Multiverse Radio
By 89.5 WHRV-FM, Norfolk, VA
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Podcast Description
Multiverse Radio: Curious by nature.
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CleanEPISODE 12: Composting Cell Phones | Trashing cell phones isn’t easy. The materials they’re made of contain chemicals that can trigger major environmental and health problems. British researchers at Warwick University may have a solution: an environmentally friendly casing that easily biodegrades in soil. One version contains a flower seed in a transparent window in the middle of the casing. Eventually, consumers could literally plant their phone in the ground. Weeks later, the case would disintegrate in soil and turn into --- a flower. | 12/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 13: Witches and Climate Change | Harvard graduate student Emily Oster may have found the cause of witchcraft hysteria. Oster’s research shows a correlation between witchcraft trials, climate change and food shortages. The trials began in Europe and moved across the Atlantic to Salem, Massachusetts, during a period known as the Little Ice Age. Crops failed, livestock died, there were fewer fish to catch, and many more people were malnourished. The most disenfranchised citizens --- women --- became the scapecoats. | 12/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 10: Dental Stem Cells | Ever lost a tooth? One day, no one might. People could grow their own replacement teeth, much like permanent teeth grow during childhood. The key is stem cells taken from a patient’s own body, then treated and “reprogrammed” in a laboratory. Tooth-growing cells would be reimplanted under a person’s gumline where a missing or extracted tooth was. The new tooth would develop naturally, just like any other. | 12/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 16: Laughing Matters | Humans aren’t the only creatures who laugh. Dogs and chimps, for example, have demonstrated an inclination toward giggling, exhibiting a kind of delighted panting during play. And according to research done at Bowling Green State University, laboratory rats also have a sense of humor. Laughter seems to be a way for all animals to create and deepen social bonds. And it appears to have a beneficial effect on health, maybe even on learning. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 11: Eye Cams | Thanks to computer software developed at Columbia University, a kind of visual archaeology may soon be possible. Scientists have been able to amplify and sharpen images captured by a part of the eye called the limbus, which records a detailed fish-eye view of anything within its sight. The software should allow researchers to discern what people in photos were looking at when their picture was taken. If so, it could prove invaluable to historians, adding crucial detail to 19th and 20th century photographic records. The software could also lead to better security systems and help the paralyzed coordinate robotic assistance. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 5: Builder Ants | Some scientists think that an ant supercolony runs more than 600 miles under California, from right around San Francisco to the border with Mexico. It seems the California ants aren’t Californian at all, but invaders from Argentina that arrived at different times over the last 100 years. New evidence suggests the supercolony isn’t exactly super, but an aggregation of large groups coexisting side by side. So why don’t they fight and try to take over each other’s turf? | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 6: Lies and Lying Liars | According to a study done at the University of Massachusetts, people lie on a regular basis, telling one or more fibs every day. That’s especially true when you meet someone new and want to be liked and appear good at what you do. Sixty percent of participants in psychology professor Robert Feldman’s experiment lied at least once in a 10-minute conversation, telling on average of two lies. And, apparently, men and women lie in different ways. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 8: Termite Architects | Termites aren’t usually kind to wood. For them it’s food. They can drive homeowners crazy by chowing down on joists, floorboards and structural supports. But maybe termites can teach humans a thing or two about building engineering. Researchers in England have discovered that at least one species of termite is a natural architect. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 4: Metal Rubber | Researchers at Virginia Tech and a company called NanoSonic have created a novel material called metal rubber. Like the name implies, the new substance is elastic but very strong. Metal rubber could find its way into flexible electronics, artificial muscles and artificial nerves, so-called “smart” clothes, even shape-shifting aircraft wings. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 7: Fabulous Fungi | It’s a golden age for the study of mushrooms, which are members of the fungi family. Scientists are finding new species of fungi almost daily. No one is sure how many there are --- maybe 1.5 million, maybe more. Fungi aren’t plants and they aren’t animals. They’re somewhere in between, which makes them unique among Earth’s living creatures. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 9: Spores From Space | Scientists already know that the atoms in our bodies originate from stellar explosions that happened millions, even billions of years ago. But could we also owe our lives to a kind of alien invasion? Scientists at the University of Kent in England have discovered that bacteria could travel through interplanetary space and survive a crash landing on a planet. Meteorites from a planet like, say, Mars could have carried primitive forms of life directly to the Earth’s surface. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 15: Self-Cleaning Glass | Could glass clean itself? Maybe --- if it takes a page from nature. Ohio State University engineers are trying to design super-slick, water-repellent glass using lotus leaves as a design template. The leaves have tiny bumps too small to see with the naked eye, ones that usually allow water and debris to roll right off. Even though the bumps are miniscule, they can sometimes attract debris, so different sizes and shapes of bumps are required for maximum effect. The researchers are using a sophisticated computer model to find out what textures are best. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 14: Messaging Aliens | If you’re the highest bidder, a Florida company will be happy to help you beam a personal message into space. All you have to do is figure out what to say. The message can include five digital pictures, five minutes of video and 75 words of text. Translation into several languages is included. (Just no profanity, obscentity or lewdness, please.) Given the vastness of space, your cosmic hello could eventually be received by a distant civilization. | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 3: Practical Immortality | People have always dreamed about living forever --- staying young, vibrant and healthy. Now medical science may be poised to turn that fantasy into reality. At laboratories all over the world, researchers are trying to slow or reverse aging by resetting the metabolic clocks inside living cells. | 1/24/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 2: Diapers in the Desert | When they were first invented, disposable diapers were thought an environmental scourge. But material inside the diapers could prove an environmental blessing by controlling soil erosion and slowing the advance of deserts worldwide. The key is a substance known as a hydrogel, so hyperabsorbent that it could be applied to improve irrigation and protect scarce water supplies. | 1/23/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEPISODE 1: Vegan Gladiators | Popular thinking holds that the only way to stay strong is to eat meat regularly. But archaeological excavations on the western coast of Turkey have challenged that assumption. Forensic examination of bones in a gladiator graveyard bones reveal these fierce warriors were no carnivores. They bulked up on a simple diet of beans and barley. | 1/17/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 16 Episodes |
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