the globe. Host Sarah Crespi gets the lowdown from Philips on earthworm myths, collaborating with worm researchers, and links between worm populations and climate. Read a related commentary here.  Sarah also talks with Ziad Obermeyer, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, about dissecting out bias in an algorithm used by health care systems in the United States to recommend patients for additional health services. With unusual access to a proprietary algorithm, inputs, and outputs, Obermeyer and his colleagues found that the low amount of health care dollars spent on black patients in the past caused the algorithm to underestimate their risk for poor health in the future. Obermeyer and Sarah discuss how this happened and remedies that are already in progress. Read a related commentary here.  Finally, in the monthly books segment, books host Kiki Sanford interviews author Alice Gorman about her book Dr. Space Junk vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future. Listen to more book segments on the Science books blog: Books, et al. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Ads on this week’s show: The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quanmen; MEL Science Download the transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: Public domain; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Earthworms are easy … to find. But despite their prevalence and importance to ecosystems around the world, there hasn't been a comprehensive survey of earthworm diversity or population size. This week in Science, Helen Philips, a postdoctoral fellow at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Institute of Biology at Leipzig University, and colleagues published the results of their worldwide earthworm study, composed of data sets from many worm researchers around the globe. Host Sarah Crespi gets the lowdown from Philips on earthworm myths, collaborating with worm researchers, and links between worm populations and climate. Read a related commentary here.  Sarah also talks with Ziad Obermeyer, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, about dissecting out bias in an algorithm used by health care systems in the United States to recommend patients for additional health services. With unusual access to a proprietary algorithm, inputs, and outputs, Obermeyer and his colleagues found that the low amount of health care dollars spent on black patients in the past caused the algorithm to underestimate their risk for poor health in the future. Obermeyer and Sarah discuss how this happened and remedies that are already in progress. Read a related commentary here.  Finally, in the monthly books segment, books host Kiki Sanford interviews author Alice Gorman about her book Dr. Space Junk vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future. Listen to more book segments on the Science books blog: Books, et al. This week's episode was edited by Podigy. Ads on this week's show: The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quanmen; MEL Science Download the transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: Public domain; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

If you decide to embark on the graduate studies journey, you may find yourself telling stories. Stories about ideas, stories about science, stories about stories. You will focus and research until late hours of the night to find that piece of information, to fill that gap in the narrative. You will crumple a whole chapter... The post Kirsten (Dr. Kiki) Sanford – Following the Passion of Science Communication appeared first on Papa Phd Podcast.

On this week’s show, Senior News Correspondent Jeffrey Mervis talks with host Sarah Crespi about a stalled Facebook plan to release user data to social scientists who want to study the site’s role in elections. Sarah also talks with Jennifer Gruhn, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Copenhagen Center for Chromosome Stability, about counting chromosomes in human egg cells. It turns out that cell division errors that cause too many or too few chromosomes to remain in the egg may shape human fertility over our reproductive lives. Finally, in this month’s book segment, Kiki Sanford talks with Daniel Navon about his book Mobilizing Mutations: Human Genetics in the Age of Patient Advocacy. Visit the books blog for more author interviews: Books et al. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Ads on this week’s show: MOVA Globes; The Tangled Tree by David Quammen Download a transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast  

On this week's show, Senior News Correspondent Jeffrey Mervis talks with host Sarah Crespi about a stalled Facebook plan to release user data to social scientists who want to study the site's role in elections. Sarah also talks with Jennifer Gruhn, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Copenhagen Center for Chromosome Stability, about counting chromosomes in human egg cells. It turns out that cell division errors that cause too many or too few chromosomes to remain in the egg may shape human fertility over our reproductive lives. Finally, in this month's book segment, Kiki Sanford talks with Daniel Navon about his book Mobilizing Mutations: Human Genetics in the Age of Patient Advocacy. Visit the books blog for more author interviews: Books et al. This week's episode was edited by Podigy. Ads on this week's show: MOVA Globes; The Tangled Tree by David Quammen Download a transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast

Dr. Kiki Sanford makes her seventh appearance on Background Mode. Kiki is a neurophysiologist with a B.S. in conservation biology and a Ph.D. avian neurophysiology from the University of California. She’s a popular science communicator and creator of This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast and radio show. In this episode, we chat about Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Tardigrades on the Earth’s moon, how Dark Matter may have actually preceded the Big Bang, how older parents tend to have children with fewer behavior problems, the latest findings from the exoplanet hunter, TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and, finally, how climate change is affecting the size of some birds. Dr. Kiki is always a delight to listen to and learn from.

Originally Released 8/21/2019 If you feel like you have already listened to this episode, you probably have! This is a re-release of the fabulous first episode of the “New” Sketch Comedy Podcast Show. You’ll notice that the format wasn’t quite there yet, we didn’t know how to start the show or even how to have someone on the show with us. Despite being awful hosts, Dr. Kiki was great and we came up with not one, but two really good sketches! Dr. Kiki Sanford is an honest-to-goodness scientist and deserves being called “Doctor”. Every week, on her podcast “This Week in Science”, she talks about the goings-on in science news and gives perspectives on these stories for us, the common folk. As of this recording (in Summer 2016) she had also made appearances on “Chelsea” (Chelsea Handler’s show on Netflix) as well as other shows like “Food Science”. Dr. Kiki is also an award-winning podcaster and it was a fluke that she was willing to come and do this show. Make sure to check out Dr. Kiki’s really great content. You can find her doing her science thing every week on “This Week in Science” (https://www.twis.org) The sketch was really relevant in the Summer of 2016… Sketch Comedy Podcast show is an independent and completely improvised sketch podcast that is based on conversations with interesting people like YOU! We welcome all suggestions, and we are always looking for new and interesting people to have on the podcast. Thank you so much for watching and listening, and please check out our other links for more information, interaction and overall fun! For more episodes, information, and a chance to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK: http://facebook.com/sketchcomedypodcastshow TWITTER: http://twitter.com/sketchcompod INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/sketchcompod SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS APPLE: http://bit.ly/SCPSitunes GOOGLE: http://bit.ly/SCPSgplay RSS: https://scps.fireside.fm/rss PODCHASER: https://www.podchaser.com/SketchComedyPodcastShow Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. © Copyright 2019 Marathon Productions, LLC. Special Guest: Dr. Kiki Sanford | Scientist and host of "This Week in Science".

Imagine having a rat clinging to your back, sucking out your fat stores. That's similar to what infested bees endure when the Varroa destructor mite comes calling. Some bees fight back, wiggling, scratching, and biting until the mites depart for friendlier backs. Now, researchers, professional beekeepers, and hobbyists are working on ways to breed into bees these mite-defeating behaviors to rid them of these damaging pests. Host Sarah Crespi and Staff Writer Erik Stokstad discuss the tactics of, and the hurdles to, pesticide-free mite control. Also this week, Sarah talks to Philip Kragel of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado in Boulder about training an artificial intelligence on emotionally charged images. The ultimate aim of this research: to understand how the human visual system is involved in processing emotion. And in books, Kate Eichorn, author of The End of Forgetting: Growing Up with Social Media, joins books host Kiki Sanford to talk about how the monetization of digital information has led to the ease of social media sharing and posting for kids and adults. This week's episode was edited by Podigy. Download a transcript (PDF)  Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: Steve Baker/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Imagine having a rat clinging to your back, sucking out your fat stores. That’s similar to what infested bees endure when the Varroa destructor mite comes calling. Some bees fight back, wiggling, scratching, and biting until the mites depart for friendlier backs. Now, researchers, professional beekeepers, and hobbyists are working on ways to breed into bees these mite-defeating behaviors to rid them of these damaging pests. Host Sarah Crespi and Staff Writer Erik Stokstad discuss the tactics of, and the hurdles to, pesticide-free mite control. Also this week, Sarah talks to Philip Kragel of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado in Boulder about training an artificial intelligence on emotionally charged images. The ultimate aim of this research: to understand how the human visual system is involved in processing emotion. And in books, Kate Eichorn, author of The End of Forgetting: Growing Up with Social Media, joins books host Kiki Sanford to talk about how the monetization of digital information has led to the ease of social media sharing and posting for kids and adults. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Download a transcript (PDF)  Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: Steve Baker/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

How can polydactyls (people born with extra digits on their hands or feet) help improve the science of robotic limbs? TWIS host Kiki Sanford is here with the details!Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang and Kiki Sanford. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/dtns.

Up until this year, most U.S. graduate programs in the sciences required the General Record Examination from applicants. But concerns about what the test scores actually say about potential students and the worry that the cost is a barrier to many have led to a rapid and dramatic reduction in the number of programs requiring the test. Science Staff Writer Katie Langin joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about this trend and how it differs across disciplines. Also this week, Sarah talks with DeepMind's Max Jaderberg in London about training artificial agents to play a video game version of capture the flag. The agents played approximately 4 years' worth of Quake III Arena and came out better than even expert human players at both cooperating and collaborating, even when their computer-quick reflexes were hampered. And in this month's book segment, new host Kiki Sanford interviews Marcus Du Satoy about his book The Creativity Code: Art and Innovation in the Age of AI. This week's episode was edited by Podigy. Ads this week: KiwiCo.com Download a transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science podcast. [Image: DeepMind; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Up until this year, most U.S. graduate programs in the sciences required the General Record Examination from applicants. But concerns about what the test scores actually say about potential students and the worry that the cost is a barrier to many have led to a rapid and dramatic reduction in the number of programs requiring the test. Science Staff Writer Katie Langin joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about this trend and how it differs across disciplines. Also this week, Sarah talks with DeepMind’s Max Jaderberg in London about training artificial agents to play a video game version of capture the flag. The agents played approximately 4 years’ worth of Quake III Arena and came out better than even expert human players at both cooperating and collaborating, even when their computer-quick reflexes were hampered. And in this month’s book segment, new host Kiki Sanford interviews Marcus Du Satoy about his book The Creativity Code: Art and Innovation in the Age of AI. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Ads this week: KiwiCo.com Download a transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science podcast. [Image: DeepMind; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Dr. Kiki Sanford makes her sixth appearance on Background Mode. Kiki is a neurophysiologist with a B.S. in conservation biology and a Ph.D. avian neurophysiology from the University of California. She’s a popular science communicator and creator of This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast and radio show. In this episode, we chat about the science of rising sea levels, neural networks and vocoder technology trained to recognize brain patterns related to listening to human speech, how learning two human languages in childhood positively affects the brain, rebooting the human immune system, whether intelligence is sexy, and the colonization of Mars and whether it will be commercially exploited or preserved by all nations like the Earth’s Antarctic. Dr. Kiki is always a delight to listen to and learn from.

A recent report by the Brookings Institution finds 25% of US workers have high exposure to jobs that will be automated. While the US Bureau of Labor Statistics says the effects of automation will be felt unevenly with women and minorities taking a higher burden. Will higher education supply the necessary skills to compete in the future workplace or does there need to be shift in how we view jobs and labor?Starring Sarah Lane, Kiki Sanford, Roger Chang and Erin Carson.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/dtns.

Can neuroscience help develop artificial intelligence? Are human brains and bird brains similar? Astrophysicist and host Charles Liu, PhD, comic co-host Chuck Nice, and neurophysiologist and science communicator Dr. Kiki Sanford, PhD, investigate brains. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/connecting-our-brains-with-charles-liu/Illustration Credit: kirstypargeter/iStock.

Can neuroscience help develop artificial intelligence? Are human brains and bird brains similar? Astrophysicist and host Charles Liu, PhD, comic co-host Chuck Nice, and neurophysiologist and science communicator Dr. Kiki Sanford, PhD, investigate brains.  NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/connecting-our-brains-with-charles-liu/ Illustration Credit: kirstypargeter/iStock.

Dr. Kiki Sanford makes her fifth appearance on Background Mode. Kiki is a neurophysiologist with a Ph.D. from the University of California. She’s a popular science communicator and creator of This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast and radio show. In this episode, we chat about some some recent topics discussed on TWIS that fascinated me. 1) Yale roboticists have developed skins with embedded actuators that can turn just about anything into robots. 2) A 127 million year old fossil was discovered in China that fills in another gap in the story of how dinosaurs became birds. 3) The new NASA exoplanet search mission, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is operational. We talk about its mission and how it compares to the Kepler spacecraft. This is just a sample; we covered much more cool science stuff.

DR. KIKI SANFORD, host of the incredible, long-running science podcast, THIS WEEK IN SCIENCE (TWiS.org), joins us for our most amazing, astounding, iff-iest episode yet! What The IF... WE WERE BIRDS? We learn all about bird behavior, in particular, Dr. Kiki's favorite birds, the tiny, adorable, musical, KILLER BIRDS, the shrikes. Yikes! What's it like to THINK like a bird, and to BE a bird? Tons of fun, and loads of knowledge dropped (onto spikes!) in this episode. Flap your wings and join us for the adventure of... SCIENCE.

