When the Chinese developer of DeepSeek released its model R1, a rift opened up in Silicon Valley. The company, a relatively unknown player, appeared to have created a better and cheaper model than its American competitors. Some big voices in the tech world called it a “Sputnik moment.” Others worried that the open-source model would allow malicious actors to harness the power of this AI technology. But did the arrival of DeepSeek significantly change how artificial intelligence will unfold? We explore that question and ask whether one particular sci-fi franchise got it right when portraying our anxiety about runaway AI.  

Guests:

Alex Kantrowitz – Tech journalist and founder of the podcast and newsletter Big Technology

Kristian Hammond – Professor of computer science at Northwestern University and Director of the Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence

Dorian Lynskey – podcaster and author of “Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World”

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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Everyone knows that a big rock wiped out the dinosaurs. But the danger from an asteroid hitting Earth is not limited to ancient history. To deal with this threat, scientists recently ran an experiment to deflect a potential “city killer.” We’ll hear the results of that experiment, and about a visit to another asteroid. In the dusty material NASA brought back from the asteroid Bennu, scientists found the chemical building blocks of life, including many of the amino acids that are found in our cells. Could an asteroid have brought the ingredients for life to ancient Earth? In this episode, we look at our paradoxical relationship with the space rocks that taketh way – and may help giveth - life.

Guests:

Scott Sandford - Astrophysicist and Research Scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center

Robin George Andrews - Science journalist, volcanologist, and author of "How to Kill an Asteroid: The Real Science of Planetary Defense"

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are not restricted to vision: Elephants can hear subsonic sounds, birds navigate by magnetism, and your dog lives in a world marked by odors. In this episode, we speak to science journalist Ed Yong about how other creatures sense the world. Could we ever understand what it’s like to have the hearing of a bat or the sight of a hawk? 

Guest:

Ed Yong – Science writer for The Atlantic whose coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned him a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism. He is the author of, “An Immense World: How

Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.” 

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired September 5, 2022

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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We have an update to our recent episode, Skeptic Check: Drone Panic. If you remember, our guest astronomer Andrew Franknoi recalled the story of Jimmy Carter having seen something mysterious in the sky when he was governor of Georgia in 1969. Astronomers at the time suggested it was likely Venus, as has been the case with other sightings, and for decades that was a widely accepted understanding of what he saw. But there is more to the story, as was brought to our attention by multiple BPS listeners. So, we invited Andrew back to discuss the revised account, and its more satisfying scientific resolution.

Guest:

Andrew Fraknoi - Professor of Astronomy at the Fromm Institute of the University of San

Francisco

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When several mysterious objects were spotted flying over New Jersey, their unknown identity led to frightening rumors, and triggered frustration and alarm among some residents of the Garden State. What were these objects, and if they were drones, as some appeared to be, were they friendly or foe? Many of the objects have now been identified. We talk about what happened when calmer heads prevailed and consider what the Great Drone Panic might have

in common with other episodes involving objects cruising the skies. Also, why one expert thinks the event gave birth to a new UFO subculture. 

Guests:

Andrew Fraknoi - Professor of Astronomy at the Fromm Institute of the University of San Francisco

Mick West - Investigator of conspiracy theories and UFO sightings

Greg Eghigian - Professor of history and bioethics at Penn State and author of “After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon”

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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While humans were leaving the Stone Age and entering the Bronze, some Bristlecone pine trees grew from seeds to sprouts. They’ve been growing ever since. These 5,000-year-old pines are among the oldest organisms on Earth. Superlatives are also appropriate for the towering redwoods. Trees are amazing in many ways. They provide us with timber and cool us with shade, they sequester carbon and release oxygen, and are home to countless species. But they are also marvels of evolutionary adaptation. We consider the beauty and diversity of trees, and learn why their future is intertwined with ours.

Guests:

Kevin Dixon - Naturalist at The East Bay Regional Park District, Oakland, California

Daniel Lewis - Environmental historian and senior curator for the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library, art museum and botanical gardens in Pasadena, California, professor of the natural sciences and the environment at Caltech, and author of “Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of our Future”

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn’t retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin’s voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems.

Guests:

Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean’s Microbiome.”

Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition.

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired December 18, 2023

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. 

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for your support!

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Owls are both the most

accessible and elusive of birds. Every child can recognize one, but you’ll be

lucky to spot an owl in a tree, even if you’re looking straight at

it. Besides their camouflage and silent flight, these mostly nocturnal

birds, with their amazing vision and hearing, are most at home in the dead of

night, a time humans find alien and scary. Ecologist Carl Safina got to

know an injured baby screech owl well. Their relationship saved the owl’s life

and gave Safina insider’s wisdom about these aerial hunters of the night.

Guests:

Carl Safina – ecologist at

Stony Brook University, head of the non-profit Safina Center, and author of “Alfie

& Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe”

Tom Damiami – natural resources

interpreter, singer on Long Island, NY and leader of the Shelter Island Owl Prowl

Gordy Slack – science writer, former senior editor

of California Wild, the science and natural history magazine published by the

California Academy of Sciences

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired November

6, 2023

Big Picture Science is

part of the Airwave Media podcast

network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about

advertising on Big Picture Science.

You

can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us

on Patreon. Thanks for your

support!

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Our information age is increasingly the disinformation age. The spread of lies and conspiracy theories has created competing experiences of reality. Facts are often useless for changing minds or even making compelling arguments. In this episode, author Naomi Klein and science philosopher Lee McIntyre discuss why the goal – not simply the byproduct - of spreading disinformation is to polarize society. They also offer ideas about how we might find our way back to a shared objective truth.  

Guests:

Naomi Klein - Associate professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia and a co-director at the Center for Climate Justice. Author of Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World

Lee McIntyre - Philosopher of science and a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and the History of Science at Boston University, and author of Post-Truth and On Disinformation.

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired December 11, 2023

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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“To live is to count and to count is to calculate.” But before we plugged in the computer to express this ethos, we pulled out the pocket calculator. It became a monarch of mathematics that sparked a computing revolution. But it’s not the only deceptively modest innovation that changed how we work and live. Find out how sewing a scrap of fabric into clothing helped define private life and how adding lines to paper helped build an Empire. Plus, does every invention entail irrevocable cultural loss?

Guests:

Keith Houston – author of “Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator.”

Hannah Carlson – teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, author of “Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.”

Dominic Riley – bookbinder in the U.K.

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

*Originally aired October 30, 2023

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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The SETI Institute’s search for alien biosignatures and technosignatures depends on radio telescopes. You may have seen the stunning photos of massive telescope arrays in the desert, but what types of alien signals might help researchers actually detect with those giant dishes?

In this fourth episode, Brian Edwards talks with physicist Chenoa Tremblay, a COSMIC Project Scientist who is based at the Very Large Array in New Mexico. They dig into the important role radio telescopes play in SETI, how powerful computers have supercharged the search for life off Earth, and imagine what kinds of biosignatures and technosignatures of alien life we are most likely to find.

Music by Jun Miyake

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