Lab Out Loud®

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Nicholas Wade

This week we talk with Nicholas Wade, author and science writer for the New York Times.  Nicholas talks with us about his new book (The Faith Instinct), recent science breakthroughs and what to expect in the coming year.

Links:

• Articles by Nicholas Wade from the NY Times
• nicholas-wade.com
  
• Wikipedia Entry on Nicholas Wade
• The Faith Instinct (on Amazon.com)
• Before the Dawn (on Amazon.com)
• An Interview with Nicholas Wade from PLoS Genetics
• An Interview with Nicholas Wade from the Scientist
• Listen to our Interview with Nicholas Wade about his book “Before the Dawn” (from our previous podcast: Periodicity)
• See Nicholas Wade on The Colbert Report

Direct download: LOL41.mp3

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Sean Carroll (physicist) and Sean B. Carroll (biologist) talk to us about their respective science fields, science education and being Sean Carroll.  (NOTE: Scientists displayed below in alphabetical order)

Links:

• “Sean” data from Wolfram Alpha
• “Sean Carroll” Google Search
• Sean Carroll on Google News

Sean B Carroll

Sean B. Carroll (biologist)

• seanbcarroll.com
• Sean B. Carroll’s Lab
• About Sean B. Carroll
• HHMI Investigator Bio
• Remarkable Creatures – NY Times Column
• The Science of Evolution (video from the New York Times)
• What Darwin Never Knew (PBS)
• “Year of Darwin” You Tube Video
• Lecture Video from Q2C Festival
• Sean B Carroll at Scientific Commons
• Sean B Carroll Author Page at Amazon.com
• Lab Out Loud, Episode 2: Sean B. Carroll
• Lab Out Loud, Episode 26: Stories of Evolution
• Sean B. Carroll on Resurrecting the Extinct
  (60 Minutes – 01/10/10)

Sean M Carroll

Sean M Carroll (physicist)

• Preposterous Universe
• About Sean Carroll
• Sean M Carroll at Caltech
• Sean M Carroll (Wikipedia Entry)
• Blog / Cosmic Variance (Discover Magazine)
• Upcoming Book: From Eternity to Here
• Textbook: Spacetime and Geometry
• Lecture Video from Q2C Festival
• Lecture Notes on General Relativity
• Cosmology Primer
• Video Lecture on DVD: Dark Matter, Dark Energy
• Sean M Carroll at Scientific Commons
• Sean M Carroll Author Page at Amazon.com

Direct download: LOL40.mp3

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Barry Cartwright

Our guest this week is Barry Cartwright – the Science Content Specialist for the Colorado Department of Education.  In November, Colorado recently released their Final Draft of the Colorado Academic Standards in Science.  Barry discusses some of the highlights of the new Colorado science standards and the future of standards in science education.

Links:

• Colorado Academic Standards in Science – Final Draft, November 2009 (pdf)
• Colorado Science (Barry’s Blog)
• CDE Academic Support Collaboration Site: Barry Cartwright
• NSTA’s Science Anchors
• AAAS – Project 2061

Books Recommended By Barry:

• National Science Education Standards
• Ready, Set, Science (for K-8 science)
• Americas lab report (for high school science)
• How Students Learn: Science in the Classroom
• The World is Flat
• The Global Achievement Gap

Direct download: LOL39.mp3

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Jack Hidary

Our guest this week is Jack Hidary, chairman of National Lab Day.  Designed to encourage partnerships between scientists, engineers, teachers and students, National Lab Day emerged from a partnership between NSTA, the American Chemical Society (ACS), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Jack D. Hidary Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.  Jack talks to us about the program and website, and what educators and other scientists can do to get involved.

Links:

• nationallabday.org
• YouTube: Obama Kicks Off “Educate to Innovate”
• NSTA Express: Obama Announces National Lab Day
• National Lab Day Fact Day from NSTA
• STEM Letter to Obama about the Importance of STEM Education
• Obama Addresses National Academy of Sciences, April 2009
• NY Times: White House Pushes Science and Math Education
• NPR: AT&T Pledges Support to National Lab Day
• MAKE Magazine and NLD
• Hidary Foundation

Direct download: LOL38.mp3

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Dr. Theo Gray

Our guest this week has some serious accolades that would make any geek proud: he has won an Ig Nobel prize (2002), been referenced in a Foxtrot comic, and owns the domain name periodictable.com.  Dr. Theo Gray talks to us this week about his tables, science experiments and safety, Wolfram Alpha, and even answers some student questions.

Links:

• TheodoreGray.com
• PeriodicTable.com
• Wooden Periodic Table
• Gray Matter (Popular Science Column)
• Wolfram Alpha – Computational Knowledge Engine
• Wolfram Research
• 2002 Ig Nobel Winner
• Interview on NPR

Books:

• The Elements (get it from Amazon.com)
• Mad Science (get it from Amazon.com)

Making Salt the Hard Way




Bacon: The Other White Heat




Direct download: LOL37.mp3

Using video clips in the classroom is nothing new – a couple companies have even made a business model for this educational niche.  But Hollywood movies can also have educational value, especially when trying to find errors and discrepancies within them.  To assess some basic properties in matter in my chemistry class, I have been utilizing movie clips for help.