Jacob and his best friend get into trouble wherever they go. But a chance meeting with mysterious and sexy Allanah shows Jacob the real darkside. Featuring Pete Lutz as the stranger. Ryan Volmer as Jacob and the barfly Terrance Drye as Mike Jeff Niles as Bryan David Shutz II as Biker Gabrielle Andrews as woman on stairs and Kiki Sanford as Allannah written by D.S. Scott Music by carpenter’s notch and audionautix.com directed by Mark Slade --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bloodnoir/message

Guest The Stem Cell Podcast and STEMCELL Technologies introduce the first interview in a new series called, “Alternative Science Careers.”  For the first part of this series, we are pleased to interview the host of…

Watch the sketch on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/xrx4diScYr8 Have you ever had that dream that you wanted to direct and write the movie that you always wanted to watch? I bet you have, you’ve imagined it, but you haven’t done a single thing to get it done. This week’s guest, Ben Fancher, is absolutely going to make the horror movie of his dreams… and he works a retail job during the day! You can just hear the excitement and passion in his voice as he talks about building this movie. I for one am really looking forward to it! You can connect with Ben via all the social media channels to keep up with his progress , link is at the bottom of the show notes. Let me tell you my favorite thing about this show: all of the episodes are still really listenable. Make sure that if you like this show, or don’t like this show, you can take a look at all of the past episodes and maybe you can find something else you like! Head to sketchcomedypodcastshow.com and just scroll down the page! Business opportunities abound all around us. See a need, fill it, and you can get rewarded handsomely for it. There are times that those business opportunities are not successful. Sometimes those opportunities are just downright stupid… but enough about Windows Phone. Every episode I try to offer a suggestion of a podcast to listen to after this podcast. This week I suggest going back and listening to a couple of this show’s most popular episodes that you might have missed! Like episode 3 with Dr. Kiki Sanford, episode 23 with Katie BBB, episode 31 with Mike Phirman, and episode 36 with Rebecca Love. Links are below in the show notes and, of course, you can always just visit sketchcomedypodcastshow@gmail.com Next week, we are going to connect with another podcast improvisor… and it won’t be an online fight, I promise. Frank Cardillo has “The Improvisor’s Guide Podcast” and it’s a fun time! See you next week! Special Guest: Ben Fancher | Indie Horror Movie Director and Producer.

This week, Cara chats with the host of "This Week in Science," Dr. Kiki Sanford. They talk about her pioneering work in science communication, and she reveals the methods and insights she uses to deliver fascinating science news week after week. Follow Kiki: @drkiki.

This week, Cara chats with the host of "This Week in Science," Dr. Kiki Sanford. They talk about her pioneering work in science communication, and she reveals the methods and insights she uses to deliver fascinating science news week after week. Follow Kiki: @drkiki.

Kiki Sanford explores how polyamines found in semen could be related to a long and healthy life

EPICURE_SH-15_Placotage-avec-Mathieu-Rancourt-> En cette période estivale, où la plupart des podcasteurs prennent congé, ÉPICUREaudio prends soin de tes oreilles et nourrit tes passions.Mathieu Rancourt s'est porté volontaire pour jaser de toutte pendant un boutte, et ma foi, je crois bien qu'on s'est sortie quelques très bonnes idées qui seront à envisager sérieusement par nous ou qui conque se sentant inspiré. Un super beau moment! Et n'oubliez pas les Perséides autour du 11 Aout...Bon vœux à tous ^-_-^***  Pour mentionner votre intérêt pour: la rencontre de "Les podcasters de la Capitale-Nationale et de Chaudière-Appalaches" initié par Mathieu (l'Éclectique show)(@profduweb)  c'est ici {https://goo.gl/CA2iU3}  Lien valide jusqu'en septembre, j'imagine...***Quelque liens effleurés pendant l'émission: -  CAPSULE  DE  CONNAISSANCES -  SOIF DE SAVOIR -  EN ROUTE VERS LES ETOILES -  À TOI LES ÉTOILES -  AUJOURD'HUI  L'HISTOIRE   Épisodes sur l' Axe du temps  -  CA SE PASSE LÀ HAUT -  This Week In Science (TWIS) (Dr. Kiki Sanford) -  Science-Presse -  PREZI   (Genre de PowerPoint 3.0) -  Mp3tag (pc)    Kid3 (mac) -  PODCAST-SCIENCE -  Sylvain Grand'Maison   (Le Québec en baladodiffusion) -  BOUCANE entrevues (Magasine photo | Podcast sans RSS...) -  SANSA-Clip + (Petit lecteur mp3 de Jean-seb) -  PocketCast (Agrégateur de podcast) -  La boite à musique (Salle de pratique à Mathieu) -  PrototypeS (Adrien Mangold) -  ESQUADRA (Club d'escrime Québec) -  Yan Thériault (Le Stream) -  JB Gagné -  GÉOCACHING  --> La Baraque à cadeaux (Ma cache... Descendez dire bonjour en passant!) -  Garmin.OpenStreetMap.NL (Cartes GPS gratuites) -  Les éditions de l' A Venir (site miroir) (Archive.org) (départ pour livres Audio et saga)       POUR DÉCOUVRIR D'AUTRES PODCASTS***  Parlons Balado  ***       POUR DÉCOUVRIR D'AUTRES PODCASTSRef. Musiques: La planète Bleue, Yanny, Jean-Michel Jarre, Enyo Morricone, Vangelis

What happens to your brain when you get a concussion? It's common to get hit in the head when you play rough or risky sports. Everyone knows a concussion makes you woozy for a while. But the impacts of repeated concussions can last much longer. Learn how American football players have helped scientists unravel a mystery that could change the way that sports are played. With Dr. Kiki Sanford, host of the wonderful podcast This Week in Science. We want to see your ideas about how to keep your brain safe while playing sports or walking down the street! Email us at tumblepodcast@gmail.com. Enjoy the show? Rate us on iTunes, find us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

Kiki Sanford examines the molecule that holds the balance between life and death

I hope you're buckled up, because it's Thinkery episode 21, which means a joke about being twenty-one years old! Imagine the best joke about turning twenty-one that you can, and now imagine us making that joke RIGHT NOW, and then laugh, because we totally did make that joke! It was pretty good, right? Speaking of pretty good, we've got a great guest this week: Dr. Kiki Sanford! You probably know her from EVERYWHERE, and she sat down with us over Skype to talk about many awesome things, including but not limited to: Will First Contact really be a big deal? Do you ever stop trying to figure out your podcast, even when you've been doing it for years? Why do Americans know so little about science? Why aren't there feathers on dinosaurs in movies or TV? If you want to see more of Dr. Kiki, she's on Twitter at @drkiki, and you can find her excellent podcast "This Week in Science" at http://www.twis.org/ ! If you want to see more of Paul and Brian, they're on Twitter at @paulfidalgo and @dotboom. And the show's on Twitter at @thinkerypodcast! And Paul's blog is at http://www.imortal.co/ ! And the fake autobiography of Donald Trump that Brian is going to write more of as soon as he's finished writing this is at http://www.trumpedupbook.com/ ! If you like us, please consider sharing the podcast with your friends (or enemies, we don't mind!) and leaving a review on iTunes or wherever you download this sucker!

