Podcasts about shawmut

In this episode of the FMI Built-In podcast, host Scott Winstead is joined by Les Hiscoe, CEO of Shawmut Design and Construction. Shawmut is 100% ESOP-owned and has made Fortune's best workplace list 16 times during Les' tenure as CEO.Les talks about Shawmut's shift to a more sustainable business model, touching on navigating change, strategic leadership, company culture and talent retention.

A study by Stanford and Encore.org found that the majority of older adults want to give back in some way. Jim Ansara, an AARP 2024 Purpose Prize winner, is making a big difference in his retirement with his organization Build Health International. How might you redirect your skills and experience to make a difference? Jim Ansara joins us from Beverly , Massachusetts. ____________________ Bio Jim Ansara is a retired general contractor who founded Shawmut Design and Construction in Boston in the early 1980's and led it to become one of the top 25 construction companies in the US. While at Shawmut he led several volunteer teams of employees to build low-tech, clean water systems in Nicaragua with the organization, El Porvenir. After retiring as Chairman of the Board, Jim redirected his energy to the developing world. In 2009 a trip to Haiti with Dr. Paul Farmer led to an invitation to build a small community hospital with Partners in Health (PIH) in Haiti's Central Plateau. The process took a major turn when a massive earthquake struck the country on January 10, 2010. For three-and-a-half years after the earthquake, through the outbreak of cholera and political unrest, through hurricanes and unbearable heat, Jim, his partner Dr. David Walton of PIH, and hundreds of Haitian and Dominican workers persevered to build Haiti's new 340-bed National Teaching Hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti. Since its completion, the mission to build and equip global health care infrastructure has continued via a new non-profit, Build Health International, based in Beverly, MA. The BHI team has undertaken projects in low-resource settings across 22 countries with PIH, the Kellogg Foundation, Cure International, Direct Relief International and numerous other NGOS. For Jim's philanthropy he has received Honorary Doctorates in Humane Letters from Amherst College and Salem State University, as well as distinction from Partners in Health, Health Equity International, The American Red Cross Northeast MA Chapter, the Political Asylum and Immigration Representation Project, Summer Search Boston, and more. He serves on the board of Health Equity International, and in years past on the boards of Salem State University, the Boston Children's Museum, Youth Build, and City Year. _____________________ For More on Jim Ansara Build Health International (BHI) Health Equity Humanitarian Delivers Hospitals for the Poor ____________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Changing the World One Small Act at a Time – Brad Aronson Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller The Best Day of My Life So Far – Benita Cooper Why People Make a Career Change with Purpose Top of Mind – Chris Farrell ____________________ Wise Quotes On Learning and New Challenges in Retirement "I'm passionate about tackling challenges and solving problems. And one of the things that really excites me in life is learning, not necessarily learning in traditional methods, but learning by sort of immersion, where I'm trying to keep my nose and mouth just above the flood tide. And I need a level of sort of challenge and the accompanying freneticism in my life to really be happy. I'd like it to be different. I'd like to be a more relaxed and easy-going person, but at 67, that's not going to change probably. So it's really a combination of those two things. And I found, and this is an area, Build Health International, where I could really exercise both of those things. It's informative about who I am and who I'm not." On the Transition to Retirement "I'd like to say that I got to where I am by lots of self reflection and and and that kind of thing, but it's not true. I really fell into it. But I kept sort of trying to figure out what was next for me. And I was also clear on what I didn't want to do. I knew some people who had sold companies and made some money, and many of them manage their money and got into business, either as consultants or advisors.

 Ever heard of Shawmut, or Pigs Eye Parrat? There are - or were - real places. But, with the march of time, it seems everything is changing. Robots are replacing doctors. Mail has been usurped by email… and text… and tweet. The 5 and Dime, became Kmart, and then Walmart – then who knows what's next? Heck… it seems in some ways that the gladiators of the past have been replaced by Professional Wrestling, which has further morphed into Politics, with its showmanship and to-the-death enemies. Even the ever-trusted paper map has been replaced by GPS, and the encyclopedia has been booted into obscurity by Google. And where are you from? We've Got A New YouTube Channel - Watch, listen and most definitely subscribe and share!

 Ever heard of Shawmut, or Pigs Eye Parrat? There are - or were - real places. But, with the march of time, it seems everything is changing. Robots are replacing doctors. Mail has been usurped by email… and text… and tweet. The 5 and Dime, became Kmart, and then Walmart – then who knows what's next? Heck… it seems in some ways that the gladiators of the past have been replaced by Professional Wrestling, which has further morphed into Politics, with its showmanship and to-the-death enemies. Even the ever-trusted paper map has been replaced by GPS, and the encyclopedia has been booted into obscurity by Google. And where are you from? We've Got A New YouTube Channel - Watch, listen and most definitely subscribe and share!

NASCAR made an impressive entry into the 24 Hours of Le Mans race with a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. The project, backed by NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports, featured renowned drivers like Mike Rockenfeller, Jenson Button, and Jimmie Johnson. Despite facing some criticism from rival teams, the Camaro performed well, setting lap times faster than the GTE cars. However, transmission trouble forced the car to undergo repairs. Ultimately, it finished 39th out of 62 cars. In another Le Mans comeback, Ferrari triumphed after a 50-year absence. The race saw intense competition between Ferrari and Toyota, with the Ferrari eventually emerging victorious due to issues faced by Toyota. The 2024 Acura Integra Type S will participate in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, while an amusing incident occurred in Colorado when a driver tried to avoid a DUI arrest by switching places with his dog. Finally, a recap of some popular opinions on topics like dealing with car leaks, the status of Pluto as a planet, and the reactions to the check engine light.   Finally, we cover A Moment in History with The Ocean to Ocean Automobile Endurance Race. A transcontinental race held in 1909 from New York City to Seattle. It aimed to promote the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expo. Henry Ford's Model T emerged as the winner, showcasing the potential of the motor car. However, Ford was later disqualified for swapping a motor, and the second-place Shawmut car was awarded the win. The race was re-enacted in 2009 with 55 Model T Fords taking the same route.

Richard started as in intern in Gillette, followed by a couple of years in HR at a media and marketing company, before joining Shawmut almost 16 years ago, Shawmut is a $1.3B Design and Construction firm, which is 100% employee owned - by over 1000 employees.Richard has a unique ability to streamline training strategies and enhancing work performance, employee morale, and HR best practices. "I pride myself in my expertise developing innovative HR initiatives to restructure processes/programs and capitalize on organization growth opportunities."He sees investment in talent enablement and growth as critical to the companies market advantage and overall company growth.Ross and Richard talk about being ready for the unexpected, uncertainty, growth, experiences, travel, failure, culture, new roles, hiring, HR, developing, hybrid workspaces, managing people, supporting people, re-evaluating, burnout, quick fixes and thriving.The pair also discuss connections, understanding, Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI), families, carer development, choosing a direction, trusting technology, adapting, innovation, virtual reality, investment, work life balance, empathy, compassion, hope, care and saying no.Timecodes: 00:28 Introduction to Richard02:34 Richard's move from Boston to New York03:55 Change and challenging himself05:31 Challenges setting up a new office07:56 Transitioning roles at work10:22 Navigating change in a large company16:37 Dealing with exhaustion 20:06 Developing teams and thriving23:06 Personalised development plans26:18 Dealing with resistance to technology31:29 The dangers of not overcoming change35:16 Leadership predictions for the next 3-5 years 38:38 Intent rings42:19 The last time Richard did something for the first timeConnect with Richard:LinkedInShawmut Design and ConstructionConnect with Ross:WebsiteLinkedInMoonshot Innovation 