How Dense is Indiana?

When teaching density, I use a clip from Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark [You Tube Clip] whereby Indiana tries to swap a gold idol with an equivalent VOLUME of sand.  Obviously, Indiana gets the mass wrong, as sand and gold have quite different densities.  A similar exercise can be found at Glencoe Science, but I originally got this idea from Chem Matters.

I’m Melting?

Moving on to chemical versus physical change, I get a little help from the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz [You Tube Clip].  In the movie, the witch clearly claims that she is melting.  Using clear evidence in the film, I ask the students to defend if she is really melting, or if she is chemically reacting, sublimating or vaporizing.

Others

Of course, movie clips can be used in many other areas of science (see below).  How do you use movie clips in class?

• Nuking the Fridge
• Blick on Flicks: NSTA
• Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics
• Cringe Worthy Movie Science Mistakes
• Hollywood Blockbusters: Unlimited Fun but Limited Science Literacy
• Science of the Movies

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Dr. Bonnie Bassler

With the upcoming 2009 HHMI Holiday Lecture on Science in December (Exploring Biodiversity), we decided to talk with one of the presenters – Dr. Bonnie Bassler.  The focus of Dr. Bassler’s research is on how bacteria communicate with each other in a process called quorum sensing.  This research has earned her a MacArthur fellowship in 2002, and her work is being carefully watched for the development of new antimicrobial drugs.  Dr. Bassler inspires us with her curiosity, her research, and science education.

Links:

• Profile from the Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University
• The Bassler Lab at Princeton
• Wikipedia Entry
• HHMI Investigator Bio
• 2009 HHMI Holiday Lectures on Science: Exploring Biodiversity
• Request Past HHMI Holiday Lectures on DVD
• TED Talks Video, Profile
• NOVA Science Now Profile & Video
• NPR All Things Considered: A Biologist’s Listening Guide to Bacteria
• Review: “The languages of bacteria” (Genes & Development)
• iBioSeminars: Cell-to-Cell Communication in Bacteria
• Wikipedia entry for Lewis Thomas
• Appleton College Avenue Bridge Opens

Direct download: LOL36.mp3

We’ve talked about laboratory safety in the past here at Lab Out loud, but we’ve never put our thoughts to song.

Fortunately, the folks at The Sounds of Science hit the right notes for us.

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The Quantum Frontier

With the Large Hadron Collider scheduled to come back online in November, we were able to talk with writer and physicist Don Lincoln again (see Episode 8).  Dr. Lincoln talks about the LHC and his new book: The Quantum Frontier.

Links:

• The Quantum Frontier
• The Large Hadron Collider – CERN
• Lab Out Loud Episode 8: The Future of Particle Physics
• Fermilab (Illinois) education office
• Fermilab Today (Don writes every other article)
• Argonne National Laboratories (Illinois)
• Become a Fan of Don on Facebook

Education Links

• CERN Education
• Quarknet
• I2U2
• Fermilab Education Office
• Physics Master classes
• LIGO Louisiana
• Soudan Minnesota
• DUSEL South Dakota
• Brookhaven New York
• TJNAF Virginia
• CROP Nebraska
• NALTA North America

Experiments:

• CMS
• ATLAS
• LHCb
• ALICE
• CDF
• Dzero

Don’s Books:

The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider.  The book “describes in layman terms the exciting new research program about to start at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.”  Find it at Amazon.com.

Understanding the Universe: From Quarks to the Cosmos.  “The target audience for this book is a lay audience of science enthusiasts. I had high school teachers in mind as I wrote it.” Find it at Amazon.com.

Update:

Don will be speaking…

• Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles on November 6 & 7
• Adler Planetarium on November 19th in their new “Adler After Dark” series

Direct download: LOL35.mp3

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Dalton

Our guest this week is Dr. Jay Neitz from the department of Ophthalmology at the University of Washington, Seattle.  Dr. Neitz and his research team successfully used gene therapy to replace a faulty gene responsible for red-green colorblindness in adult male squirrel monkeys.  We talk with Dr. Neitz about his experiment, its implications for gene therapy in humans and the process of science that led him to this breakthrough.

Links

• Neitz Color Vision Website
• Neitz Vision: Gene Therapy to Cure Color Blindness
• WIRED: Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blind Monkeys
• Scientific American: Gene Therapy Cures Colorblindness for Adult Monkeys
• NPR: Thanks to Gene Therapy, Monkeys See in Full Color
• Science: Gene Therapy Gives Monkeys Color Vision
• Discover: Gene Therapy Cures Color Blindness in Monkeys
• National Geographic: Color Blindess Cured by Gene Injection in Monkeys

Direct download: LOL34.mp3