Mathias Craig, Co-Founder and Exec. Dir. of Blue Energy. Blue Energy is a not for profit, NGO working in Caribbean coastal communities of Eastern Nicaragua to help connect them to energy, clean water, sanitation and other services. Blueenergygroup.orgTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Okay. Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l ex Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar [00:00:30] of local events and news. Speaker 3: Hi and good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. This week on spectrum. We present part one of two with our guest Monte as Craig Co founder and executive director of Blue Energy. Blue Energy is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization working among the Caribbean coastal communities of eastern Nicaragua to help connect them to energy, clean water, sanitation, and other essential services. Matiaz Craig is an engineer by training right here at UC Berkeley. [00:01:00] He talks about what he and blue energy have learned about applying and localizing technology through projects that they undertake with remote isolated communities. Give a listen to part one. Monte has. Craig, welcome to spectrum. Thank you for having me. How were you initially drawn to technology? Speaker 1: It started really early for me. I was a tinkerer. I always thought that I would be an inventor when I was young. So I think the, the attraction came, came super early and [00:01:30] then when I studied here at UC Berkeley in civil and environmental engineering, I started getting exposed to technology. Just sort of took it from there. Speaker 3: When was it that you started down this path of connecting technology with sustainability and equitable development? Speaker 1: So I started thinking about that again while I was here at UC Berkeley, I had the opportunity to take a number of classes in the energy and resource group with Professor Richard Norgaard and Dan Cayman, which was really inspirational [00:02:00] for me. And I started to see renewable energy in particular as an opportunity to use technology in a green, sustainable way. And also I liked the international element of it, but this is a global issue around the environment and also around issues of energy and water. And it was easy to see how they could fit together. I think it really started here. And then in graduate school I was at MIT and I had the opportunity to take a class called entrepreneurship in the developing world with Professor Alex Pentland [00:02:30] over in the media lab and that was my first sort of insight into how I might combine those things. Practically speaking in an organization, Speaker 3: when you first started trying to couple those things, energy generation, sustainability, what was the status quo of things? Speaker 1: What was the landscape like? What year was it? I started thinking about renewable energy and wind power back in 1999 when I was a student here at Berkeley. It [00:03:00] was a class project in 2002 at MIT and we launched in Nicaragua in 2004 I think the landscape for small wind in particular, which was what drew my interest initially, it was pretty sparse out there. There weren't many organizations doing small scale wind for development. There have been some small scale wind turbine manufacturers in Europe and in the United States for a number of decades on a commercial scale, but they weren't really thinking about emerging markets and how wind [00:03:30] might contribute to rural electrification in those places. And we formed some nice partnerships, one with Hugh Pigott from Scotland who was the original inventor of the wind turbine design that we were using and worked with him for a number of years to add our own contribution to the design and evolve it. Speaker 1: And were there other groups in the field that you kind of model yourself after? We didn't really have any models for the small scale wind, but there were some organizations that I looked up to and kept track of [00:04:00] in terms of community development, the how to implement technology in community situations in the developing world in particular, one group was called it DG. It was intermediate technology development group. It's now called practical action. They've been around since the 60s promoting how do you do responsible development in communities, deploying technology, but thinking about all the other dimensions around that work. And then another group I have a lot of respect for is out of Portland, Oregon, green empowerment. They've worked a lot with practical action as well. [00:04:30] It's a holistic view on how to use technology to create impact, but with a recognition of all the other components that have to go into that work. Speaker 1: And what was the learning curve like for you and your organization in the early years? Very steep. When we launched the organization, we had a lot of passion, a lot of commitment, a lot of ideas, but we did not have formal business training. Our level of experience in the field, we had some historical experience in Nicaragua, but trying [00:05:00] to launch your organization at work there is quite different than visiting. So I'd say the learning curve was extremely steep. That's been one of the most rewarding parts of this job for the last 10 years is every day I feel like I'm learning something new. And I think in the beginning of the organization we didn't have a very solid structure or a very big organization in terms of number of people. And we've had a lot of turnover over the years. And that's where I think the learning curve remains fairly steep for the institution because you have to [00:05:30] figure out how do you bridge those changes within the organization and how do you document your learning so that you don't have to constantly re learn the same lessons and you get to move on to the next lesson. Speaker 1: When we launched the organization, we had no money, no experience, no major backers, no big team, and we really built it from scratch. And I think there's a lot of learning along the way there. What were the biggest challenges in the early days? Well, the challenges have evolved a lot over the 10 years. [00:06:00] In the early days, I would say the biggest challenge was cash. You know, cash flow for an organization is always a critical issue. And I think in the early days when we had actually no financing, that was a huge issue because we weren't able to pay salaries. It was a struggle to scrape together a little bit of money to buy materials. You know that's okay early on. In fact it can be quite healthy for an organization to start that way because it forces you to be very efficient and to think three times about doing anything before you do it. Speaker 1: [00:06:30] Finding the talent that you need to tackle something as complex as infrastructure in the kind of region that we're in is very challenging and so you can sometimes attract the talent, but then how do you retain it? And it's not only a money issue, it's not only being able to pay people a fair wage, but it's a very dynamic context, a very dynamic environment. And people come and go. You know, if you invest a lot in training, which is a core part of our philosophy, build local capacity, but then that person moves on, [00:07:00] moves to the u s or you train them well enough that they can be employed in the capitol city and has a bit of a brain drain there. So you can't think of, okay, we're just going to invest a lot in this handful of employees. You fifth think, how are we systematically going to continuously train people that we onboard, retain them as long as we can and maybe help them move on to new bright careers. But I think that turnover issues is a big one. Speaker 2: You were listening to spectrum [00:07:30] on KALX Berkeley Co founder and executive director of Blue Energy. All Monte has, Craig is our guests. What's your current Speaker 1: assess for going into a new community? How do you do that? I would say we do it very slowly and thoughtfully. Our approaches. We want to pick communities where we think there's a tremendous amount of need, but where there's also we say in Spanish that the contract parties, the, the commitment [00:08:00] from the people we're going to work with, that the solutions that we're providing and building with them are things that they actually want to commit to and invest in. Early on in the organization, it was a bit throwing darts at a board and to where you're going to start, but in the last five, six years it's become much more systematic and we spend a lot of time visiting with communities. Generally how it starts is one of the leaders from the community comes and finds us. Now we have enough of a presence, enough of a reputation [00:08:30] on the coast that we're a known entity and somebody, you know, the leader of a community comes, says, oh, I saw this water project in this other community. Speaker 1: We would like that as well and we don't just jump at that. We say, okay, duly noted. Thank you for coming. And then when we're out doing, say maintenance or a service visit in another community, we will stop by that community and have a look and start having the meetings. And it's a long process of getting understand the community at first, sort of informally. And then if we think there's an opportunity actually [00:09:00] going into a project development phase where we're starting to look at what the specific needs are, what are the solutions that we could provide, how might they match? And then doing things like understanding the power dynamics in the community. Okay, this one person came and solicited the service and they said they were the leader, but what does that mean? Are they an elected leader? Who Do they represent? Or the head of the fishing cooperative or the head of the church or the head of the communal board. Speaker 1: So we're very cognizant of the fact that communities aren't monolithic and the community [00:09:30] doesn't come speak to you. Somebody does with an agenda and you want to understand who are they representing and you want to understand if they're a minority voice, what do other people think in the community? Who makes decisions? How do they make decisions, understand all of that before you get into a project. Because infrastructure projects to be successful really require longterm relationships. They aren't widgets, they're not selling them pencils and just transactional. They walk away with a pencil, everything's [00:10:00] fine. If you're putting in a water system or an energy system requires operation and maintenance, maybe upgrades in the future, you want to connect those services to economic opportunity to ways to improve health, to support education. There's a lot of moving parts and you want to make sure that the people you're going to work with will stay committed and that the solution will actually provide some benefit and not be just a neat gadget out there on the field for six months and then not work. Speaker 1: So I think [00:10:30] it's very deliberate. We typically add only a couple of new communities per year and then we continue to work with the communities we've historically worked with. Our philosophy is to add new services, to look for new ways to leverage what we've done in the past. If we did a solar lamp program in the past, maybe now they're ready for a larger solar system. Now that they've seen solar and they've worked with it for awhile. So we look at how can we sort of keep moving up the ladder in terms of providing better and better services with more impact. [00:11:00] So within that meeting with them, you know, assessing what the community's like, what's the dynamic around what sort of technologies you'll use and how much education is involved in all that. Different technologies require different levels of involvement, different levels of commitment. Some of them are simpler. Speaker 1: For example, if you're doing a solar lantern project, you don't have to have the buy in of the entire community in a longterm plan necessarily to do a fairly [00:11:30] self contained technology such as that versus if you're doing a solar powered water pumping storage distribution system for a new pilot farm where you might have a lot of stake holders, a lot of moving parts. So we definitely look at how cohesive is the community. You know, some communities are communities by name only because on a map they have one name but it's 50 families that don't really talk or work together on things. Other communities are very tightly knit, [00:12:00] are very into communal goals. And that has a tremendous effect on what solutions we perceive as being viable. Not necessarily ones that we'll do, but even within the sort of the viable range. Because solar water pumping micro farm project requires a lot of coordination. Speaker 1: So if it's a community that's very fractured and very individualistic, that kind of project probably isn't going to work. So that might not be on the table today. So we're always thinking in time horizons to you might see that, oh there could be [00:12:30] an opportunity for that two, three years from now. So it's very much not a cookie cutter approach we put in as much if not more time on the community engagement side of things as we do on the technology. And that's reflected in our staff. You know, how we allocate our time and effort and a lot of that's based on the history of your experience of doing this. And when it hasn't worked. Absolutely. When we started the organization and my brother and I and other members of the organization early on, we know from history going back [00:13:00] before the organization at our mother's work in these communities that the social dimensions are critical. Speaker 1: The technical solution alone will never work. You have to understand people and communities to make that pairing. But I used to think it would be about 80% technology and 20% social, which I thought was a huge improvement over a lot of development initiatives, which are 99% technology, 1% social and almost always fail. So I thought, oh, very progressive and forward looking at us to think 80 20 now I know it's the other way around. [00:13:30] I mean now I say I don't think technology is ever more than 10 or maybe 20% of a solution both in terms of budget but time and the challenges you face and what you have to overcome. You know, you come in with certain ideas about what people need and the right way of doing things. But often those aren't very well informed and they often aren't very well rooted in the reality of the local context. Speaker 1: And I'll give you one example. When we started, we thought communal solutions are the best. So we're going to do community based [00:14:00] solutions versus home scale solutions. So we went in and in the communities we worked in the beginning we just implemented community based solutions. But as I just mentioned earlier, in some of those communities, there isn't a strong social cohesion and the community actually doesn't really want to work together on issues. Well if you come in with a community based solution, it's not going to work very well, but you feel that that's the way it should be. So you start to let go a little by little about your preconceived notions about the way things ought to be and [00:14:30] how they should go. And you start to listen more and listen and observe and adapt your solutions and your methodologies to the reality of what's out there. Speaker 1: And will you often start with a gateway technology, like you were describing the home solar lantern idea or do you sometimes go all in and say this community is ripe for a big project? I would say now we have the full spectrum there. I'd say most communities we are looking for a simpler solution and gateway or beachhead, you know a way to get in there because [00:15:00] we know that if you implement a relatively simple technology to start with, the main value that you're getting is that interaction. You're getting to know the community, but without project do they meet their end of the bargain? You know, are they actually contributing? Like they said they would. If things go badly, you don't lose much. Right? So it's a cheap way to have some immediate impact and get to know and understand the communities better over time and then sort of move up that ladder of complexity where you can have even greater impact. Speaker 1: Some [00:15:30] communities though are very well organized and it looks like all the ingredients are there for successful engagement. It's just they've never had the opportunity. So in those ones, sometimes you skip ahead and you think, okay, maybe we can start with a more complicated system. The main cases that I can think of in my head where we've seen that is where one of the few other development organizations on the coast, because there really aren't many, has already been working in that community and you can leverage the [00:16:00] progress that they've made. And we have some great examples north of Bluefields where probably our strongest partner [inaudible] has been working for over 25 years. Really, really strong community engagement training on the basics of improved farming techniques, financial literacy, just doing great work. So if you go into a community that they've been working with and you start to plan a bigger project, those committee members have already benefited from 10 years of training. And so we notice a huge difference there. [00:16:30] And so for those communities we can think about jumping ahead. Speaker 3: Mm [inaudible] spectrum is a public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley. Our guest is Matiaz Craig Blue Energy. When you start working with a community and you're having success and you've been with them for a number of years, is there a point at which you walk away or the flip side of that, [00:17:00] if it fails, do you say, this isn't going to work? We have to move on. Speaker 1: Our approach with the communities again is the vision is longterm engagement because we know that the challenges that they're facing are very deeply rooted. I mean, these are decades, centuries old barriers that they're facing. You don't solve that in a quarter. You don't solve that in a fiscal year. It's a longterm relationship. Our approach is more continue to build the relationship and think about entering and exiting particular solutions. You might try [00:17:30] a solution and then it turns out that solution in this community doesn't work. It doesn't mean the community is broken. It doesn't mean that they're not worth working with. It means that that's not the right approach. So yeah, there's definitely times where we've entered in, as I mentioned earlier, with the communal approach. It's just pushing this boulder up hill year after and you're trying to build this community association. And it's not working. And we've made some tough decisions in our past where you say, okay, we tried that for a couple of years, we invested a lot. Speaker 1: It [00:18:00] did not work. You go take out that equipment but you don't abandon the community. So now based on what we've learned, what is a better solution? And that's an interactive conversation community. And it's a tough conversation when you go in to take out a technology, sometimes you have to clear the table, acknowledge your mistakes, go back to that conversation about what might work and then reenter with a new solution. And so we certainly have done that. The amount of engagement and commitment to any particular community [00:18:30] in any particular year has a lot to do with funding. These communities are often very difficult to reach. Remember, there's almost no roads on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, almost no civil infrastructure of any kind. So it's a major commitment to get out there and work with these communities. And it has a lot to do with our funding. Speaker 1: So one community we might work with do a number of projects. Then there might be a little, if there's no funding and then we might re-engage, we stay in conversation with them, but we're not out there doing site visits and as frequently if there isn't a budget for it, but I [00:19:00] don't think that we've ever said, no, we're not going to work with this community anymore on anything. We've never reached that point, but certainly solutions have evolved over time. Are there any of these communities, would you consider them indigenous people? Absolutely. I think that's one of the most interesting things about Nicaragua that's often not known outside of the country is that Nicaragua was colonized by the Spanish and the British at the same time and you have two fundamentally different histories on the Pacific [00:19:30] side and on the Caribbean side of the country you have much more homogenous population on the Pacific. Speaker 1: The Spanish, we're sort of building a new empire, a new society, and their approach towards indigenous populations was particularly aggressive and resulted in almost total elimination of indigenous populations. Whereas on the Caribbean coast, the British just had a very different approach. They didn't want to build a large British colony. On the Caribbean