In this episode we discuss Jim's recipe to build the Billion dollar company that is Shawmut Design and Construction and what drove him to leave retirement to take on what could be even a bigger challenge; bring dignified healthcare to the developing world. Enjoy the show. -> If you are local to Massachusetts and have material or used equipment to donate please reach out to Oliver at ohayward@buildhealthinternational.org or message me on social. -> Tom Feeley article about the near bankruptcy Follow the Mass Construction Show here: Linkedin Instagram Twitter Facebook TikTok Intro music by Sound Revolution --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joekelly/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/joekelly/support

Marianne Monte is the Chief People Officer of Shawmut Design and Construction.  As CPO, Marianne drives human resource and business strategy, using executive coaching, compensation, talent management, and business partner leadership to create a successful work environment in which employees thrive. Marianne's work has been integral to Shawmut being named Best Workplace by Fortune Magazine multiple times, the first Construction firm in the US to be awarded such an honor. She has more than 25 years of experience in human resources and prior to joining Shawmut, Marianne served as the vice president of human resources for The Hanover Insurance Group.Marianne was awarded the 2017 Providence Business News C-Suite Award in the Chief Human Resources Officer category, recognized for being an innovator, trailblazer, role model, and leader. She graduated from Providence College with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and government and earned her juris doctor degree from Suffolk Law School.  And in her spare time, Monte enjoys spending summers fishing on Ninigret Pond in Rhode Island with her wife and son.

On this episode of the project spotlight series, the team behind 100 Shawmut discuss the partnerships that have brought about the project set to activate a corner of the South End. At 100 Shawmut, The Davis Companies, The Architectural Team, Copley Wolff Design Group, and Neoscape are creating residences that feature modern living with a historic backdrop.

In this episode Joe talks about the transition from residential construction to the commercial world. We discuss what were some of the hurdles in making the transition but also what are the transferable skills that ultimately made it a success. We also talk a lot about adoption and use of technology, specifically use in the field. Joe has a diverse background as a framer, business owner, manager, and superintendent on some amazing project . So, no matter where you sit in the world of building you’ll want to have a listen. Enjoy the show. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joekelly/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/joekelly/support

Shawmut Design & Construction Vice-President Ron Simoneau and Brown University economics professor John Friedman.

On this week's episode of All in the Industry, Shari is joined in studio by John Tobin and Larry Campana of Shawmut Design and Construction, a national construction management company. Larry Campana is Shawmut's Director of Business Development with over 15 years of experience with different roles, including vice president of business development at Invest Hospitality, general manager for multiple restaurants at BR Guest Hospitality and in food and beverage at MGM Grand Las Vegas. John Tobin is Shawmut's Director of Hospitality. John has been a key member of its leadership team since 2008, having cultivated and maintained relationships with some of the company's most prestigious clients, including Le Bernardin and The New York Palace Hotel.

To misquote the poet Emily Dickinson, something there is that loves a line. When I was growing up in the 80s in Dorchester, near Ashmont station on the red line, I remember the fights in the press about extending the red line all the way to Alewife from Harvard Station, where it ended at the time. Some residents of Arlington, it seemed, wanted the red line kept out so that some other, less visible lines would kept firmly IN. They expressed concern that poor blacks from Dot were going to get on the T at Shawmut or Field's Corner, and ride in air-conditioned comfort all the way to Alewife, for the express purpose of burgling their homes. Presumably, then, the would-be burglars would take a cab back to Dot with all their booty.