coast, they were more interested in the geographic and strategic importance [00:20:00] of that territory. So they wanted control over it. They actually promoted certain indigenous groups on the coast to work for them. So the mosquito Indians were sort of chosen as the most sophisticated, the largest population. So they were given uniforms and armed and the Bible was translated into mosquito. Of course there was a lot of brutality and everything, but it wasn't an extermination policy as it was on the Pacific. And so you have a very different ethnographic history on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua has historically been largely indigenous. Speaker 1: [00:20:30] And then since the time of the British colonization, afro descendant populations that that were brought over during the slave trade and some that different waves. And it's a very complex story. I can't really do it justice here. But on the indigenous side, there's believe seven or more indigenous groups on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, we interact primarily with three of them. So a lot of the communities we work in are indigenous communities. And then we also work with creole, which is one of the Afro [00:21:00] descendant groups. And Garifuna communities, which is a different effort to send an it group that are descended from escaped slaves. It's a very complex ethnographic history on the Caribbean coast, very ethnically diverse, multicultural, and that's part of the beauty of it and there's a certain strength in that. It's also part of the challenge because each of those communities has very different worldviews. Speaker 1: Is there linguistic diversity within the cultural diversity? Still [00:21:30] there is a lot of linguistic diversity and in fact linguistic diversity is what is the pre blue energy story. That's what brings us to Nicaragua in the first place because our mother collector involved is a linguist who specializes in indigenous languages of the Americas in particular and she works on language documentation and revitalization and that's the work that actually brought her to Nicaragua in the early eighties and had [00:22:00] her working out on the Caribbean coast with the Rama people, which is one of the indigenous groups to the south of Bluefields with a language that was really unwritten and was dying out. Native Speakers where there was only a handful left to very old. And so our mother has spent, you know, it's been an ongoing project. It was very intensive during the 80s but it still continues on to this day, continuous generation of new content where she wrote a dictionary, she wrote the syntax and then she's been creating pedagogical materials, [00:22:30] books about the birds and the plants and things that are important to people there. Speaker 1: So that's deeply ingrained in our fabric, both as people, but also I think in the organization of blue energy where we came in thinking more about technical solutions, but we have this history and this, this very important understanding that comes from her work. Really dealing with people and culture. The technologies that you're using, how many of them are you manufacturing locally and how many [00:23:00] do you have to import? So when we first started, we really came in with the idea that local manufacturing was central to what we wanted to do and that it was intrinsically good. We were focused again on the small scale wind turbines that we were committed to manufacturing right there in Bluefields. I think one of the key learnings that we've had is that local manufacturing certainly does have pros. You do get to create more local employment. You do get to build more local technical capacity. Speaker 1: [00:23:30] Those remain true, but that you also have to look at the opportunity cost. If there's a very high precision part, for example, if your machine that needs to be built, if you can't meet the quality standards locally to be able to consistently produce that part within those specifications, but you continue with the local production anyways. What's you're doing is you're creating a future cost. Your maintenance services will need to be greater in the coming years. And in an environment like the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua [00:24:00] where maintenance can be very expensive because it's hard to get places, it's hard to train people to do certain kinds of technical work. You might actually be creating a quite large future cost. And so I think we got more realistic and a deeper understanding of what the pros and the cons of local manufacturing where. And one of the things we came to realize with the small scale wind turbines we were producing was that given sort of the fractured market on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, [00:24:30] we couldn't produce a high enough volume of the units to justify the kinds of investments in setting up the manufacturing and managing quality control that would be required to guarantee that every unit coming off the assembly line was in top shape and wasn't creating future problems for the organization. Speaker 1: That in addition to some other issues of there being a lower wind resource than we had expected and the price of solar coming down dramatically in the last 10 years. And essentially in most cases out competing [00:25:00] small scale wind except in the best wind sites. We decided in 2011 to actually cease producing small scale wind turbines. And at that time we also took just a deep look at all the different technologies that we were working with. So what we have today is it's a mix. You know, we don't try to manufacture solar panels, we don't try to manufacture inverters. Let's buy a high quality internationally available inverter. And let's put our focus [00:25:30] on other things where we could have a greater impact. So on the electricity side, most of the components are off the shelf. And then what we do is we do the design, the need assessment, how many inverters do you need, what size, what size, solar panels, what kind of solar panels? Speaker 1: Right? We do that work, assemble it all, and then we do some local building of components like the structural house of the system. For example, for other technologies like [00:26:00] the Bio sans water filter, like the cookstove, the designs that we're working with, there's a huge gain for local manufacturer. From a technical standpoint, they're very easy to manufacture, so they don't compare to trying to build a solar panel or a wind turbine. So when you do an analysis there, you realize that makes perfect sense to manufacturer the water filter locally in Bluefields. And so we do that. We have a shop space where we manufacture all those water filters locally. Cookstove similar issue. [00:26:30] It's largely built from locally sourced materials, different kinds of mud and rock and things that we've worked hard to identify in the region that we can optimize and so again it wouldn't make sense to try to bring that in from China or Speaker 4: even the capital city. Makes sense to manufacture that locally. Speaker 2: [inaudible] to learn more about blue energy, visit their website, blue energy group.org in part two Mathias [00:27:00] discusses adapting technologies, technologies he would like to work with and the future of blue energy. Now Rick [inaudible] present some of the science and technology events happening locally Speaker 4: over the next two weeks on May 20th Science Festival Director Kashara Hari Well Interview Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of freakonomics superfreakonomics and now think like a freak as part of a Commonwealth club program [00:27:30] at the Castro theater four to nine Castro street at market in San Francisco. The new book aims to help show how to use economics to analyze the decisions we make, the plans we create and even the morals we choose. Tickets. Start at $10 for more information, visit Commonwealth club.org carry the one radio are hosting a free event on Thursday May 29th doors at six 30 show at seven [00:28:00] to produce the program. Sound off at Genentech Hall on the ucs F Mission Bay campus, 616th street in San Francisco. Sound off, we'll feature Dr Kiki Sanford, who we'll interview three scientists. First, UC Berkeley is Dr. Frederick. Loosen well, discuss communication, sound processing. Then ucsfs. Dr. John Howard explores the role of auditory feedback in speech. Speaker 4: Finally, UC Berkeley's [00:28:30] Aaron brand studies the love songs from jumping spiders. rsvp@soundoffthateventbrite.com here's Rick Kaneski with a news story in a paper published in science on May 12th Amy Ogan, Benjamin East Smith and Brooke middly of the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington report that a marine ice sheet claps is potentially underway for the Thwaites [00:29:00] glacier basin in west Antarctica. The ice sheet has been long considered to be prone to instability. The team has applied a numerical model to predict glacier melt and they found that it is already melting. At a rate that is likely too fast to stop. The team predicts runaway collapse of the shelf and somewhere between 200 and 900 years in nature and news is summary of the paper. Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds called it a seminal work saying [00:29:30] that it is the first to really demonstrate what people have suspected, that the Thwaites glacier has a bigger threat to future sea level. Then Pine Island music occurred during the show was written and produced. Alex Simon, Speaker 3: thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email or email address is spectrum@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mathias Craig, Co-Founder and Exec. Dir. of Blue Energy. Blue Energy is a not for profit, NGO working in Caribbean coastal communities of Eastern Nicaragua to help connect them to energy, clean water, sanitation and other services. Blueenergygroup.orgTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Okay. Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l ex Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar [00:00:30] of local events and news. Speaker 3: Hi and good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. This week on spectrum. We present part one of two with our guest Monte as Craig Co founder and executive director of Blue Energy. Blue Energy is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization working among the Caribbean coastal communities of eastern Nicaragua to help connect them to energy, clean water, sanitation, and other essential services. Matiaz Craig is an engineer by training right here at UC Berkeley. [00:01:00] He talks about what he and blue energy have learned about applying and localizing technology through projects that they undertake with remote isolated communities. Give a listen to part one. Monte has. Craig, welcome to spectrum. Thank you for having me. How were you initially drawn to technology? Speaker 1: It started really early for me. I was a tinkerer. I always thought that I would be an inventor when I was young. So I think the, the attraction came, came super early and [00:01:30] then when I studied here at UC Berkeley in civil and environmental engineering, I started getting exposed to technology. Just sort of took it from there. Speaker 3: When was it that you started down this path of connecting technology with sustainability and equitable development? Speaker 1: So I started thinking about that again while I was here at UC Berkeley, I had the opportunity to take a number of classes in the energy and resource group with Professor Richard Norgaard and Dan Cayman, which was really inspirational [00:02:00] for me. And I started to see renewable energy in particular as an opportunity to use technology in a green, sustainable way. And also I liked the international element of it, but this is a global issue around the environment and also around issues of energy and water. And it was easy to see how they could fit together. I think it really started here. And then in graduate school I was at MIT and I had the opportunity to take a class called entrepreneurship in the developing world with Professor Alex Pentland [00:02:30] over in the media lab and that was my first sort of insight into how I might combine those things. Practically speaking in an organization, Speaker 3: when you first started trying to couple those things, energy generation, sustainability, what was the status quo of things? Speaker 1: What was the landscape like? What year was it? I started thinking about renewable energy and wind power back in 1999 when I was a student here at Berkeley. It [00:03:00] was a class project in 2002 at MIT and we launched in Nicaragua in 2004 I think the landscape for small wind in particular, which was what drew my interest initially, it was pretty sparse out there. There weren't many organizations doing small scale wind for development. There have been some small scale wind turbine manufacturers in Europe and in the United States for a number of decades on a commercial scale, but they weren't really thinking about emerging markets and how wind [00:03:30] might contribute to rural electrification in those places. And we formed some nice partnerships, one with Hugh Pigott from Scotland who was the original inventor of the wind turbine design that we were using and worked with him for a number of years to add our own contribution to the design and evolve it. Speaker 1: And were there other groups in the field that you kind of model yourself after? We didn't really have any models for the small scale wind, but there were some organizations that I looked up to and kept track of [00:04:00] in terms of community development, the how to implement technology in community situations in the developing world in particular, one group was called it DG. It was intermediate technology development group. It's now called practical action. They've been around since the 60s promoting how do you do responsible development in communities, deploying technology, but thinking about all the other dimensions around that work. And then another group I have a lot of respect for is out of Portland, Oregon, green empowerment. They've worked a lot with practical action as well. [00:04:30] It's a holistic view on how to use technology to create impact, but with a recognition of all the other components that have to go into that work. Speaker 1: And what was the learning curve like for you and your organization in the early years? Very steep. When we launched the organization, we had a lot of passion, a lot of commitment, a lot of ideas, but we did not have formal business training. Our level of experience in the field, we had some historical experience in Nicaragua, but trying [00:05:00] to launch your organization at work there is quite different than visiting. So I'd say the learning curve was extremely steep. That's been one of the most rewarding parts of this job for the last 10 years is every day I feel like I'm learning something new. And I think in the beginning of the organization we didn't have a very solid structure or a very big organization in terms of number of people. And we've had a lot of turnover over the years. And that's where I think the learning curve remains fairly steep for the institution because you have to [00:05:30] figure out how do you bridge those changes within the organization and how do you document your learning so that you don't have to constantly re learn the same lessons and you get to move on to the next lesson. Speaker 1: When we launched the organization, we had no money, no experience, no major backers, no big team, and we really built it from scratch. And I think there's a lot of learning along the way there. What were the biggest challenges in the early days? Well, the challenges have evolved a lot over the 10 years. [00:06:00] In the early days, I would say the biggest challenge was cash. You know, cash flow for an organization is always a critical issue. And I think in the early days when we had actually no financing, that was a huge issue because we weren't able to pay salaries. It was a struggle to scrape together a little bit of money to buy materials. You know that's okay early on. In fact it can be quite healthy for an organization to start that way because it forces you to be very efficient and to think three times about doing anything before you do it. Speaker 1: [00:06:30] Finding the talent that you need to tackle something as complex as infrastructure in the kind of region that we're in is very challenging and so you can sometimes attract the talent, but then how do you retain it? And it's not only a money issue, it's not only being able to pay people a fair wage, but it's a very dynamic context, a very dynamic environment. And people come and go. You know, if you invest a lot in training, which is a core part of our philosophy, build local capacity, but then that person moves on, [00:07:00] moves to the u s or you train them well enough that they can be employed in the capitol city and has a bit of a brain drain there. So you can't think of, okay, we're just going to invest a lot in this handful of employees. You fifth think, how are we systematically going to continuously train people that we onboard, retain them as long as we can and maybe help them move on to new bright careers. But I think that turnover issues is a big one. Speaker 2: You were listening to spectrum [00:07:30] on KALX Berkeley Co founder and executive director of Blue Energy. All Monte has, Craig is our guests. What's your current Speaker 1: assess for going into a new community? How do you do that? I would say we do it very slowly and thoughtfully. Our approaches. We want to pick communities where we think there's a tremendous amount of need, but where there's also we say in Spanish that the contract parties, the, the commitment [00:08:00] from the people we're going to work with, that the solutions that we're providing and building with them are things that they actually want to commit to and invest in. Early on in the organization, it was a bit throwing darts at a board and to where you're going to start, but in the last five, six years it's become much more systematic and we spend a lot of time visiting with communities. Generally how it starts is one of the leaders from the community comes and finds us. Now we have enough of a presence, enough of a reputation [00:08:30] on the coast that we're a known entity and somebody, you know, the leader of a community comes, says, oh, I saw this water project in this other community. Speaker 1: We would like that as well and we don't just jump at that. We say, okay, duly noted. Thank you for coming. And then when we're out doing, say maintenance or a service visit in another community, we will stop by that community and have a look and start having the meetings. And it's a long process of getting understand the community at first, sort of informally. And then if we think there's an opportunity actually [00:09:00] going into a project development phase where we're starting to look at what the specific needs are, what are the solutions that we could provide, how might they match? And then doing things like understanding the power dynamics in the community. Okay, this one person came and solicited the service and they said they were the leader, but what does that mean? Are they an elected leader? Who Do they represent? Or the head of the fishing cooperative or the head of the church or the head of the communal board. Speaker 1: So we're very cognizant of the fact that communities aren't monolithic and the community [00:09:30] doesn't come speak to you. Somebody does with an agenda and you want to understand who are they representing and you want to understand if they're a minority voice, what do other people think in the community? Who makes decisions? How do they make decisions, understand all of that before you get into a project. Because infrastructure projects to be successful really require longterm relationships. They aren't widgets, they're not selling them pencils and just transactional. They walk away with a pencil, everything's [00:10:00] fine. If you're putting in a water system or an energy system requires operation and maintenance, maybe upgrades in the future, you want to connect those services to economic opportunity to ways to improve health, to support education. There's a lot of moving parts and you want to make sure that the people you're going to work with will stay committed and that the solution will actually provide some benefit and not be just a neat gadget out there on the field for six months and then not work. Speaker 1: So I think [00:10:30] it's very deliberate. We typically add only a couple of new communities per year and then we continue to work with the communities we've historically worked with. Our philosophy is to add new services, to look for new ways to leverage what we've done in the past. If we did a solar lamp program in the past, maybe now they're ready for a larger solar system. Now that they've seen solar and they've worked with it for awhile. So we look at how can we sort of keep moving up the ladder in terms of providing better and better services with more impact. [00:11:00] So within that meeting with them, you know, assessing what the community's like, what's the dynamic around what sort of technologies you'll use and how much education is involved in all that. Different technologies require different levels of involvement, different levels of commitment. Some of them are simpler. Speaker 1: For example, if you're doing a solar lantern project, you don't have to have the buy in of the entire community in a longterm plan necessarily to do a fairly [00:11:30] self contained technology such as that versus if you're doing a solar powered water pumping storage distribution system for a new pilot farm where you might have a lot of stake holders, a lot of moving parts. So we definitely look at how cohesive is the community. You know, some communities are communities by name only because on a map they have one name but it's 50 families that don't really talk or work together on things. Other communities are very tightly knit, [00:12:00] are very into communal goals. And that has a tremendous effect on what solutions we perceive as being viable. Not necessarily ones that we'll do, but even within the sort of the viable range. Because solar water pumping micro farm project requires a lot of coordination. Speaker 1: So if it's a community that's very fractured and very individualistic, that kind of project probably isn't going to work. So that might not be on the table today. So we're always thinking in time horizons to you might see that, oh there could be [00:12:30] an opportunity for that two, three years from now. So it's very much not a cookie cutter approach we put in as much if not more time on the community engagement side of things as we do on the technology. And that's reflected in our staff. You know, how we allocate our time and effort and a lot of that's based on the history of your experience of doing this. And when it hasn't worked. Absolutely. When we started the organization and my brother and I and other members of the organization early on, we know from history going back [00:13:00] before the organization at our mother's work in these communities that the social dimensions are critical. Speaker 1: The technical solution alone will never work. You have to understand people and communities to make that pairing. But I used to think it would be about 80% technology and 20% social, which I thought was a huge improvement over a lot of development initiatives, which are 99% technology, 1% social and almost always fail. So I thought, oh, very progressive and forward looking at us to think 80 20 now I know it's the other way around. [00:13:30] I mean now I say I don't think technology is ever more than 10 or maybe 20% of a solution both in terms of budget but time and the challenges you face and what you have to overcome. You know, you come in with certain ideas about what people need and the right way of doing things. But often those aren't very well informed and they often aren't very well rooted in the reality of the local context. Speaker 1: And I'll give you one example. When we started, we thought communal solutions are the best. So we're going to do community based [00:14:00] solutions versus home scale solutions. So we went in and in the communities we worked in the beginning we just implemented community based solutions. But as I just mentioned earlier, in some of those communities, there isn't a strong social cohesion and the community actually doesn't really want to work together on issues. Well if you come in with a community based solution, it's not going to work very well, but you feel that that's the way it should be. So you start to let go a little by little about your preconceived notions about the way things ought to be and [00:14:30] how they should go. And you start to listen more and listen and observe and adapt your solutions and your methodologies to the reality of what's out there. Speaker 1: And will you often start with a gateway technology, like you were describing the home solar lantern idea or do you sometimes go all in and say this community is ripe for a big project? I would say now we have the full spectrum there. I'd say most communities we are looking for a simpler solution and gateway or beachhead, you know a way to get in there because [00:15:00] we know that if you implement a relatively simple technology to start with, the main value that you're getting is that interaction. You're getting to know the community, but without project do they meet their end of the bargain? You know, are they actually contributing? Like they said they would. If things go badly, you don't lose much. Right? So it's a cheap way to have some immediate impact and get to know and understand the communities better over time and then sort of move up that ladder of complexity where you can have even greater impact. Speaker 1: Some [00:15:30] communities though are very well organized and it looks like all the ingredients are there for successful engagement. It's just they've never had the opportunity. So in those ones, sometimes you skip ahead and you think, okay, maybe we can start with a more complicated system. The main cases that I can think of in my head where we've seen that is where one of the few other development organizations on the coast, because there really aren't many, has already been working in that community and you can leverage the [00:16:00] progress that they've made. And we have some great examples north of Bluefields where probably our strongest partner [inaudible] has been working for over 25 years. Really, really strong community engagement training on the basics of improved farming techniques, financial literacy, just doing great work. So if you go into a community that they've been working with and you start to plan a bigger project, those committee members have already benefited from 10 years of training. And so we notice a huge difference there. [00:16:30] And so for those communities we can think about jumping ahead. Speaker 3: Mm [inaudible] spectrum is a public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley. Our guest is Matiaz Craig Blue Energy. When you start working with a community and you're having success and you've been with them for a number of years, is there a point at which you walk away or the flip side of that, [00:17:00] if it fails, do you say, this isn't going to work? We have to move on. Speaker 1: Our approach with the communities again is the vision is longterm engagement because we know that the challenges that they're facing are very deeply rooted. I mean, these are decades, centuries old barriers that they're facing. You don't solve that in a quarter. You don't solve that in a fiscal year. It's a longterm relationship. Our approach is more continue to build the relationship and think about entering and exiting particular solutions. You might try [00:17:30] a solution and then it turns out that solution in this community doesn't work. It doesn't mean the community is broken. It doesn't mean that they're not worth working with. It means that that's not the right approach. So yeah, there's definitely times where we've entered in, as I mentioned earlier, with the communal approach. It's just pushing this boulder up hill year after and you're trying to build this community association. And it's not working. And we've made some tough decisions in our past where you say, okay, we tried that for a couple of years, we invested a lot. Speaker 1: It [00:18:00] did not work. You go take out that equipment but you don't abandon the community. So now based on what we've learned, what is a better solution? And that's an interactive conversation community. And it's a tough conversation when you go in to take out a technology, sometimes you have to clear the table, acknowledge your mistakes, go back to that conversation about what might work and then reenter with a new solution. And so we certainly have done that. The amount of engagement and commitment to any particular community [00:18:30] in any particular year has a lot to do with funding. These communities are often very difficult to reach. Remember, there's almost no roads on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, almost no civil infrastructure of any kind. So it's a major commitment to get out there and work with these communities. And it has a lot to do with our funding. Speaker 1: So one community we might work with do a number of projects. Then there might be a little, if there's no funding and then we might re-engage, we stay in conversation with them, but we're not out there doing site visits and as frequently if there isn't a budget for it, but I [00:19:00] don't think that we've ever said, no, we're not going to work with this community anymore on anything. We've never reached that point, but certainly solutions have evolved over time. Are there any of these communities, would you consider them indigenous people? Absolutely. I think that's one of the most interesting things about Nicaragua that's often not known outside of the country is that Nicaragua was colonized by the Spanish and the British at the same time and you have two fundamentally different histories on the Pacific [00:19:30] side and on the Caribbean side of the country you have much more homogenous population on the Pacific. Speaker 1: The Spanish, we're sort of building a new empire, a new society, and their approach towards indigenous populations was particularly aggressive and resulted in almost total elimination of indigenous populations. Whereas on the Caribbean coast, the British just had a very different approach. They didn't want to build a large British colony. On the Caribbean coast, they were more interested in the geographic and strategic importance [00:20:00] of that territory. So they wanted control over it. They actually promoted certain indigenous groups on the coast to work for them. So the mosquito Indians were sort of chosen as the most sophisticated, the largest population. So they were given uniforms and armed and the Bible was translated into mosquito. Of course there was a lot of brutality and everything, but it wasn't an extermination policy as it was on the Pacific. And so you have a very different ethnographic history on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua has historically been largely indigenous. Speaker 1: [00:20:30] And then since the time of the British colonization, afro descendant populations that that were brought over during the slave trade and some that different waves. And it's a very complex story. I can't really do it justice here. But on the indigenous side, there's believe seven or more indigenous groups on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, we interact primarily with three of them. So a lot of the communities we work in are indigenous communities. And then we also work with creole, which is one of the Afro [00:21:00] descendant groups. And Garifuna communities, which is a different effort to send an it group that are descended from escaped slaves. It's a very complex ethnographic history on the Caribbean coast, very ethnically diverse, multicultural, and that's part of the beauty of it and there's a certain strength in that. It's also part of the challenge because each of those communities has very different worldviews. Speaker 1: Is there linguistic diversity within the cultural diversity? Still [00:21:30] there is a lot of linguistic diversity and in fact linguistic diversity is what is the pre blue energy story. That's what brings us to Nicaragua in the first place because our mother collector involved is a linguist who specializes in indigenous languages of the Americas in particular and she works on language documentation and revitalization and that's the work that actually brought her to Nicaragua in the early eighties and had [00:22:00] her working out on the Caribbean coast with the Rama people, which is one of the indigenous groups to the south of Bluefields with a language that was really unwritten and was dying out. Native Speakers where there was only a handful left to very old. And so our mother has spent, you know, it's been an ongoing project. It was very intensive during the 80s but it still continues on to this day, continuous generation of new content where she wrote a dictionary, she wrote the syntax and then she's been creating pedagogical materials, [00:22:30] books about the birds and the plants and things that are important to people there. Speaker 1: So that's deeply ingrained in our fabric, both as people, but also I think in the organization of blue energy where we came in thinking more about technical solutions, but we have this history and this, this very important understanding that comes from her work. Really dealing with people and culture. The technologies that you're using, how many of them are you manufacturing locally and how many [00:23:00] do you have to import? So when we first started, we really came in with the idea that local manufacturing was central to what we wanted to do and that it was intrinsically good. We were focused again on the small scale wind turbines that we were committed to manufacturing right there in Bluefields. I think one of the key learnings that we've had is that local manufacturing certainly does have pros. You do get to create more local employment. You do get to build more local technical capacity. Speaker 1: [00:23:30] Those remain true, but that you also have to look at the opportunity cost. If there's a very high precision part, for example, if your machine that needs to be built, if you can't meet the quality standards locally to be able to consistently produce that part within those specifications, but you continue with the local production anyways. What's you're doing is you're creating a future cost. Your maintenance services will need to be greater in the coming years. And in an environment like the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua [00:24:00] where maintenance can be very expensive because it's hard to get places, it's hard to train people to do certain kinds of technical work. You might actually be creating a quite large future cost. And so I think we got more realistic and a deeper understanding of what the pros and the cons of local manufacturing where. And one of the things we came to realize with the small scale wind turbines we were producing was that given sort of the fractured market on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, [00:24:30] we couldn't produce a high enough volume of the units to justify the kinds of investments in setting up the manufacturing and managing quality control that would be required to guarantee that every unit coming off the assembly line was in top shape and wasn't creating future problems for the organization. Speaker 1: That in addition to some other issues of there being a lower wind resource than we had expected and the price of solar coming down dramatically in the last 10 years. And essentially in most cases out competing [00:25:00] small scale wind except in the best wind sites. We decided in 2011 to actually cease producing small scale wind turbines. And at that time we also took just a deep look at all the different technologies that we were working with. So what we have today is it's a mix. You know, we don't try to manufacture solar panels, we don't try to manufacture inverters. Let's buy a high quality internationally available inverter. And let's put our focus [00:25:30] on other things where we could have a greater impact. So on the electricity side, most of the components are off the shelf. And then what we do is we do the design, the need assessment, how many inverters do you need, what size, what size, solar panels, what kind of solar panels? Speaker 1: Right? We do that work, assemble it all, and then we do some local building of components like the structural house of the system. For example, for other technologies like [00:26:00] the Bio sans water filter, like the cookstove, the designs that we're working with, there's a huge gain for local manufacturer. From a technical standpoint, they're very easy to manufacture, so they don't compare to trying to build a solar panel or a wind turbine. So when you do an analysis there, you realize that makes perfect sense to manufacturer the water filter locally in Bluefields. And so we do that. We have a shop space where we manufacture all those water filters locally. Cookstove similar issue. [00:26:30] It's largely built from locally sourced materials, different kinds of mud and rock and things that we've worked hard to identify in the region that we can optimize and so again it wouldn't make sense to try to bring that in from China or Speaker 4: even the capital city. Makes sense to manufacture that locally. Speaker 2: [inaudible] to learn more about blue energy, visit their website, blue energy group.org in part two Mathias [00:27:00] discusses adapting technologies, technologies he would like to work with and the future of blue energy. Now Rick [inaudible] present some of the science and technology events happening locally Speaker 4: over the next two weeks on May 20th Science Festival Director Kashara Hari Well Interview Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of freakonomics superfreakonomics and now think like a freak as part of a Commonwealth club program [00:27:30] at the Castro theater four to nine Castro street at market in San Francisco. The new book aims to help show how to use economics to analyze the decisions we make, the plans we create and even the morals we choose. Tickets. Start at $10 for more information, visit Commonwealth club.org carry the one radio are hosting a free event on Thursday May 29th doors at six 30 show at seven [00:28:00] to produce the program. Sound off at Genentech Hall on the ucs F Mission Bay campus, 616th street in San Francisco. Sound off, we'll feature Dr Kiki Sanford, who we'll interview three scientists. First, UC Berkeley is Dr. Frederick. Loosen well, discuss communication, sound processing. Then ucsfs. Dr. John Howard explores the role of auditory feedback in speech. Speaker 4: Finally, UC Berkeley's [00:28:30] Aaron brand studies the love songs from jumping spiders. rsvp@soundoffthateventbrite.com here's Rick Kaneski with a news story in a paper published in science on May 12th Amy Ogan, Benjamin East Smith and Brooke middly of the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington report that a marine ice sheet claps is potentially underway for the Thwaites [00:29:00] glacier basin in west Antarctica. The ice sheet has been long considered to be prone to instability. The team has applied a numerical model to predict glacier melt and they found that it is already melting. At a rate that is likely too fast to stop. The team predicts runaway collapse of the shelf and somewhere between 200 and 900 years in nature and news is summary of the paper. Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds called it a seminal work saying [00:29:30] that it is the first to really demonstrate what people have suspected, that the Thwaites glacier has a bigger threat to future sea level. Then Pine Island music occurred during the show was written and produced. Alex Simon, Speaker 3: thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email or email address is spectrum@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're a busy person. Keeping up with your job, plus your life, is the very definition of multitasking. It doesn't help that when working, you're distracted not only by your mobile devices, but also by your computer. You average 10 tabs open in your browser at any one time, which you compulsively click amongst. One's your email, which never stops flowing in. At the end of the day, you sleep less than you know you probably should, but as you tell yourself, there's just never enough time.If this is how you live, then Maria Konnikova has a simple message for you: Pause, step back, and recognize the actual costs of your habits. A psychology Ph.D. and popular writer for The New Yorker, Konnikova circles back, again and again, to a common theme: How we thwart our own happiness, and even sometimes harm our brains, in our quest for a simply unattainable level of productivity. "The way that we've evolved, the way our minds work, the way we work at our most optimal selves, is really not the way we have to operate today," Konnikova explains on this week's episode. "I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, but I hope that if there are enough voices out there, someone will finally hear that, 'Hey, this attempt at hyper productivity is making us much less productive.'"This episode also features a report by Climate Desk's Tim McDonnell on how climate change is threatening winter sports, and a special guest appearance by science communicator Dr. Kiki Sanford, who helps us break down what happened in the widely watched Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham creationism debate earlier this week.iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/inquiring-minds/id711675943RSS: feeds.feedburner.com/inquiring-mindsStitcher: stitcher.com/podcast/inquiring-minds