Nicholas McConnell, PhD candidate in Astrophysics at UCB summer 2012, and Jeff Silverman, PhD of Astrophysics from UCB in 2011, part one of three, talk about exoplanets and the search for water in the universe. To help analyze data www.galaxyzoo.org or www.planethunters.orgTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next [inaudible]. Welcome to spectrum science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, [00:00:30] 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 2: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm joined today by spectrum contributors, Rick Karnofsky and Lisa Katovich. Our interview is with Jeff Silverman, a recent phd in astrophysics from UC Berkeley and Nicholas McConnell, a phd candidate unscheduled to be awarded his phd in astrophysics by UC Berkeley this summer. [00:01:00] Jeff and Nicholas have generously agreed to help spectrum present three shows on astronomy, explaining the big ideas, recent experiments, international collaborations and improvements and observations on technology that are transforming astronomy. In part one we discuss extra solar planets known as exoplanets and the search for liquid water in the universe. Nicholas McConnell and Jeff Silverman. Welcome to spectrum. Thanks for having us do. You're both astronomers. Yup. And today you're going to talk with us about [00:01:30] what's been happening in astronomy in say, the past five years that really stands out for you. That's very salient that you think's important. Nicholas, why don't you bring up the first topic that we're going to discuss here? Speaker 2: Sure. Well, there are many things to choose from, but for me, one of the most exciting things that I think has been happening is that over the last two or three years, thanks mostly to a NASA satellite called the Kepler mission. Astronomers have been discovering literally thousands of new planets orbiting other stars, uh, in our own galaxy every year. [00:02:00] And one particularly exciting discovery that happened in December, 2011 was we found a planet around another star that appeared to be in the so called habitable zone of that planet. The zone where the distance from the star was appropriate that the temperature on the planet could possibly be not too cold and not too hot to have liquid water. And how much of that exoplanet research is done here in the bay area? Quite a large amount. There's a large healthy exoplanet team in the UC Berkeley Astronomy Department, [00:02:30] and many scientists here are heavily involved in the Kepler mission besides this planet in the habitable zone. Speaker 2: Like Nicholas mentioned, thousands of planets have been discovered by this Kepler mission of all shapes and sizes from nearly earth size to Uranus and Neptune size. Did you put her in a little bit bigger orbiting their stars that are sun-like sometimes a little bit smaller, sometimes a little bit bigger than the sun at various distances. There's maybe a couple of examples where we've seen a system of a few planets that sort [00:03:00] of mimic the sizes of planets in our solar system at some of the distances, but most of these planets are found very close to their host star. Nothing like what we see in our own solar system, things that are the size of Jupiter and Saturn that are orbiting even closer than mercury. And so this is a huge weird question that's outstanding. People are trying to figure out how do you make these systems, how do you make these planetary systems and why are they so prevalent and so different from what we know in our own solar system. Speaker 2: And are there some sort of limitations to the [00:03:30] finding techniques to, to locate these planets that might sort of bias you towards finding these large close planets spoken like a true scientist? Yes, we are absolutely biased to find big planets that are very close to their stars. So the first handful of planets that were found were very big. These so-called hot Jupiters, very big Jupiter sized planets near their stars. We are definitely biased by the techniques to find these kinds of planets. Capillary is doing a bit of a better job finding smaller planets, finding them further out. And so we're getting into a point [00:04:00] in time where we're close to being able to find similar looking systems to the solar system, bigger planets further out earth planets around the distance of earth from the sun and we're not really finding them as often as you might expect. Speaker 2: And so it does seem still that even taking into account some of this bias that our solar system is a bit of an oddball now that's certainly may change in the next few years. This is a huge fast moving field, but right now we're still an odd ball. Yeah. I have to say that the, the Kepler mission was designed [00:04:30] so that over the course of the missions lifetime, which was roughly a three year time period, starting maybe 2010 and going through 2013 or so, it was designed so that over that period it could detect a planet, maybe twice the size of our earth but orbiting at star at the same distance that the earth orbits the sun. So capillary is definitely doing a better job than previous missions, finding planets that aren't quite as small as earth but are getting down in that region where we can say this plant is actually fairly similar to the planet earth. Speaker 2: And because we're now simply becoming [00:05:00] able to start to find planets like this, we can begin to say things about how common are earth like planets relative to these hot Jupiters that Jeff was talking about before when we had only detected the hot Jupiters, there was nothing we could say about their relative abundance in the universe compared to planets like the earth was their technology. And Kepler that made this possible. Was there a breakthrough somehow in the, the instrument? The thing Kepler does is it measures the brightness coming from a star [00:05:30] over and over and over again. Uh, and what happens is that if a planet passes in front of the star along the line of sight to Earth, it blocks a little bit of the disk of the star. And so the star gets very slightly fatter. But these differences in the stars brightness are smaller than a percent. Speaker 2: And so in order to pick out that signal that you need to have an instrument that can measure the brightness of a star very, very accurately, repeatedly over and over again and simply by having it outside ears, atmosphere, having it in space and all of the different instrumental [00:06:00] things they did inside that satellite enables Kepler to measure stellar brightnesses with more precision than any instrument that we'd done this for previously. Another interesting piece of technology that was something that they had to tackle. And it's still sort of one of the limitations actually of Kepler, is because you're measuring the brightness of thousands of stars many, many times over and over and over again. That's a huge amount of data, just pure raw pictures that you have floating on a spacecraft and you need to beam those down to earth, to big computers to hold those. Speaker 2: And so [00:06:30] one of the biggest limitations from my understanding is just the bandwidth. It is hard to move that ms send that many, you know, picture files basically from space down, you know, different satellites to big data centers on earth. And so they kind of do it in big bursts and in chunks and they only take certain subsets of the pictures of different stars. Very, very close, a little snapshot, postage stamps right around each of the stars that they're monitoring. And it's still huge amounts of data. Uh, and so this has been a big breakthrough for a number of different [00:07:00] astronomy discoveries, is the large amount of data being able to move it through the Internet, through fiber optics and storing it and going through it in a fast, efficient way. Do you know if there's any kind of preliminary data analysis actually on the coupler? Speaker 2: I'm not completely sure, but there is some, as far as I know, a basic calibrations and, and basic work that it does before it sends down some of the products. But looking, as Nicholas said, for these very slight amounts of dimming in the stars takes a lot of computing power [00:07:30] and fancy algorithms that are run on big machines back on earth. And one of the really interesting things that's actually been done with the Keppra or data is after this processing, after you have, um, sort of your reduced scientific measurements. Um, recently these data have been put on the Internet so that by crowdsourcing people can go, ah, I think the website is called Kepler Zoo. And look at the period, the, the patterns of brightness versus time for all of these different stars. Um, and humans can try to find patterns that the best computer algorithms have failed to find. Um, and [00:08:00] I think there is a space of patterns that computers don't do very well at, but humans are better at. Um, so we're using the public to try to get more planets, uh, than when we, we'd be able to do just the astronomy community by itself. Speaker 1: [inaudible] this is spectrum on k l x Berkeley. We are talking about exoplanets with Jeff Silverman and Nicholas McConnell [00:08:30] reflecting on coupler. How do you, Speaker 2: I think it's changed your worldview. The entire subfield and astronomy have of exoplanets. Planets around other stars effectively didn't exist until the mid to late nineties. So when I was in elementary school, it was nice to think about planets on around other stars and see it in the movies. But it was very scifi. Speaker 3: Fast forward to to mean in college, in the early two thousands [00:09:00] taking astronomy classes, astronomers had discovered a handful of these exoplanets. And I distinctly remember one of my professors saying, you know, we found a few, we're going to find some more in the future. One day you'll pick up the newspaper and the front page will be a picture of an exoplanet. And sure enough, a few years ago, Berkeley astronomers took a picture of an exoplanet and it made the front page