Touch Me was the first BSR “live event”, moderated by Dr. Kiki Sanford UC Davis in collaboration with the Bay Area Science Festival. Guests were Lydia Thé, UC Berkeley. Benajmin Tee, Stanford. Daniel Cordaro UC Berkeley.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 3: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x [00:00:30] Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 4: Good afternoon. I'm Rick Kaneski, the host of today's show. We have a different kind of program today. This past October, the Berkeley Science Review hosted the live event. Touch me as part of the bay area science festival. We've previously featured both the BSR and [00:01:00] the bay area science fest here. Visit tiny url.com/calyx spectrum to hear these past interviews at the event, Dr Kiki Sanford from this week in science interviewed three bay area scientists about the ways animals and robots navigate the tactile world. Lydia Tay from the Battista lab here at Tao discusses the molecular basis of touch in a star nosed mole. Benjamin t from Stanford talks about [00:01:30] touch sensation for robotics and prosthetics and Daniel Codero from UC Berkeley's Keltner lab reviews, how we communicate emotion through touch. Here's the active scientist, Georgia and sac from the BSR to introduce Dr Kiki Speaker 5: [inaudible].Speaker 6: Hello and welcome to touch me. We are the Berkeley Science Review, say graduate student run [00:02:00] magazine and blog, and we have the mission of presenting science to the public in an exciting and accessible way. So without further ado, I would like to introduce our late show hosts, the amazing Dr Kiki Kiersten Sanford Speaker 5: [inaudible].Speaker 6: I would like to introduce our first guest for the evening. Her name is Lydia Tay and she is a graduate student in Diane about does lab. [00:02:30] She studies the interaction between skin cells and the sensory neurons that are involved in crow chronic itch. So let's talk about some of the basics of touch and how, how it works. Yeah, so all of these, the different sensations we have are mediated by neurons. So these are nerve cells. In the case of [inaudible] sensation or the sensation of touch. Speaker 1: These Speaker 6: neurons, the cell bodies are right outside of our spinal, but then they send Speaker 7: [00:03:00] these long projections out to our skin and also inside in the viscera. And so these incredibly long projections at the tips in our skin have molecular receptors that are responsive to different types of stimulus. And we have lots of different types of touch stimulants, so you have light touch and painful touch. So light touch, like when a feather brushes against your arm, painful touch. When a book falls on your foot, there's also itch and there's also hot and cold. All these different [00:03:30] sensations. And we, it's actually a very complicated system. We actually have lots of different types of neurons that are tuned to respond to these different modalities of touch. And that's actually one of the things that makes it really tricky. So it's not just that there's one kind of neuron, there are lots of kinds and they're all over there. Their projections are all over the body dispersed. Speaker 7: So say in a square inch of the skin on my hand for example, I'm going to have every kind of touch receptor there. Yeah. So you'll have, you know, you'll [00:04:00] have the, if you have, I guess depending on the part of your body you'll have hairs, right? There are neurons that we'll innovate those hairs and then you'll also have those that [inaudible] respond to pain and to cold and hot. And there the innovation, the density depends on the part of your body, so the back is the least intubated spots your if they're, you have like two points of stimulus next to each other on your back. It will be harder to distinguish than it would be say on your fingers. Your fingers are incredibly well tuned. That's [00:04:30] how come people can read Braille. We're very sensitive to texture on our fingertips. Yeah. I've also heard that like that the lips and the face are one of the more represented areas of our Sameta stance. Speaker 7: Matt? A sensory cortex. Yeah, so in this amass sensory cortex, people draw these things called the homonculus where you have [inaudible] the shape of your body is representative of the innervation of these neuron fibers and your lips are gigantic [00:05:00] and your hands are gigantic and then your back is tiny [inaudible] for instance. It's really a funky thing to look at, but that's kind of how our some ass sensation is. That's that's how we feel. The world is mostly through our fingertips on our lips. I guess we find out a little bit about what you do in your laboratory and I know there is an animal that you work with that is just fascinating. So there's a long history in biology of using extreme systems or organisms [00:05:30] to study the question you're interested in. And so since the question we're interested in it is touch, we use an organism that is really good at touch and that's called the star nose mole and it's this really cute mole that lives in Pennsylvania and it has this Oregon. Speaker 7: It is really cute. I think it's just funny to think of it just living in Pennsylvania and winters in Pennsylvania and it lives in these underground tunnels where there's a lot of light. The main way that it farges for food [00:06:00] is using this incredibly sensitive touch. Oregon called the star and it's, it's the star that's located kind of in the middle of its face and it has a bunch of appendages. Each of the appendages has these tiny bumps. Well I remember his Oregon's that are highly innervated with some mass sensory neurons that enables it to do incredible texture discrimination. So tell me a little bit more about the competitive aspect of the star nosed mole. Yeah. So there are these tunnels underground. The star nose mill is not [00:06:30] the only mole that lives there. There are lots of organisms that are using these underground tunnels and they're all competing for the same food. Speaker 7: The little worms I guess. And the fact that the star news mole can identify a worm that quicker and maybe those that are a little bit more difficult to discriminate means that there'll be able to take advantage of food that other moles might overlook. Right. Are they using a, came out of sensation also? Is there or is it only touching the worm that makes the difference? Yeah, so actually [00:07:00] they start by touch. They, they're, they can move their, uh, the appendages on their nose. So they moved there yet it's [inaudible] that's right. And then they touch it and then they actually move the food closer to the mouth. They taste it until like, I know, like do a secondary test to make sure it's actually food and then they eat it. But it's an incredibly quick process. It's amazing. We actually, when, when you look at video, you have to watch it in slow mo to actually see all of that happen. Speaker 7: [00:07:30] You can't see it with the naked eyes. How do you study this in the laboratory? How do you actually investigate that touch and then uh, how they find the food. So there's the behavioral aspect, but there's also the molecular aspect. How are you studying this? Yeah, so that's the aspect that we, I spend most of our efforts on. The great thing about the mole is that it has this incredibly innovated touch Oregon. And so we can look at what molecules are expressed there and if they're using a similar system as [00:08:00] other mammals, we'd expect that. The only difference is that the proteins are involved in touch. Art's simply upregulated. And so we can see what are the highly expressing proteins in these sensory neurons in the mall. They're easier to identify because the mole is like super touch sensitive and then we can take those molecules and test, are they actually important in another organism that is a little bit easier to work with. Speaker 8: [inaudible].Speaker 9: [00:08:30] You are listening to spectrum on k a l x Berkeley. This week we have recordings from the Berkeley science reviews. Touch me. Dr Kiki Sanford just talked with Lydia about Tetra reception in the Star News tomorrow. Now she'll discuss [00:09:00] the touch sensation for robots with Stanford's Benjamin T. Speaker 6: I would like to introduce our next guest, Benjamin [inaudible] t who's recently completing his phd in the lab of Gen and bow and he has a master's degree in electrical engineering. He enjoys hiking, artistic Mumbo jumbo, randomly cliche poems amongst other things. Speaker 10: He likes building things and his motto [00:09:30] is make awesome. If we could all give him a warm welcome. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 10: how did you get into engineering? Uh, it's a difficult question, but I remember it was a pretty naughty kid. I was, yeah. So I used to make a lot of things that was gone. Really big. Spanking for that. Yeah. And, and that got me wondering, well, since I love [00:10:00] to break things, we, I should then how to make things work. And that kind of perhaps subconsciously led me to, to Korea in engineering and science. Awesome. To make things work. Speaker 6: To make things work as opposed to do you still break things to see how they work, how they work? Yeah, I can fix them back now because I have the engineering training. So. So tell me a bit about what you need to be thinking about in creating a material that can act [00:10:30] as a synthetic skin. What kind of factors are you trying to work with and incorporate into that material? Right. It's a great question. So everybody knows the skin is stretchable and the reason stretcher was because he uses organic materials that have fallen state or not so strongly. For example, metallic bonds are very strong. So instead of using metal, we use spiritual materials like rubber, try to tune them to make them really sensitive to pressure. And it's, there's one of my first projects in [inaudible] [00:11:00] that I worked there for five years. So the first project was thinking, well how can we make a piece of rubber, which is, you know, I mentioned the rub is actually pretty strike tough. Speaker 6: Can you make it really sensitive to vibration, for example. Right. How do you take something that could be used as a car tire and how do you make it something that's actually going to react to like I think in one of your projects, a butterfly wing, right? This one of my earliest project. Yeah. Yeah. And then how do you do that? [00:11:30] Right. So, so the week we do that is we create very tiny structures out of this rubber in Vegas. So I can see it. They are about 10 microns or less. So on a simple sending me the square, millions of them. Okay. And the reasoning is when you make really tiny structures on rubber, they become really sensitive. But at the same time they also retain it, the city, which is quite interesting. Yeah. So there's kind of property of scaling with the material that changes its properties. Okay. And then what happens [00:12:00] with the skin that you have created in the lab so far from that point? What does it do? Speaker 10: Well, right now we've usually to saints butterflies for example. Yeah. The real test is, well, can we build a system that can sense pressure and you're trying to see if we can integrate, for example, these kinds of sensors into touch means cell phones for example. I mean it will be impossible to find somebody who doesn't have a touch mean cell formatting. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the steam is powerful because the reason is so ubiquitous is that [00:12:30] humans use touch all the time. Right? And imagine now because electronic devices can understand us through touch, that changes how we interact with digital wall. Right? But right now you touched me into today, don't sense pressure very well. In fact, they learn [inaudible] more statue store. So we hope to integrate this material into touchscreens to allow purchase sensitivity. Speaker 6: Right? Cause right now you have to have your fingertips. It's a, it has to do with properties of your skin touching the screen to allow it to conduct. Yeah. Conduct [00:13:00] electricity. But if you're wearing a pair of gloves, your phone doesn't work to take off your glove and then you have to use to use it. So if your screen would just be touch sensitive, pressure sensitive, yeah. Would be useful. Yeah. So what about industrial robots? Medical robots? Speaker 10: Oh yeah, absolutely. For example, the robot, they fixed new Skywalker's hand and that's actually reality. Now we've certain surgical robots that make pinhole surgeries. Yeah, they're having a hard time now because [00:13:30] it turns out they're doing this penal surgeries actually isn't that easy for a robot because the robot doesn't actually feel inside the body very well. It doesn't know how hot it's pricing. And there has been several cases where these robots actually the imaging who humans, even though the surgery wound is very small. And so for example, you can imagine having this material to be put onto robotic surgeons that can then feel how well or how high the pressing so they don't [00:14:00] post other example accidentally by the doctor, you know, so, so actually twist the animal on Phd. I was, it's making dinner, actually making Lasagna, sizing up some cheese. I actually cut myself, you know, and I realized that, you know, we have focused so much on how we can make the skin or electronic skin so sensitive, but nobody has actually looked at how we can make them heal themselves, as you know, you know? Yeah. When you, when you have a cut, the skin bleeds and it has schools who are complicated process to heal, but in rubber, [00:14:30] how do you do that? It's not that trivial. We actually made a material, there's not only self healing but also conducted. Speaker 6: What's your favorite thing about the work that you currently do? Speaker 10: So I get to break things and make things so, so yeah, besides that, I think the cool part about the work I do is that I have a lot of time to think about what I hope to use these things for what I hope to be. And, and so doing a phd actually gave me a lot of things to a lot of time to think about my next [00:15:00] steps and basically I hope to, to create medical technologies or basically to create great impact. So now I can satisfy my own curiosity, right? So am I able to make impactful people besides just satisfy myself? I think that's, that's why I like what I do. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 9: Trim is a public affairs show about science [00:15:30] on k a l x Berkeley. After Dr. King, he talked with Benjamin t, she interviewed Daniel Cordaro about touch as a modality of emotion Speaker 8: [inaudible].Speaker 6: So I'd like to introduce our third and final guest Speaker for the evening. His name is [00:16:00] Daniel Cordaro and he is pursuing a phd with docker Keltner on the subject of identifying emotion in the face, voice and touch. Thank you for coming in and being able to talk this evening. Yeah, Speaker 11: thank you for having me. Speaker 6: You've been traveling around the world for the last five years, going to different countries, different continents, studying emotion and touch and okay, the yawn question across [00:16:30] cultures across the world, around the world, yawns are endemic everywhere, Speaker 11: not only across cultures and across the world, but also across the species. So all of our Malian friends yawn too. So anybody have a dog here? Have you ever yawned with your dog? Yeah, it happens all the time. So a yawn is a universal, not only with humans but also with other species. But that's, that's exactly what I'm looking at is kind of cross cultural differences. How did you get interested in that? [00:17:00] It's a great question. So I came from chemistry, that was my past life and I kinda got hungry for social feedback. It's chemistry. I'm fairly social discipline. You two guesses. No, it's great. I love chemistry. It's a wonderful way to see the world. When you understand the molecular makeup of something a is not just a table, it's something a little bit more nuanced. I don't know if you can tell. I'm kind of an outgoing guy. Speaker 11: Uh, and one day when I was in a [00:17:30] classroom it was watching the professor and instead of watching professor I turned my seat and I watched the class and I had never done that before. And this idea popped into my head is a, as a scientist it was like maybe I can make predictions about the people in this class. Maybe I can tell who's going to pass and who's going to fail the first exam based what I'm seeing in their non-verbals. I'd never done this before and so I just kind of took notes on 20 random people. Random, they weren't random cause I picked them but I didn't know anything about [00:18:00] psychology so I was just kind of winging it and lo and behold, based on behaviors like kind of engagement, leaning forward and nodding. I see some people nodding, thank you. You're encouraging me to continue. And then other people who are like kind of slouch back and drooling with a half empty can of red bull next to their chair. I kind of guessed which students were going to pass and fail the first exam with about 70% accuracy and I was like, wow, that's better than chance. There's something to this. Yeah, there's something to this. And I took the results to people in [00:18:30] the chemistry department. They were like, get back to work. Speaker 11: You're wasting your time here. And then through kind of a series of serendipitous events, I ended up studying this full time a nonverbal communication, worked with a guy in San Francisco, I named Paul Ekman, who really founded this field of nonverbal expression. And I had the privilege to work with him for about two years before transferring over as a full Grad [00:19:00] student at cal right now, study with Dacher Keltner and the Keltner lab studying cross cultural expressions of emotion of which touches one modality. Speaker 6: Yeah. So what does the bro Hug mean? Speaker 11: What does the bro Hug mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there have been studies done in sports for example, like like the Bro touches like head bombs and butt grabs and like high fives and all of this stuff can actually predict a winning season for a basketball team. Yeah, [00:19:30] that's fascinating. It's really cool stuff. Yeah. Speaker 6: Coming back from earlier conversation with Benjamin and also with Lydia, how would you speak to the other disciplines to try and get them thinking about your research? Speaker 11: Right. Yeah. I think it's an amazing question because what we saw is a nice series of scientists starting from the biological and molecular level, then going into kind of the materials level. And then lastly, how do we make this an emotional process, a more human process. So combining the three [00:20:00] could really take us into the next phase of human evolution, which is to create kind of another copy of ourselves. So I'm hoping that you guys can save me a nice space in a human zoo when the the AI takes over. I'll be part responsible for that because they will be emotionally wise. Speaker 6: So emotion, is it self-reported like taking surveys and saying, when this happened, I felt this way, when this happened, I felt that way. Or are you doing MRI work where you're actually looking at the emotion [00:20:30] areas of the brain? Are you, what are you doing? Are you interested in emotion? Speaker 11: Scientists do all of the above. Me Personally, I like the, uh, the nonverbal expression part. So one experiment asks the question, can two people communicate discrete emotions by using only the forearm? So if somebody sticks their forearm through a dark heart and you have no idea who they are, you can't hear them, you can't see them, but you have an arm in front of you and we give you a list of emotions. Can you convey those [00:21:00] emotions by just using their forearms? How does it, how does it turn out in the laboratory? Use your legs like requesting your, what are your results? So the results are pretty amazing. There are some emotions that are incredibly accurate through touch. So emotions like gratitude and sympathy and sadness, these emotions that require closeness with another. Also emotions like anger and aggressive emotion. Disgust and contempt do fairly well in these studies too, but [00:21:30] not without differences in gendered pairs. So there, there are some gender differences to how touch is conveyed to a, even though you can't see who's on the other side of that curtain, 80% of participants can tell just by the feeling on their arm what the gender of their, their paired partner is. So the differences are pretty interesting. When we have two female partners, happiness scores go through the roof. The ability to convey happiness between two female partners is staggering. It's like 60 or 70% [00:22:00] male partners. No Way. Speaker 11: However, men are really good at expressing anger. We see, we see across all of our participants, people can identify anger from a male encoder. And then the last one is when they're trying to encode sympathy. Women do really well with sympathy and men can't do it. When we have, we have two male partners, they can't convey sympathy. So there are some gender differences here too. But by and large, [00:22:30] there's no, there's no benefit to being male or female. Overall, we all convey these emotions very well on average, but there are just certain emotions that, uh, are different by gender pairs. So studying this and going around the world, what have you internalized and what have you, what have you taken out of your research? Personally, personally? Um, I love what I do. I don't feel like I work a day in my life because I get to travel around and decode the human language [00:23:00] of expression. Speaker 11: Uh, everybody in this room, I don't know who you are, but I know that you speak two languages, your native language and the universal human language of emotion through the face, the voice and through touch and understanding that has given me a profound sense of connection with everyone around me. No matter where I go, I'm never alone because I can always speak to the person next to me at least in some way, shape or form. So that's the biggest thing I think I've gotten out of this experience. Friends, you so much for coming this evening. Speaker 5: You enjoyed it [00:23:30] here in the show. You Speaker 4: can hear more from Dr Kiki on this week in science@isdotorgandtheberkeleysciencereviewisonlineatsciencereviewdotberkeley.eduSpeaker 8: [inaudible]Speaker 9: specking shows are archived [00:24:00] on iTunes. You we've cued a simple link for you. The link is tiny url.com/ [inaudible] Speaker 4: [inaudible] spectrum. A regular feature of spectrum is a calendar of some of the science and technology related events happening in the bay area over the next two weeks. Here's chase Yakka. Boesky Speaker 12: new star is NASA's newest I on the X-ray sky focusing on x-rays at higher energies than the Shaundra X-ray Observatory. Since launch in June, 2012 [00:24:30] new star has been uncovering black holes hidden deep within gaseous galaxies, including studies of the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way. On December 18th Dr. Lynn Kremen ski of Sonoma State University will be giving a talk about the technological advances that made the new star mission possible and will present several of its latest scientific discoveries. This event will be held at the Randall Museum in San Francisco as 7:30 PM on December 18th visit the San Francisco amateur astronomers [00:25:00] website. For more information on upcoming events. Saturday, December 21st join the Shippo Saturday nights space talk featuring Fareed color with the proliferation of privately designed and built spacecrafts. The possibility of commercial space travel is becoming increasingly viable. In this presentation. You'll gain some insight into the future of space travel and understand how our traditional means of exploration are now history. So join the Shippo space team Saturday, December 21st from seven [00:25:30] 30 to eight 15 at the Chabot space and science center in Oakland or Morris Science Speaker 4: and technology related events. Be sure to check out the year round bay area science festival calendar online at Bay Area Science dot o r g I now here's chase and Rene Rao with science news headlines. Speaker 13: A new study published December 1st and the general nature, you've used it, an estimated half million cubic kilometers of low salinity water are buried beneath the seabed on [00:26:00] continental shelves around the world. The water which could perhaps be used to eke out supplies to the world's virgin and coastal cities has been located off Australia, China, North America, and South Africa. Lead author Dr. Vincent post of the National Center for groundwater research and training and the school of the environment at Flinders university says that groundwater scientists knew a freshwater under the sea floor, but thought it only occurred under rare and special circumstances. Our research shows that fresh and brackish [00:26:30] aquifers below the seabed are actually quite a common phenomenon. Says Dr. Post. He warns, however, that the water resources are nonrenewable, we should use them carefully once gone. They won't be replenished again until the sea drops, which will likely not happen for a very long time. Speaker 12: Science daily reports professor Ken at night and his associates of West Seda universities, Faculty of Science and engineering have discovered a revolutionary new energy conservation principle, [00:27:00] able to yield standalone engines with double or higher the thermal efficiency potential of conventional engines. If the effectiveness of this principle can be confirmed through combustion tests, it will not only open up the doors to new lightweight, high-performance aerospace vehicles, but would also lead to prospects of next generation high-performance engines for automobiles. Currently naive group is working to develop a prototype combustion engine that will harness the benefits of his new energy conservation principles. [00:27:30] Most conventional combustion engines today operate with thermal efficiencies around 30% dropping to as low as 15% when idling or during slow city driving. If the group can develop this new engine with the thermal efficiency of close to 60% for a wide variety of driving conditions, they could unleash a new era of automotive transportation. And even surpass the efficiencies of our most advanced hybrid systems. Speaker 13: A recent study by UC Berkeley researcher John Michael Mongo [00:28:00] has shed light on one of the cockroaches, many disturbing abilities. The insects are famously hard to kill due in part to their astonishingly high escape speeds. The bugs move so quickly that they can no longer use their nervous system to regulate their speed. They instead rely on a mechanical enhancement provided by their antenna. Mongo tested the behavior of the critters and Tana on different surfaces and discovered that the tiny bristles on the antenna are able to stick to rough surfaces and bend in such a way as to rent the roaches from slamming into the walls at high speeds. He confirmed [00:28:30] this hypothesis by lasering off the small hairs on some of the pest and running the trials. Again. This time the antenna no longer bents. Well, a peek into the mechanics of the world's most tenacious pest is certainly interesting in and of itself. Mongo is actually applying what he's learned to help design robots that are better able to function at high speeds. Speaker 12: Okay. Speaker 3: The music [00:29:00] heard during the show was written and produced by Alex diamond. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Email address is Doug K. Alex hit young.com Speaker 5: the same time. [inaudible] Speaker 3: [00:29:30] Huh? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Touch Me was the first BSR “live event”, moderated by Dr. Kiki Sanford UC Davis in collaboration with the Bay Area Science Festival. Guests were Lydia Thé, UC Berkeley. Benajmin Tee, Stanford. Daniel Cordaro UC Berkeley.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 3: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x [00:00:30] Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 4: Good afternoon. I'm Rick Kaneski, the host of today's show. We have a different kind of program today. This past October, the Berkeley Science Review hosted the live event. Touch me as part of the bay area science festival. We've previously featured both the BSR and [00:01:00] the bay area science fest here. Visit tiny url.com/calyx spectrum to hear these past interviews at the event, Dr Kiki Sanford from this week in science interviewed three bay area scientists about the ways animals and robots navigate the tactile world. Lydia Tay from the Battista lab here at Tao discusses the molecular basis of touch in a star nosed mole. Benjamin t from Stanford talks about [00:01:30] touch sensation for robotics and prosthetics and Daniel Codero from UC Berkeley's Keltner lab reviews, how we communicate emotion through touch. Here's the active scientist, Georgia and sac from the BSR to introduce Dr Kiki Speaker 5: [inaudible].Speaker 6: Hello and welcome to touch me. We are the Berkeley Science Review, say graduate student run [00:02:00] magazine and blog, and we have the mission of presenting science to the public in an exciting and accessible way. So without further ado, I would like to introduce our late show hosts, the amazing Dr Kiki Kiersten Sanford Speaker 5: [inaudible].Speaker 6: I would like to introduce our first guest for the evening. Her name is Lydia Tay and she is a graduate student in Diane about does lab. [00:02:30] She studies the interaction between skin cells and the sensory neurons that are involved in crow chronic itch. So let's talk about some of the basics of touch and how, how it works. Yeah, so all of these, the different sensations we have are mediated by neurons. So these are nerve cells. In the case of [inaudible] sensation or the sensation of touch. Speaker 1: These Speaker 6: neurons, the cell bodies are right outside of our spinal, but then they send Speaker 7: [00:03:00] these long projections out to our skin and also inside in the viscera. And so these incredibly long projections at the tips in our skin have molecular receptors that are responsive to different types of stimulus. And we have lots of different types of touch stimulants, so you have light touch and painful touch. So light touch, like when a feather brushes against your arm, painful touch. When a book falls on your foot, there's also itch and there's also hot and cold. All these different [00:03:30] sensations. And we, it's actually a very complicated system. We actually have lots of different types of neurons that are tuned to respond to these different modalities of touch. And that's actually one of the things that makes it really tricky. So it's not just that there's one kind of neuron, there are lots of kinds and they're all over there. Their projections are all over the body dispersed. Speaker 7: So say in a square inch of the skin on my hand for example, I'm going to have every kind of touch receptor there. Yeah. So you'll have, you know, you'll [00:04:00] have the, if you have, I guess depending on the part of your body you'll have hairs, right? There are neurons that we'll innovate those hairs and then you'll also have those that [inaudible] respond to pain and to cold and hot. And there the innovation, the density depends on the part of your body, so the back is the least intubated spots your if they're, you have like two points of stimulus next to each other on your back. It will be harder to distinguish than it would be say on your fingers. Your fingers are incredibly well tuned. That's [00:04:30] how come people can read Braille. We're very sensitive to texture on our fingertips. Yeah. I've also heard that like that the lips and the face are one of the more represented areas of our Sameta stance. Speaker 7: Matt? A sensory cortex. Yeah, so in this amass sensory cortex, people draw these things called the homonculus where you have [inaudible] the shape of your body is representative of the innervation of these neuron fibers and your lips are gigantic [00:05:00] and your hands are gigantic and then your back is tiny [inaudible] for instance. It's really a funky thing to look at, but that's kind of how our some ass sensation is. That's that's how we feel. The world is mostly through our fingertips on our lips. I guess we find out a little bit about what you do in your laboratory and I know there is an animal that you work with that is just fascinating. So there's a long history in biology of using extreme systems or organisms [00:05:30] to study the question you're interested in. And so since the question we're interested in it is touch, we use an organism that is really good at touch and that's called the star nose mole and it's this really cute mole that lives in Pennsylvania and it has this Oregon. Speaker 7: It is really cute. I think it's just funny to think of it just living in Pennsylvania and winters in Pennsylvania and it lives in these underground tunnels where there's a lot of light. The main way that it farges for food [00:06:00] is using this incredibly sensitive touch. Oregon called the star and it's, it's the star that's located kind of in the middle of its face and it has a bunch of appendages. Each of the appendages has these tiny bumps. Well I remember his Oregon's that are highly innervated with some mass sensory neurons that enables it to do incredible texture discrimination. So tell me a little bit more about the competitive aspect of the star nosed mole. Yeah. So there are these tunnels underground. The star nose mill is not [00:06:30] the only mole that lives there. There are lots of organisms that are using these underground tunnels and they're all competing for the same food. Speaker 7: The little worms I guess. And the fact that the star news mole can identify a worm that quicker and maybe those that are a little bit more difficult to discriminate means that there'll be able to take advantage of food that other moles might overlook. Right. Are they using a, came out of sensation also? Is there or is it only touching the worm that makes the difference? Yeah, so actually [00:07:00] they start by touch. They, they're, they can move their, uh, the appendages on their nose. So they moved there yet it's [inaudible] that's right. And then they touch it and then they actually move the food closer to the mouth. They taste it until like, I know, like do a secondary test to make sure it's actually food and then they eat it. But it's an incredibly quick process. It's amazing. We actually, when, when you look at video, you have to watch it in slow mo to actually see all of that happen. Speaker 7: [00:07:30] You can't see it with the naked eyes. How do you study this in the laboratory? How do you actually investigate that touch and then uh, how they find the food. So there's the behavioral aspect, but there's also the molecular aspect. How are you studying this? Yeah, so that's the aspect that we, I spend most of our efforts on. The great thing about the mole is that it has this incredibly innovated touch Oregon. And so we can look at what molecules are expressed there and if they're using a similar system as [00:08:00] other mammals, we'd expect that. The only difference is that the proteins are involved in touch. Art's simply upregulated. And so we can see what are the highly expressing proteins in these sensory neurons in the mall. They're easier to identify because the mole is like super touch sensitive and then we can take those molecules and test, are they actually important in another organism that is a little bit easier to work with. Speaker 8: [inaudible].Speaker 9: [00:08:30] You are listening to spectrum on k a l x Berkeley. This week we have recordings from the Berkeley science reviews. Touch me. Dr Kiki Sanford just talked with Lydia about Tetra reception in the Star News tomorrow. Now she'll discuss [00:09:00] the touch sensation for robots with Stanford's Benjamin T. Speaker 6: I would like to introduce our next guest, Benjamin [inaudible] t who's recently completing his phd in the lab of Gen and bow and he has a master's degree in electrical engineering. He enjoys hiking, artistic Mumbo jumbo, randomly cliche poems amongst other things. Speaker 10: He likes building things and his motto [00:09:30] is make awesome. If we could all give him a warm welcome. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 10: how did you get into engineering? Uh, it's a difficult question, but I remember it was a pretty naughty kid. I was, yeah. So I used to make a lot of things that was gone. Really big. Spanking for that. Yeah. And, and that got me wondering, well, since I love [00:10:00] to break things, we, I should then how to make things work. And that kind of perhaps subconsciously led me to, to Korea in engineering and science. Awesome. To make things work. Speaker 6: To make things work as opposed to do you still break things to see how they work, how they work? Yeah, I can fix them back now because I have the engineering training. So. So tell me a bit about what you need to be thinking about in creating a material that can act [00:10:30] as a synthetic skin. What kind of factors are you trying to work with and incorporate into that material? Right. It's a great question. So everybody knows the skin is stretchable and the reason stretcher was because he uses organic materials that have fallen state or not so strongly. For example, metallic bonds are very strong. So instead of using metal, we use spiritual materials like rubber, try to tune them to make them really sensitive to pressure. And it's, there's one of my first projects in [inaudible] [00:11:00] that I worked there for five years. So the first project was thinking, well how can we make a piece of rubber, which is, you know, I mentioned the rub is actually pretty strike tough. Speaker 6: Can you make it really sensitive to vibration, for example. Right. How do you take something that could be used as a car tire and how do you make it something that's actually going to react to like I think in one of your projects, a butterfly wing, right? This one of my earliest project. Yeah. Yeah. And then how do you do that? [00:11:30] Right. So, so the week we do that is we create very tiny structures out of this rubber in Vegas. So I can see it. They are about 10 microns or less. So on a simple sending me the square, millions of them. Okay. And the reasoning is when you make really tiny structures on rubber, they become really sensitive. But at the same time they also retain it, the city, which is quite interesting. Yeah. So there's kind of property of scaling with the material that changes its properties. Okay. And then what happens [00:12:00] with the skin that you have created in the lab so far from that point? What does it do? Speaker 10: Well, right now we've usually to saints butterflies for example. Yeah. The real test is, well, can we build a system that can sense pressure and you're trying to see if we can integrate, for example, these kinds of sensors into touch means cell phones for example. I mean it will be impossible to find somebody who doesn't have a touch mean cell formatting. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the steam is powerful because the reason is so ubiquitous is that [00:12:30] humans use touch all the time. Right? And imagine now because electronic devices can understand us through touch, that changes how we interact with digital wall. Right? But right now you touched me into today, don't sense pressure very well. In fact, they learn [inaudible] more statue store. So we hope to integrate this material into touchscreens to allow purchase sensitivity. Speaker 6: Right? Cause right now you have to have your fingertips. It's a, it has to do with properties of your skin touching the screen to allow it to conduct. Yeah. Conduct [00:13:00] electricity. But if you're wearing a pair of gloves, your phone doesn't work to take off your glove and then you have to use to use it. So if your screen would just be touch sensitive, pressure sensitive, yeah. Would be useful. Yeah. So what about industrial robots? Medical robots? Speaker 10: Oh yeah, absolutely. For example, the robot, they fixed new Skywalker's hand and that's actually reality. Now we've certain surgical robots that make pinhole surgeries. Yeah, they're having a hard time now because [00:13:30] it turns out they're doing this penal surgeries actually isn't that easy for a robot because the robot doesn't actually feel inside the body very well. It doesn't know how hot it's pricing. And there has been several cases where these robots actually the imaging who humans, even though the surgery wound is very small. And so for example, you can imagine having this material to be put onto robotic surgeons that can then feel how well or how high the pressing so they don't [00:14:00] post other example accidentally by the doctor, you know, so, so actually twist the animal on Phd. I was, it's making dinner, actually making Lasagna, sizing up some cheese. I actually cut myself, you know, and I realized that, you know, we have focused so much on how we can make the skin or electronic skin so sensitive, but nobody has actually looked at how we can make them heal themselves, as you know, you know? Yeah. When you, when you have a cut, the skin bleeds and it has schools who are complicated process to heal, but in rubber, [00:14:30] how do you do that? It's not that trivial. We actually made a material, there's not only self healing but also conducted. Speaker 6: What's your favorite thing about the work that you currently do? Speaker 10: So I get to break things and make things so, so yeah, besides that, I think the cool part about the work I do is that I have a lot of time to think about what I hope to use these things for what I hope to be. And, and so doing a phd actually gave me a lot of things to a lot of time to think about my next [00:15:00] steps and basically I hope to, to create medical technologies or basically to create great impact. So now I can satisfy my own curiosity, right? So am I able to make impactful people besides just satisfy myself? I think that's, that's why I like what I do. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 9: Trim is a public affairs show about science [00:15:30] on k a l x Berkeley. After Dr. King, he talked with Benjamin t, she interviewed Daniel Cordaro about touch as a modality of emotion Speaker 8: [inaudible].Speaker 6: So I'd like to introduce our third and final guest Speaker for the evening. His name is [00:16:00] Daniel Cordaro and he is pursuing a phd with docker Keltner on the subject of identifying emotion in the face, voice and touch. Thank you for coming in and being able to talk this evening. Yeah, Speaker 11: thank you for having me. Speaker 6: You've been traveling around the world for the last five years, going to different countries, different continents, studying emotion and touch and okay, the yawn question across [00:16:30] cultures across the world, around the world, yawns are endemic everywhere, Speaker 11: not only across cultures and across the world, but also across the species. So all of our Malian friends yawn too. So anybody have a dog here? Have you ever yawned with your dog? Yeah, it happens all the time. So a yawn is a universal, not only with humans but also with other species. But that's, that's exactly what I'm looking at is kind of cross cultural differences. How did you get interested in that? [00:17:00] It's a great question. So I came from chemistry, that was my past life and I kinda got hungry for social feedback. It's chemistry. I'm fairly social discipline. You two guesses. No, it's great. I love chemistry. It's a wonderful way to see the world. When you understand the molecular makeup of something a is not just a table, it's something a little bit more nuanced. I don't know if you can tell. I'm kind of an outgoing guy. Speaker 11: Uh, and one day when I was in a [00:17:30] classroom it was watching the professor and instead of watching professor I turned my seat and I watched the class and I had never done that before. And this idea popped into my head is a, as a scientist it was like maybe I can make predictions about the people in this class. Maybe I can tell who's going to pass and who's going to fail the first exam based what I'm seeing in their non-verbals. I'd never done this before and so I just kind of took notes on 20 random people. Random, they weren't random cause I picked them but I didn't know anything about [00:18:00] psychology so I was just kind of winging it and lo and behold, based on behaviors like kind of engagement, leaning forward and nodding. I see some people nodding, thank you. You're encouraging me to continue. And then other people who are like kind of slouch back and drooling with a half empty can of red bull next to their chair. I kind of guessed which students were going to pass and fail the first exam with about 70% accuracy and I was like, wow, that's better than chance. There's something to this. Yeah, there's something to this. And I took the results to people in [00:18:30] the chemistry department. They were like, get back to work. Speaker 11: You're wasting your time here. And then through kind of a series of serendipitous events, I ended up studying this full time a nonverbal communication, worked with a guy in San Francisco, I named Paul Ekman, who really founded this field of nonverbal expression. And I had the privilege to work with him for about two years before transferring over as a full Grad [00:19:00] student at cal right now, study with Dacher Keltner and the Keltner lab studying cross cultural expressions of emotion of which touches one modality. Speaker 6: Yeah. So what does the bro Hug mean? Speaker 11: What does the bro Hug mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there have been studies done in sports for example, like like the Bro touches like head bombs and butt grabs and like high fives and all of this stuff can actually predict a winning season for a basketball team. Yeah, [00:19:30] that's fascinating. It's really cool stuff. Yeah. Speaker 6: Coming back from earlier conversation with Benjamin and also with Lydia, how would you speak to the other disciplines to try and get them thinking about your research? Speaker 11: Right. Yeah. I think it's an amazing question because what we saw is a nice series of scientists starting from the biological and molecular level, then going into kind of the materials level. And then lastly, how do we make this an emotional process, a more human process. So combining the three [00:20:00] could really take us into the next phase of human evolution, which is to create kind of another copy of ourselves. So I'm hoping that you guys can save me a nice space in a human zoo when the the AI takes over. I'll be part responsible for that because they will be emotionally wise. Speaker 6: So emotion, is it self-reported like taking surveys and saying, when this happened, I felt this way, when this happened, I felt that way. Or are you doing MRI work where you're actually looking at the emotion [00:20:30] areas of the brain? Are you, what are you doing? Are you interested in emotion? Speaker 11: Scientists do all of the above. Me Personally, I like the, uh, the nonverbal expression part. So one experiment asks the question, can two people communicate discrete emotions by using only the forearm? So if somebody sticks their forearm through a dark heart and you have no idea who they are, you can't hear them, you can't see them, but you have an arm in front of you and we give you a list of emotions. Can you convey those [00:21:00] emotions by just using their forearms? How does it, how does it turn out in the laboratory? Use your legs like requesting your, what are your results? So the results are pretty amazing. There are some emotions that are incredibly accurate through touch. So emotions like gratitude and sympathy and sadness, these emotions that require closeness with another. Also emotions like anger and aggressive emotion. Disgust and contempt do fairly well in these studies too, but [00:21:30] not without differences in gendered pairs. So there, there are some gender differences to how touch is conveyed to a, even though you can't see who's on the other side of that curtain, 80% of participants can tell just by the feeling on their arm what the gender of their, their paired partner is. So the differences are pretty interesting. When we have two female partners, happiness scores go through the roof. The ability to convey happiness between two female partners is staggering. It's like 60 or 70% [00:22:00] male partners. No Way. Speaker 11: However, men are really good at expressing anger. We see, we see across all of our participants, people can identify anger from a male encoder. And then the last one is when they're trying to encode sympathy. Women do really well with sympathy and men can't do it. When we have, we have two male partners, they can't convey sympathy. So there are some gender differences here too. But by and large, [00:22:30] there's no, there's no benefit to being male or female. Overall, we all convey these emotions very well on average, but there are just certain emotions that, uh, are different by gender pairs. So studying this and going around the world, what have you internalized and what have you, what have you taken out of your research? Personally, personally? Um, I love what I do. I don't feel like I work a day in my life because I get to travel around and decode the human language [00:23:00] of expression. Speaker 11: Uh, everybody in this room, I don't know who you are, but I know that you speak two languages, your native language and the universal human language of emotion through the face, the voice and through touch and understanding that has given me a profound sense of connection with everyone around me. No matter where I go, I'm never alone because I can always speak to the person next to me at least in some way, shape or form. So that's the biggest thing I think I've gotten out of this experience. Friends, you so much for coming this evening. Speaker 5: You enjoyed it [00:23:30] here in the show. You Speaker 4: can hear more from Dr Kiki on this week in science@isdotorgandtheberkeleysciencereviewisonlineatsciencereviewdotberkeley.eduSpeaker 8: [inaudible]Speaker 9: specking shows are archived [00:24:00] on iTunes. You we've cued a simple link for you. The link is tiny url.com/ [inaudible] Speaker 4: [inaudible] spectrum. A regular feature of spectrum is a calendar of some of the science and technology related events happening in the bay area over the next two weeks. Here's chase Yakka. Boesky Speaker 12: new star is NASA's newest I on the X-ray sky focusing on x-rays at higher energies than the Shaundra X-ray Observatory. Since launch in June, 2012 [00:24:30] new star has been uncovering black holes hidden deep within gaseous galaxies, including studies of the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way. On December 18th Dr. Lynn Kremen ski of Sonoma State University will be giving a talk about the technological advances that made the new star mission possible and will present several of its latest scientific discoveries. This event will be held at the Randall Museum in San Francisco as 7:30 PM on December 18th visit the San Francisco amateur astronomers [00:25:00] website. For more information on upcoming events. Saturday, December 21st join the Shippo Saturday nights space talk featuring Fareed color with the proliferation of privately designed and built spacecrafts. The possibility of commercial space travel is becoming increasingly viable. In this presentation. You'll gain some insight into the future of space travel and understand how our traditional means of exploration are now history. So join the Shippo space team Saturday, December 21st from seven [00:25:30] 30 to eight 15 at the Chabot space and science center in Oakland or Morris Science Speaker 4: and technology related events. Be sure to check out the year round bay area science festival calendar online at Bay Area Science dot o r g I now here's chase and Rene Rao with science news headlines. Speaker 13: A new study published December 1st and the general nature, you've used it, an estimated half million cubic kilometers of low salinity water are buried beneath the seabed on [00:26:00] continental shelves around the world. The water which could perhaps be used to eke out supplies to the world's virgin and coastal cities has been located off Australia, China, North America, and South Africa. Lead author Dr. Vincent post of the National Center for groundwater research and training and the school of the environment at Flinders university says that groundwater scientists knew a freshwater under the sea floor, but thought it only occurred under rare and special circumstances. Our research shows that fresh and brackish [00:26:30] aquifers below the seabed are actually quite a common phenomenon. Says Dr. Post. He warns, however, that the water resources are nonrenewable, we should use them carefully once gone. They won't be replenished again until the sea drops, which will likely not happen for a very long time. Speaker 12: Science daily reports professor Ken at night and his associates of West Seda universities, Faculty of Science and engineering have discovered a revolutionary new energy conservation principle, [00:27:00] able to yield standalone engines with double or higher the thermal efficiency potential of conventional engines. If the effectiveness of this principle can be confirmed through combustion tests, it will not only open up the doors to new lightweight, high-performance aerospace vehicles, but would also lead to prospects of next generation high-performance engines for automobiles. Currently naive group is working to develop a prototype combustion engine that will harness the benefits of his new energy conservation principles. [00:27:30] Most conventional combustion engines today operate with thermal efficiencies around 30% dropping to as low as 15% when idling or during slow city driving. If the group can develop this new engine with the thermal efficiency of close to 60% for a wide variety of driving conditions, they could unleash a new era of automotive transportation. And even surpass the efficiencies of our most advanced hybrid systems. Speaker 13: A recent study by UC Berkeley researcher John Michael Mongo [00:28:00] has shed light on one of the cockroaches, many disturbing abilities. The insects are famously hard to kill due in part to their astonishingly high escape speeds. The bugs move so quickly that they can no longer use their nervous system to regulate their speed. They instead rely on a mechanical enhancement provided by their antenna. Mongo tested the behavior of the critters and Tana on different surfaces and discovered that the tiny bristles on the antenna are able to stick to rough surfaces and bend in such a way as to rent the roaches from slamming into the walls at high speeds. He confirmed [00:28:30] this hypothesis by lasering off the small hairs on some of the pest and running the trials. Again. This time the antenna no longer bents. Well, a peek into the mechanics of the world's most tenacious pest is certainly interesting in and of itself. Mongo is actually applying what he's learned to help design robots that are better able to function at high speeds. Speaker 12: Okay. Speaker 3: The music [00:29:00] heard during the show was written and produced by Alex diamond. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Email address is Doug K. Alex hit young.com Speaker 5: the same time. [inaudible] Speaker 3: [00:29:30] Huh? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Kiki and Iyaz take us on a tour of the second day of Maker Faire Bay Area. Hosts: Dr. Kiki Sanford and Iyaz Akhtar Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/specials. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Dr. Kiki and Iyaz take us on a tour of the second day of Maker Faire Bay Area. Hosts: Dr. Kiki Sanford and Iyaz Akhtar Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/specials. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Tom, Becky, Sarah, Dr. Kiki and Jason all offer their own tech predictions for 2011. But really, who's keeping score? Oh right, we are... this time next year. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Becky Worley, Sarah Lane, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Tom, Becky, Sarah, Dr. Kiki and Jason all offer their own tech predictions for 2011. But really, who's keeping score? Oh right, we are... this time next year. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Becky Worley, Sarah Lane, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Nexus S rooted and delayed, Yahoo kills my favorite sites, turn in bad drivers to their insurance agents, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Nexus S rooted and delayed, Yahoo kills my favorite sites, turn in bad drivers to their insurance agents, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Nexus S rooted and delayed, Yahoo kills my favorite sites, turn in bad drivers to their insurance agents, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

BT opens its ducts to others, Adobe and Microsoft are strategizing, Motorola invades Apple, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Guest: Veronica Belmont Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

BT opens its ducts to others, Adobe and Microsoft are strategizing, Motorola invades Apple, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Guest: Veronica Belmont Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

BT opens its ducts to others, Adobe and Microsoft are strategizing, Motorola invades Apple, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Guest: Veronica Belmont Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

New CEO of HP, TVs get cheap, the secret meaning of Zuckerburg, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Becky Worley, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

New CEO of HP, TVs get cheap, the secret meaning of Zuckerburg, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Becky Worley, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

New CEO of HP, TVs get cheap, the secret meaning of Zuckerburg, and more. Hosts: Tom Merritt, Becky Worley, Dr. Kiki Sanford, and Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/tnt. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.