newspaper. Uh, and I'll never forget seeing that picture on the front page of the newspaper, just like my professor in college predicted. This is a very fast moving field. We're going to find even more planets earth-like [00:09:30] around sunlight stars that could very well have liquid water. It'll possibly be not that rare to have an earth-like planet in the very near future. Personally, to me, I think it's great. It makes me hope that perhaps we can find an exact earth analog around a sun analog and perhaps there is intelligent life or some kind of life that we can find. And I think an amazing thing that astronomers can do for the world. Speaker 4: I think with the discovery of planets that are similar [00:10:00] to Earth or at least about the same sizes, or we're beginning to go from detecting one, then a couple to actually doing decent statistics where we can project how many have planets about the same size of earth exist, say in our galaxy. I tried to do a very, very rough calculation this morning. If you ask how many earth sized planets are there in the Milky Way, I think the answer is there's probably about a billion or a couple billion. And so I think that's just another interesting way of looking at how [00:10:30] earth is not necessarily unique environment in the universe, but just as we have so much diversity here on earth than in our galaxy. We have evidence now that there is space and room to have as much diversity possibly throughout our galaxy. So I think we really are getting a profound sense of just what kind of environment we have for possibly life and for different conditions, not only in our own solar system, but in this much larger piece of the universe that we're [00:11:00] only beginning to explore. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 6: you're listening to spectrum on k a l x, Berkeley. We are talking about astrophysics with Nicholas McConnell and Jeff Silverman. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 3: let's talk about water in the universe. So we've found quite a bit of water [00:11:30] in the universe, oddly enough, sort of starting on the biggest scales. There's, there's some nebulae, some clusters of gas and particles out in the universe that are huge reservoirs of water and sort of related huge reservoirs of alcohols, ethanol's, things like that. Coming a little bit closer to home and looking a little bit more recently. In the past maybe five or 10 years, there's been quite a few new detections, new possible detections, new lines of evidence of liquid water, ice water in our solar system in very interesting [00:12:00] places. One, the moon of Saturn known as, and Solidus is a very shiny, very bright object. It's very, very white, snowy, clean looking objects. A handful of craters have much less cratered than our own moon, a little smaller than our moon as well. Speaker 3: But it had some weird features to it. It looks kind of neat. And so the the Cassini spacecraft, which has been around exploring Saturn and its moon systems and its ring system for the past decade or so, did a few very close flybys of this very interesting moon in solidus [00:12:30] figured out that most of the surface is solid ice water, ice, ammonia, hydrocarbons, stuff as well. Also notice that there were geysers coming off of the surface, which we've seen geysers on a couple of other moons of Jupiter and Saturn, but these were kind of interesting and Cassini was there and we lucked out and Cassini actually flew through one of these geysers and got to detect the particles from the geyser itself, right? They're very direct institute measurements of what's in the guys there and it was mostly water and some ammonia, which was [00:13:00] interesting. And then there's evidence that there was actually more organic compounds in there and so possibly there, this could lead to life. Speaker 3: There could be some kind of bacteria down in the innards of in solidus. That's sort of pushing a a little bit, sort of the next step beyond what the evidence is actually telling us. But it's very, very tantalizing. Just about four or five years ago, a NASA panel on moons and moon explorations in the solar system said that in Solidus is probably the best possibility [00:13:30] for current life outside of earth in our own solar system. And the idea is that underneath this sort of very smooth, icy surface, there's probably a liquid ocean, mostly water, maybe a little bit of salt water, like I said, a little ammonia, some organic compounds, perhaps probably not gray whales and great white sharks. Probably not even little fish and shrimp, but it seems reasonable that there could be microscopic organisms, some kind of life, you know, to be determined. Speaker 3: But it's possible. [00:14:00] There's liquid water, there's reasonable conditions. It's not too salty, it's not too acidic, it's not too hot. And there does seem to be at least the building blocks, some of these organic compounds, perhaps one outstanding issue is how thick is this outer ice layer. So there's been some ideas of what we should send another mission that's just going to drill in there and it had the little submarine and go look around for fish and organisms, but we don't actually have a great handle on how thick that ice layer is. Uh, so Cassini is continuing to study this moon along with the [00:14:30] rest of the stuff in the Saturn system. Other moons, the planet itself, the Rings, uh, and we'll hopefully learn a little bit more about it, but they're already in the works, uh, both NASA, Japanese and European missions to go explore in salad. It's even more now if you want to go a little bit closer than Enceladus, one of the most promising planets areas in our solar system where Speaker 4: people have thought about the possibility of liquid water, where we certainly know that frozen water exists and where we have a headstart on [00:15:00] objects actually on the surface exploring is the planet Mars. And there've been some recent discoveries about both water in the past history of Mars and possibly salty liquid water, actually existing present day on Mars that are fueling a lot of excitement in the scientific community. Right now we have two different kinds of instruments that are doing fantastic observations of Mars. One of them is called the Mars or condescends orbiter. It is a satellite in orbit around Mars that can take fantastically detailed [00:15:30] photographs of the Martian surface. You can see features about a few feet across on the Martian surface with the satellite and then the other are the famous Mars Rovers. Spirit and opportunity spirit recently shut down, met its demise even though these two rovers outlasted their nominal mission timeline by a factor of 10 or so, Opportunity is still exploring the Martian surface and in both cases, instruments have found evidence for water on Mars. Speaker 4: In the case of opportunity. The rover fairly recently [00:16:00] discovered this mineral vein in a rock in a crater on Mars that scientists are pretty certain, could only have been created by liquid water flowing through a crack in the rocket, some ancient time and marches history and creating this particular mineral known as gypsum in certain variances what we use to make plaster of Paris here on Earth. So there is evidence that in particular Martian environments, there was almost certainly liquid water on Mars in the past. Combine that with theoretical models of how the planet and its atmosphere would have evolved over time. [00:16:30] And there are some pictures of ancient Mars being this sort of lush liquid water, much warmer environment than it is today. And so possibly Mars in its past was a hospitable environment for life. Although I'll emphasize we've, we have not yet detected any evidence of present day or fossilized life on Mars, but frankly, we haven't explored a very large fraction of that planet yet. Speaker 4: So I wouldn't be entirely surprised if some discovery came along in the future. Another very, very interesting observation on Mars coming [00:17:00] from the Mars reconnaissance orbiter is that looking over time at the edges of some of the craters on Mars in the warm seasons, they actually found stream like features that looked like dark streams were appearing on the edges of craters and over the course of the warm season as these craters were being more exposed to the sun and warming up a little bit, the streams lengthen as you might expect, little trickles of liquid water to flow downhill and based on mineral analysis which you can do using spectroscopy [00:17:30] from the orbiter and just generally the overall pattern of how these streams change with the seasons. We think that's good evidence that some sort of salty water was creating the streams. Unfortunately we were not able to directly detect water. What we see, it looks more to be like residue from a salt water stream where the water evaporated or where the water is just below the surface. But it seems that in certain seasons and certain places of the planet, there could actually be water and liquid form just at the surface or just below the surface [00:18:00] of Mars today. I mean if you have salt water on Mars, then I think there's at least some chance that you could have some kind of primitive life forum thriving in it. [inaudible] Speaker 3: it's been amazing in the last few years using the orbiter and the rovers on Mars, the different lines of evidence that we have for this ice, either on the surface or just below the surface centimeters below the surface, inches below the surface. And so NASA just recently launched a mission to head to Mars and even bigger rover, something like the size of a small car [00:18:30] that's going to go around and specifically look for water, look for organic molecules, building blocks of life in different parts than where we've already explored on Mars. Speaker 4: And that rover is called curiosity and it's supposed to land on the Martian surface this summer. Is there water on the moon? Our Moon, there is water on the moon in the form of hydrous molecules, so where water is directly incorporated into a solid rock, but I don't think there's any evidence for frozen or liquid water on the moon, [00:19:00] certainly not liquid water. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 4: can you reflect on the importance of water being discovered in our solar system or in some other solar system or galaxy? Speaker 2: Clearly on earth, water is essential [00:19:30] for all life forms and so whereas there are ideas about exotic kinds of life that could exist without our requirement of having water. It certainly seems like the most natural place to start looking for life outside of our own planet. So knowing that it exists in liquid form in different places in the universe and knowing Lisa in our own solar system where it exists is I think a really good start toward actually doing an Ernest search for life outside earth, maybe in our own solar system. [00:20:00] And I think just knowing how much water there actually is in our universe makes it seem like the universe is maybe a friendlier place than we thought it was. Okay. Speaker 3: One of the basic questions in astronomy of humanity, one of the things that got me interested in astronomy originally was are we alone in the universe? Is there life out there in the solar system, in our galaxy, and looking for water is probably the best way, the most direct way to find where that life could be. Being able to go visit Mars, the Moon, various [00:20:30] moons in our own solar system. Looking for that life in the water or around the water, I think is is something that's a fundamental question for all humankind, not just scientists and astronomers. Speaker 7: That ends one, Jeff Silverman and Nicholas McConnell. We'll be back with part two on our next show. We'll talk about Super Novi and black holes. Rick Karnofsky and Lisa Catholic joined me [00:21:00] for the calendar and the new black hole, Speaker 8: the harmonic oscillators of the 21st century presented by Andrew Strom and dear professor of physics, Harvard University, Monday, March 12th at four 15 to 5:30 PM La Conte Hall Room Number One in the 20th century. Many problems across all of physics were solved by perturb native methods which reduce them to harmonic oscillators. Black holes are poised to play a similar role for the problems of 21st century physics. They are at once [00:21:30] the simplest and most complex objects in the physical universe. Professors durometer will give an introduction to the subject intended for a general audience Speaker 9: daily and Nardo art science evening rendezvous or laser is a monthly series of lectures, presentations, and networking between artists and scientists. This month, laser is on Monday, March 12th at the [inaudible] room of the front building at the University of San Francisco to one 30 zero Fulton Street. It is free, but [00:22:00] please RSVP to p at [inaudible] dot com the event starts at seven with a talk by [inaudible] Viskontas on the art and neuroscience of effective music performance. What is it about this art form that draws people in? What distinguishes a performance that is technically accurate but unmusical from one that elicits the chills. We will explore how music engages the brain and why it continues to be a worldwide addiction. This will be followed by Rebecca Cayman's talk, making the invisible visible [00:22:30] discoveries between art and science, the history of artists as scientists and scientists as artists will be shared drying from the collections of the American philosophical society and the Chemical Heritage Foundation. The development of new art science collaborations will also be discussed. Shawmut caught true of the Stanford Physics Department. We'll speak on are there more dimensions of space which we'll discuss how the extra dimensions proposed by some models such as string theory may explain and unify puzzles [00:23:00] of modern physics. The night we'll conclude with Scott killed doll and Nathaniel stern who will discuss beaming Twitter messages to glaze five eight one D and exoplanet 20 light years away that can support extra terrestrial life using DIY technology. The website for laser is www.leonardo.info Speaker 8: the creative destruction of medicine Wednesday, March 14th at 6:00 PM at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on the second [00:23:30] floor of five 95 market street, Eric Topol, MD, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, Co founder and vice chairman of the West Wireless Health Institute and author of the creative destruction of medicine. Dr Topol says that is poised to go through its biggest shakeup in history and unprecedented convergence of technologies such as the ability to digitize human genomes and the invention of wireless tools is gaining momentum, thrusting the medical field into the digital era. Tickets are $20 [00:24:00] for general public, $8 for members and $7 for students. Speaker 9: Ask a scientist is hosting a puzzle party on Pi Day Wednesday, March 14th at 7:00 PM this is a math and logic puzzle competition for teams of up to six people. It is free, but you're encouraged to support the venue by purchasing foods and or drinks. The winning team will get a round of drinks and an overwhelming sense of pride. Bring a jacket in case there is overflow onto the sidewalk of the bizarre [00:24:30] cafe. Five nine two seven California at 21st in San Francisco visit. Ask a scientist sf.com for more info. Speaker 7: Yeah, Speaker 6: the March Science at cal lecture will be given at 11:00 AM on Saturday, March 17th in the genetics and plant biology building room 100 the talk will be given by Dr Hazel Bane and is entitled The Sun a star in our own backyard. Dr Bain is a post doc with the Ruben Rahmati high energy spectroscopic [00:25:00] solar imager solar physics group at the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley. Her main area of research involves studying solar eruptive events such as flares, jets, and coronal mass ejections using both space and ground-based instruments. In describing her talk, Dr Bane said the stars in the night sky have always been a source of intrigue and wonder with our very own star at the center of our solar system, the sun offers us a unique [00:25:30] opportunity to study the inner workings of these giant balls of plasma. Starting at the core, I will discuss the processes occurring at the different layers of the sun onto news. Speaker 9: The four mile long t veteran particle accelerator at Chicago's Fermi lab was closed in September, 2011 after being one of the most powerful accelerators for 20 years, but in analyzing 500 trillion subatomic particles, Asians from the CDF and DCO, the team says that they may [00:26:00] have generated about a thousand Higgs Bosons the particle that is responsible for mass in the standard model of physics in a previous episode of spectrum that you can download from iTunes you, we interviewed Dr Simoni Pig Ingreso about the hunt for the Higgs. The probability of these measurements being due to a statistical fluke instead of the measurements of the Higgs is about one in 30 or about 2.2 sigma. This is well below the one chance in 3.5 million or five sigma that will be used to claim the actual discovery of the Higgs. [00:26:30] The energy of the detected events is between 115 billion and 135 billion electron volts, which is in good agreement with the range of 124 billion electron volts to 126 billion electron volts that turns large. Hadron collider established with 3.6 sigma certainty. The large Hadron collider is on winter break, but we'll be fixed up again in April to continue trying to find the Higgs with five sigma certainty. Speaker 8: The Cal Energy Corp is offering internships [00:27:00] around the world from Brazil to Germany to Ghana, to China, as well as in the bay area. During the summer of 2012 internships will offer UC Berkeley undergraduates the opportunity to pursue challenging hands on projects and energy and climate research. According to the office of the vice chancellor for research among the projects, cal energy core interns will be involved in our efforts to create green coal as industrial fuel, helping to produce biofuels, working on improving photovoltaics for integration into the [00:27:30] electricity grid, building models to better understand climate change and designing and testing. Cookstoves. The internship program provides a $600 weekly stipend for all interns as well as funding to cover transportation and housing. All placements are full time, more information and application forms are available at the cow energy core website. Speaker 9: Yeah, Speaker 6: explaining science to an 11 year old. The flame challenge sponsored by the Center for communicating science is an attempt to reach the very core of [00:28:00] science communication. The contest asks scientists and generally clever people to submit their own explanations of what a flame is, explanations that would captivate an 11 year old. The flame challenge contest is open for entries between March 2nd and April 2nd with the winners to be announced in June. Entries can be in writing, video or graphics and they can be playful or serious as long as they are accurate and connect with the young judges. For more information and entry [00:28:30] forms, visit the challenge website. Flame challenge.org Speaker 7: [inaudible] music curse during the show goes by on Donna David [inaudible] on for his album title folk and acoustic [00:29:00] just made available by creative Commons license 3.0 contribution. [inaudible]. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show [inaudible] [00:29:30] to our email address is [inaudible] means in two weeks. It's Speaker 6: the same Speaker 5: [inaudible]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicholas McConnell, PhD candidate in Astrophysics at UCB summer 2012, and Jeff Silverman, PhD of Astrophysics from UCB in 2011, part one of three, talk about exoplanets and the search for water in the universe. To help analyze data www.galaxyzoo.org or www.planethunters.orgTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next [inaudible]. Welcome to spectrum science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, [00:00:30] 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 2: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm joined today by spectrum contributors, Rick Karnofsky and Lisa Katovich. Our interview is with Jeff Silverman, a recent phd in astrophysics from UC Berkeley and Nicholas McConnell, a phd candidate unscheduled to be awarded his phd in astrophysics by UC Berkeley this summer. [00:01:00] Jeff and Nicholas have generously agreed to help spectrum present three shows on astronomy, explaining the big ideas, recent experiments, international collaborations and improvements and observations on technology that are transforming astronomy. In part one we discuss extra solar planets known as exoplanets and the search for liquid water in the universe. Nicholas McConnell and Jeff Silverman. Welcome to spectrum. Thanks for having us do. You're both astronomers. Yup. And today you're going to talk with us about [00:01:30] what's been happening in astronomy in say, the past five years that really stands out for you. That's very salient that you think's important. Nicholas, why don't you bring up the first topic that we're going to discuss here? Speaker 2: Sure. Well, there are many things to choose from, but for me, one of the most exciting things that I think has been happening is that over the last two or three years, thanks mostly to a NASA satellite called the Kepler mission. Astronomers have been discovering literally thousands of new planets orbiting other stars, uh, in our own galaxy every year. [00:02:00] And one particularly exciting discovery that happened in December, 2011 was we found a planet around another star that appeared to be in the so called habitable zone of that planet. The zone where the distance from the star was appropriate that the temperature on the planet could possibly be not too cold and not too hot to have liquid water. And how much of that exoplanet research is done here in the bay area? Quite a large amount. There's a large healthy exoplanet team in the UC Berkeley Astronomy Department, [00:02:30] and many scientists here are heavily involved in the Kepler mission besides this planet in the habitable zone. Speaker 2: Like Nicholas mentioned, thousands of planets have been discovered by this Kepler mission of all shapes and sizes from nearly earth size to Uranus and Neptune size. Did you put her in a little bit bigger orbiting their stars that are sun-like sometimes a little bit smaller, sometimes a little bit bigger than the sun at various distances. There's maybe a couple of examples where we've seen a system of a few planets that sort [00:03:00] of mimic the sizes of planets in our solar system at some of the distances, but most of these planets are found very close to their host star. Nothing like what we see in our own solar system, things that are the size of Jupiter and Saturn that are orbiting even closer than mercury. And so this is a huge weird question that's outstanding. People are trying to figure out how do you make these systems, how do you make these planetary systems and why are they so prevalent and so different from what we know in our own solar system. Speaker 2: And are there some sort of limitations to the [00:03:30] finding techniques to, to locate these planets that might sort of bias you towards finding these large close planets spoken like a true scientist? Yes, we are absolutely biased to find big planets that are very close to their stars. So the first handful of planets that were found were very big. These so-called hot Jupiters, very big Jupiter sized planets near their stars. We are definitely biased by the techniques to find these kinds of planets. Capillary is doing a bit of a better job finding smaller planets, finding them further out. And so we're getting into a point [00:04:00] in time where we're close to being able to find similar looking systems to the solar system, bigger planets further out earth planets around the distance of earth from the sun and we're not really finding them as often as you might expect. Speaker 2: And so it does seem still that even taking into account some of this bias that our solar system is a bit of an oddball now that's certainly may change in the next few years. This is a huge fast moving field, but right now we're still an odd ball. Yeah. I have to say that the, the Kepler mission was designed [00:04:30] so that over the course of the missions lifetime, which was roughly a three year time period, starting maybe 2010 and going through 2013 or so, it was designed so that over that period it could detect a planet, maybe twice the size of our earth but orbiting at star at the same distance that the earth orbits the sun. So capillary is definitely doing a better job than previous missions, finding planets that aren't quite as small as earth but are getting down in that region where we can say this plant is actually fairly similar to the planet earth. Speaker 2: And because we're now simply becoming [00:05:00] able to start to find planets like this, we can begin to say things about how common are earth like planets relative to these hot Jupiters that Jeff was talking about before when we had only detected the hot Jupiters, there was nothing we could say about their relative abundance in the universe compared to planets like the earth was their technology. And Kepler that made this possible. Was there a breakthrough somehow in the, the instrument? The thing Kepler does is it measures the brightness coming from a star [00:05:30] over and over and over again. Uh, and what happens is that if a planet passes in front of the star along the line of sight to Earth, it blocks a little bit of the disk of the star. And so the star gets very slightly fatter. But these differences in the stars brightness are smaller than a percent. Speaker 2: And so in order to pick out that signal that you need to have an instrument that can measure the brightness of a star very, very accurately, repeatedly over and over again and simply by having it outside ears, atmosphere, having it in space and all of the different instrumental [00:06:00] things they did inside that satellite enables Kepler to measure stellar brightnesses with more precision than any instrument that we'd done this for previously. Another interesting piece of technology that was something that they had to tackle. And it's still sort of one of the limitations actually of Kepler, is because you're measuring the brightness of thousands of stars many, many times over and over and over again. That's a huge amount of data, just pure raw pictures that you have floating on a spacecraft and you need to beam those down to earth, to big computers to hold those. Speaker 2: And so [00:06:30] one of the biggest limitations from my understanding is just the bandwidth. It is hard to move that ms send that many, you know, picture files basically from space down, you know, different satellites to big data centers on earth. And so they kind of do it in big bursts and in chunks and they only take certain subsets of the pictures of different stars. Very, very close, a little snapshot, postage stamps right around each of the stars that they're monitoring. And it's still huge amounts of data. Uh, and so this has been a big breakthrough for a number of different [00:07:00] astronomy discoveries, is the large amount of data being able to move it through the Internet, through fiber optics and storing it and going through it in a fast, efficient way. Do you know if there's any kind of preliminary data analysis actually on the coupler? Speaker 2: I'm not completely sure, but there is some, as far as I know, a basic calibrations and, and basic work that it does before it sends down some of the products. But looking, as Nicholas said, for these very slight amounts of dimming in the stars takes a lot of computing power [00:07:30] and fancy algorithms that are run on big machines back on earth. And one of the really interesting things that's actually been done with the Keppra or data is after this processing, after you have, um, sort of your reduced scientific measurements. Um, recently these data have been put on the Internet so that by crowdsourcing people can go, ah, I think the website is called Kepler Zoo. And look at the period, the, the patterns of brightness versus time for all of these different stars. Um, and humans can try to find patterns that the best computer algorithms have failed to find. Um, and [00:08:00] I think there is a space of patterns that computers don't do very well at, but humans are better at. Um, so we're using the public to try to get more planets, uh, than when we, we'd be able to do just the astronomy community by itself. Speaker 1: [inaudible] this is spectrum on k l x Berkeley. We are talking about exoplanets with Jeff Silverman and Nicholas McConnell [00:08:30] reflecting on coupler. How do you, Speaker 2: I think it's changed your worldview. The entire subfield and astronomy have of exoplanets. Planets around other stars effectively didn't exist until the mid to late nineties. So when I was in elementary school, it was nice to think about planets on around other stars and see it in the movies. But it was very scifi. Speaker 3: Fast forward to to mean in college, in the early two thousands [00:09:00] taking astronomy classes, astronomers had discovered a handful of these exoplanets. And I distinctly remember one of my professors saying, you know, we found a few, we're going to find some more in the future. One day you'll pick up the newspaper and the front page will be a picture of an exoplanet. And sure enough, a few years ago, Berkeley astronomers took a picture of an exoplanet and it made the front page newspaper. Uh, and I'll never forget seeing that picture on the front page of the newspaper, just like my professor in college predicted. This is a very fast moving field. We're going to find even more planets earth-like [00:09:30] around sunlight stars that could very well have liquid water. It'll possibly be not that rare to have an earth-like planet in the very near future. Personally, to me, I think it's great. It makes me hope that perhaps we can find an exact earth analog around a sun analog and perhaps there is intelligent life or some kind of life that we can find. And I think an amazing thing that astronomers can do for the world. Speaker 4: I think with the discovery of planets that are similar [00:10:00] to Earth or at least about the same sizes, or we're beginning to go from detecting one, then a couple to actually doing decent statistics where we can project how many have planets about the same size of earth exist, say in our galaxy. I tried to do a very, very rough calculation this morning. If you ask how many earth sized planets are there in the Milky Way, I think the answer is there's probably about a billion or a couple billion. And so I think that's just another interesting way of looking at how [00:10:30] earth is not necessarily unique environment in the universe, but just as we have so much diversity here on earth than in our galaxy. We have evidence now that there is space and room to have as much diversity possibly throughout our galaxy. So I think we really are getting a profound sense of just what kind of environment we have for possibly life and for different conditions, not only in our own solar system, but in this much larger piece of the universe that we're [00:11:00] only beginning to explore. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 6: you're listening to spectrum on k a l x, Berkeley. We are talking about astrophysics with Nicholas McConnell and Jeff Silverman. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 3: let's talk about water in the universe. So we've found quite a bit of water [00:11:30] in the universe, oddly enough, sort of starting on the biggest scales. There's, there's some nebulae, some clusters of gas and particles out in the universe that are huge reservoirs of water and sort of related huge reservoirs of alcohols, ethanol's, things like that. Coming a little bit closer to home and looking a little bit more recently. In the past maybe five or 10 years, there's been quite a few new detections, new possible detections, new lines of evidence of liquid water, ice water in our solar system in very interesting [00:12:00] places. One, the moon of Saturn known as, and Solidus is a very shiny, very bright object. It's very, very white, snowy, clean looking objects. A handful of craters have much less cratered than our own moon, a little smaller than our moon as well. Speaker 3: But it had some weird features to it. It looks kind of neat. And so the the Cassini spacecraft, which has been around exploring Saturn and its moon systems and its ring system for the past decade or so, did a few very close flybys of this very interesting moon in solidus [00:12:30] figured out that most of the surface is solid ice water, ice, ammonia, hydrocarbons, stuff as well. Also notice that there were geysers coming off of the surface, which we've seen geysers on a couple of other moons of Jupiter and Saturn, but these were kind of interesting and Cassini was there and we lucked out and Cassini actually flew through one of these geysers and got to detect the particles from the geyser itself, right? They're very direct institute measurements of what's in the guys there and it was mostly water and some ammonia, which was [00:13:00] interesting. And then there's evidence that there was actually more organic compounds in there and so possibly there, this could lead to life. Speaker 3: There could be some kind of bacteria down in the innards of in solidus. That's sort of pushing a a little bit, sort of the next step beyond what the evidence is actually telling us. But it's very, very tantalizing. Just about four or five years ago, a NASA panel on moons and moon explorations in the solar system said that in Solidus is probably the best possibility [00:13:30] for current life outside of earth in our own solar system. And the idea is that underneath this sort of very smooth, icy surface, there's probably a liquid ocean, mostly water, maybe a little bit of salt water, like I said, a little ammonia, some organic compounds, perhaps probably not gray whales and great white sharks. Probably not even little fish and shrimp, but it seems reasonable that there could be microscopic organisms, some kind of life, you know, to be determined. Speaker 3: But it's possible. [00:14:00] There's liquid water, there's reasonable conditions. It's not too salty, it's not too acidic, it's not too hot. And there does seem to be at least the building blocks, some of these organic compounds, perhaps one outstanding issue is how thick is this outer ice layer. So there's been some ideas of what we should send another mission that's just going to drill in there and it had the little submarine and go look around for fish and organisms, but we don't actually have a great handle on how thick that ice layer is. Uh, so Cassini is continuing to study this moon along with the [00:14:30] rest of the stuff in the Saturn system. Other moons, the planet itself, the Rings, uh, and we'll hopefully learn a little bit more about it, but they're already in the works, uh, both NASA, Japanese and European missions to go explore in salad. It's even more now if you want to go a little bit closer than Enceladus, one of the most promising planets areas in our solar system where Speaker 4: people have thought about the possibility of liquid water, where we certainly know that frozen water exists and where we have a headstart on [00:15:00] objects actually on the surface exploring is the planet Mars. And there've been some recent discoveries about both water in the past history of Mars and possibly salty liquid water, actually existing present day on Mars that are fueling a lot of excitement in the scientific community. Right now we have two different kinds of instruments that are doing fantastic observations of Mars. One of them is called the Mars or condescends orbiter. It is a satellite in orbit around Mars that can take fantastically detailed [00:15:30] photographs of the Martian surface. You can see features about a few feet across on the Martian surface with the satellite and then the other are the famous Mars Rovers. Spirit and opportunity spirit recently shut down, met its demise even though these two rovers outlasted their nominal mission timeline by a factor of 10 or so, Opportunity is still exploring the Martian surface and in both cases, instruments have found evidence for water on Mars. Speaker 4: In the case of opportunity. The rover fairly recently [00:16:00] discovered this mineral vein in a rock in a crater on Mars that scientists are pretty certain, could only have been created by liquid water flowing through a crack in the rocket, some ancient time and marches history and creating this particular mineral known as gypsum in certain variances what we use to make plaster of Paris here on Earth. So there is evidence that in particular Martian environments, there was almost certainly liquid water on Mars in the past. Combine that with theoretical models of how the planet and its atmosphere would have evolved over time. [00:16:30] And there are some pictures of ancient Mars being this sort of lush liquid water, much warmer environment than it is today. And so possibly Mars in its past was a hospitable environment for life. Although I'll emphasize we've, we have not yet detected any evidence of present day or fossilized life on Mars, but frankly, we haven't explored a very large fraction of that planet yet. Speaker 4: So I wouldn't be entirely surprised if some discovery came along in the future. Another very, very interesting observation on Mars coming [00:17:00] from the Mars reconnaissance orbiter is that looking over time at the edges of some of the craters on Mars in the warm seasons, they actually found stream like features that looked like dark streams were appearing on the edges of craters and over the course of the warm season as these craters were being more exposed to the sun and warming up a little bit, the streams lengthen as you might expect, little trickles of liquid water to flow downhill and based on mineral analysis which you can do using spectroscopy [00:17:30] from the orbiter and just generally the overall pattern of how these streams change with the seasons. We think that's good evidence that some sort of salty water was creating the streams. Unfortunately we were not able to directly detect water. What we see, it looks more to be like residue from a salt water stream where the water evaporated or where the water is just below the surface. But it seems that in certain seasons and certain places of the planet, there could actually be water and liquid form just at the surface or just below the surface [00:18:00] of Mars today. I mean if you have salt water on Mars, then I think there's at least some chance that you could have some kind of primitive life forum thriving in it. [inaudible] Speaker 3: it's been amazing in the last few years using the orbiter and the rovers on Mars, the different lines of evidence that we have for this ice, either on the surface or just below the surface centimeters below the surface, inches below the surface. And so NASA just recently launched a mission to head to Mars and even bigger rover, something like the size of a small car [00:18:30] that's going to go around and specifically look for water, look for organic molecules, building blocks of life in different parts than where we've already explored on Mars. Speaker 4: And that rover is called curiosity and it's supposed to land on the Martian surface this summer. Is there water on the moon? Our Moon, there is water on the moon in the form of hydrous molecules, so where water is directly incorporated into a solid rock, but I don't think there's any evidence for frozen or liquid water on the moon, [00:19:00] certainly not liquid water. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 4: can you reflect on the importance of water being discovered in our solar system or in some other solar system or galaxy? Speaker 2: Clearly on earth, water is essential [00:19:30] for all life forms and so whereas there are ideas about exotic kinds of life that could exist without our requirement of having water. It certainly seems like the most natural place to start looking for life outside of our own planet. So knowing that it exists in liquid form in different places in the universe and knowing Lisa in our own solar system where it exists is I think a really good start toward actually doing an Ernest search for life outside earth, maybe in our own solar system. [00:20:00] And I think just knowing how much water there actually is in our universe makes it seem like the universe is maybe a friendlier place than we thought it was. Okay. Speaker 3: One of the basic questions in astronomy of humanity, one of the things that got me interested in astronomy originally was are we alone in the universe? Is there life out there in the solar system, in our galaxy, and looking for water is probably the best way, the most direct way to find where that life could be. Being able to go visit Mars, the Moon, various [00:20:30] moons in our own solar system. Looking for that life in the water or around the water, I think is is something that's a fundamental question for all humankind, not just scientists and astronomers. Speaker 7: That ends one, Jeff Silverman and Nicholas McConnell. We'll be back with part two on our next show. We'll talk about Super Novi and black holes. Rick Karnofsky and Lisa Catholic joined me [00:21:00] for the calendar and the new black hole, Speaker 8: the harmonic oscillators of the 21st century presented by Andrew Strom and dear professor of physics, Harvard University, Monday, March 12th at four 15 to 5:30 PM La Conte Hall Room Number One in the 20th century. Many problems across all of physics were solved by perturb native methods which reduce them to harmonic oscillators. Black holes are poised to play a similar role for the problems of 21st century physics. They are at once [00:21:30] the simplest and most complex objects in the physical universe. Professors durometer will give an introduction to the subject intended for a general audience Speaker 9: daily and Nardo art science evening rendezvous or laser is a monthly series of lectures, presentations, and networking between artists and scientists. This month, laser is on Monday, March 12th at the [inaudible] room of the front building at the University of San Francisco to one 30 zero Fulton Street. It is free, but [00:22:00] please RSVP to p at [inaudible] dot com the event starts at seven with a talk by [inaudible] Viskontas on the art and neuroscience of effective music performance. What is it about this art form that draws people in? What distinguishes a performance that is technically accurate but unmusical from one that elicits the chills. We will explore how music engages the brain and why it continues to be a worldwide addiction. This will be followed by Rebecca Cayman's talk, making the invisible visible [00:22:30] discoveries between art and science, the history of artists as scientists and scientists as artists will be shared drying from the collections of the American philosophical society and the Chemical Heritage Foundation. The development of new art science collaborations will also be discussed. Shawmut caught true of the Stanford Physics Department. We'll speak on are there more dimensions of space which we'll discuss how the extra dimensions proposed by some models such as string theory may explain and unify puzzles [00:23:00] of modern physics. The night we'll conclude with Scott killed doll and Nathaniel stern who will discuss beaming Twitter messages to glaze five eight one D and exoplanet 20 light years away that can support extra terrestrial life using DIY technology. The website for laser is www.leonardo.info Speaker 8: the creative destruction of medicine Wednesday, March 14th at 6:00 PM at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on the second [00:23:30] floor of five 95 market street, Eric Topol, MD, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, Co founder and vice chairman of the West Wireless Health Institute and author of the creative destruction of medicine. Dr Topol says that is poised to go through its biggest shakeup in history and unprecedented convergence of technologies such as the ability to digitize human genomes and the invention of wireless tools is gaining momentum, thrusting the medical field into the digital era. Tickets are $20 [00:24:00] for general public, $8 for members and $7 for students. Speaker 9: Ask a scientist is hosting a puzzle party on Pi Day Wednesday, March 14th at 7:00 PM this is a math and logic puzzle competition for teams of up to six people. It is free, but you're encouraged to support the venue by purchasing foods and or drinks. The winning team will get a round of drinks and an overwhelming sense of pride. Bring a jacket in case there is overflow onto the sidewalk of the bizarre [00:24:30] cafe. Five nine two seven California at 21st in San Francisco visit. Ask a scientist sf.com for more info. Speaker 7: Yeah, Speaker 6: the March Science at cal lecture will be given at 11:00 AM on Saturday, March 17th in the genetics and plant biology building room 100 the talk will be given by Dr Hazel Bane and is entitled The Sun a star in our own backyard. Dr Bain is a post doc with the Ruben Rahmati high energy spectroscopic [00:25:00] solar imager solar physics group at the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley. Her main area of research involves studying solar eruptive events such as flares, jets, and coronal mass ejections using both space and ground-based instruments. In describing her talk, Dr Bane said the stars in the night sky have always been a source of intrigue and wonder with our very own star at the center of our solar system, the sun offers us a unique [00:25:30] opportunity to study the inner workings of these giant balls of plasma. Starting at the core, I will discuss the processes occurring at the different layers of the sun onto news. Speaker 9: The four mile long t veteran particle accelerator at Chicago's Fermi lab was closed in September, 2011 after being one of the most powerful accelerators for 20 years, but in analyzing 500 trillion subatomic particles, Asians from the CDF and DCO, the team says that they may [00:26:00] have generated about a thousand Higgs Bosons the particle that is responsible for mass in the standard model of physics in a previous episode of spectrum that you can download from iTunes you, we interviewed Dr Simoni Pig Ingreso about the hunt for the Higgs. The probability of these measurements being due to a statistical fluke instead of the measurements of the Higgs is about one in 30 or about 2.2 sigma. This is well below the one chance in 3.5 million or five sigma that will be used to claim the actual discovery of the Higgs. [00:26:30] The energy of the detected events is between 115 billion and 135 billion electron volts, which is in good agreement with the range of 124 billion electron volts to 126 billion electron volts that turns large. Hadron collider established with 3.6 sigma certainty. The large Hadron collider is on winter break, but we'll be fixed up again in April to continue trying to find the Higgs with five sigma certainty. Speaker 8: The Cal Energy Corp is offering internships [00:27:00] around the world from Brazil to Germany to Ghana, to China, as well as in the bay area. During the summer of 2012 internships will offer UC Berkeley undergraduates the opportunity to pursue challenging hands on projects and energy and climate research. According to the office of the vice chancellor for research among the projects, cal energy core interns will be involved in our efforts to create green coal as industrial fuel, helping to produce biofuels, working on improving photovoltaics for integration into the [00:27:30] electricity grid, building models to better understand climate change and designing and testing. Cookstoves. The internship program provides a $600 weekly stipend for all interns as well as funding to cover transportation and housing. All placements are full time, more information and application forms are available at the cow energy core website. Speaker 9: Yeah, Speaker 6: explaining science to an 11 year old. The flame challenge sponsored by the Center for communicating science is an attempt to reach the very core of [00:28:00] science communication. The contest asks scientists and generally clever people to submit their own explanations of what a flame is, explanations that would captivate an 11 year old. The flame challenge contest is open for entries between March 2nd and April 2nd with the winners to be announced in June. Entries can be in writing, video or graphics and they can be playful or serious as long as they are accurate and connect with the young judges. For more information and entry [00:28:30] forms, visit the challenge website. Flame challenge.org Speaker 7: [inaudible] music curse during the show goes by on Donna David [inaudible] on for his album title folk and acoustic [00:29:00] just made available by creative Commons license 3.0 contribution. [inaudible]. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show [inaudible] [00:29:30] to our email address is [inaudible] means in two weeks. It's Speaker 6: the same Speaker 5: [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

To misquote the poet Emily Dickinson, something there is that loves a line. When I was growing up in the 80s in Dorchester, near Ashmont station on the red line, I remember the fights in the press about extending the red line all the way to Alewife from Harvard Station, where it ended at the time. Some residents of Arlington, it seemed, wanted the red line kept out so that some other, less visible lines would kept firmly IN. They expressed concern that poor blacks from Dot were going to get on the T at Shawmut or Field's Corner, and ride in air-conditioned comfort all the way to Alewife, for the express purpose of burgling their homes. Presumably, then, the would-be burglars would take a cab back to Dot with all their booty.