Losing the Nobel Prize

FromInquiring Minds

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Losing the Nobel Prize

FromInquiring Minds

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Length:

55 minutes

Released:

May 1, 2018

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

We talk to astrophysicist Brian Keating about new his book Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor.

Released:

May 1, 2018

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Each week Inquiring Minds brings you a new, in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide.We’re committed to the idea that making an effort to understand the world around you though science and critical thinking can benefit everyone—and lead to better decisions. We endeavor to find out what’s true, what’s left to discover, and why it all matters with weekly coverage of the latest headlines and probing discussions with leading scientists and thinkers.

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9 Michael Mann - From Computer Geek to Political Giant Slayer: On the show this week we talk to climate researcher Michael Mann about how he, as a self-described math and computer nerd working in an esoteric field known as paleoclimatology, wound up front and center in a nationally watched political campaign. His si by Inquiring Minds
45 min listen
49 Arie Kruglanski - The Science of What Makes a Terrorist: "Its Islam over everything." So read the Twitter bio of Douglas McAuthur McCain—or, as he reportedly called himself, "Duale Khalid"—the San Diego man who is apparently the first American to be killed while fighting for ISIS. According to NBC News, McCain by Inquiring Minds
48 min listen
3 Sylvia Earle - Why the Oceans Are Not Too Big to Fail: This week we talk to scientist and explorer Sylvia Earle, a woman who has spent almost a year of her life under water. She explains why the oceans are "not too big to fail." But she also says that just maybe, we're growing wise enough to save them. Earle by Inquiring Minds
51 min listen
4 Randy Schekman - This 2013 Nobel Laureate Says College Is Way Too Expensive: This week we talk to Randy Schekman, the University of California-Berkeley cell biologist who was just awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on how cells regulate the protein “traffic” that is at the core of their communication with other by Inquiring Minds
48 min listen
44 David Epstein - The Science Behind the World's Greatest Athletes: What makes a great athlete? Talent? Training? Or is mostly genetic? On the show this week we get some answers from sports writer David Epstein while discussing his new book The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance. Epstei by Inquiring Minds
69 min listen
26 Phil Plait - Just After the Big Bang: We all heard the cosmos-stretching news this week. On Monday, a team of researchers working with a special telescope at the South Pole confirmed that they had observed evidence of "inflation," the sudden and rapid expansion of the universe that occurred by Inquiring Minds
51 min listen
13 Ara Norenzayan - Why Do Atheists Exist?: Americans don't like atheists much. It's something we get reminded of every December, as Fox News commentators decry a secularist "war on Christmas." But the distrust spans seasons: Barely half of Americans say they would vote for an atheist for presiden by Inquiring Minds
46 min listen
5 Dan Kahan and Stephan Lewandowsky - How Do You Make People Give a Damn About Climate Change?: As two top researchers studying the science of science communication—a hot new field that combines psychology with public opinion research—Dan Kahan and Stephan Lewandowsky agree about most things. There's just one problem. The little thing that they dis by Inquiring Minds
54 min listen
7 George Johnson - Why Most of What You've Heard About Cancer is Wrong: This week, we speak with veteran science journalist George Johnson, whose new book The Cancer Chronicles: Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery helps turn much traditional thinking about cancer on its head. It's a provocative and also a personal explorati by Inquiring Minds
57 min listen
20 Maria Konnikova - How to Make Your Brain Work Better: You're a busy person. Keeping up with your job, plus your life, is the very definition of multitasking. It doesn't help that when working, you're distracted not only by your mobile devices, but also by your computer. You average 10 tabs open in your brow by Inquiring Minds
55 min listen
8 Alison Gopnik - We All Start Out as Scientists, But Some of Us Forget: This week we feature a conversation with psychologist Alison Gopnik, recorded live at the 2013 Bay Area Science Festival. Gopnik talks about her latest book, The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life by Inquiring Minds
40 min listen
37 Raychelle Burks - Zombie Repellent and Other Awesome Uses for Chemistry: Remember those stick-figures of chemical compounds you were forced to memorize in high school? Remember how useless it seemed at the time? Can you still articulate the difference between a covalent bond and an ionic one (without checking Wikipedia)? If n by Inquiring Minds
60 min listen
2 Alan Weisman - Can We Finally Have a Serious Talk About Population?: This week, Chris Mooney talks to environmental journalist Alan Weisman, who explains why, following on his 2007 New York Times bestseller The World Without Us, he decided to centrally take on the issue of human population. For his just-published book Cou by Inquiring Minds
50 min listen
1 Marsha Ivins - What It's Like To Spend 55 Days in Space: There aren't many people on Earth who have spent more of their life in space than Marsha Ivins. A veteran of five space shuttle missions, Ivins has spent a total of 55 days in orbit, on missions devoted to such diverse tasks as deploying satellites, cond by Inquiring Minds
59 min listen
11 Maryn McKenna - Our Scary Post-Antibiotic Future: It's flu season. And we're all about to crisscross the country to exchange hugs, kisses and germs. We're going to get sick. And when we do, many of us will run to our doctors and, hoping to get better, demand antibiotics. And that's the problem: Antibiot by Inquiring Minds
55 min listen
10 Simon Singh - How the Simpsons Have Secretly Been Teaching You Math: Simon Singh isn't exactly your average fan of Fox's The Simpsons. He has a Ph.D. in particle physics from Cambridge, and made an award-winning documentary about Fermat's Last Theorem. Let's be frank: He's a math geek. But then, so are a surprisingly larg by Inquiring Minds
46 min listen
29 Neil Shubin - Your Inner Fish: We all know the Darwin fish, the clever car-bumper parody of the Christian "ichthys" symbol, or Jesus fish. Unlike the Christian symbol, the Darwin fish has, you know, legs. Har har. But the Darwin fish isn't merely a clever joke; in effect, it contains by Inquiring Minds
43 min listen
17 Michael Pollan - The Science of Eating Well (And Not Falling For Diet Fads): The Paleo diet is hot. Those who follow it are attempting, they say, to mimic our ancient ancestors—minus the animal-skin fashions and the total lack of technology, of course. The adherents eschew what they believe comes from modern agriculture (wheat, d by Inquiring Minds
58 min listen
27 Ethan Perlstein - Scenes from the Postdocalypse: How do you become a scientist? Ask anyone in the profession and you'll probably hear some version of the following: get a Bachelor's of Science degree, work in a lab, get into a PhD program, publish some papers, get a good post-doctoral position, publish by Inquiring Minds
54 min listen
30 Jared Diamond - The Third Chimpanzee: Jared Diamond, author of a suite of massive, bestselling books about the precarious state of our civilization (including the Pulitzer-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel), calls himself "cautiously optimistic" about the future of humanity. What does that mean by Inquiring Minds
52 min listen
16 Deborah Blum - The Science of Poisoning: As a writer, Deborah Blum says she has a "love of evil chemistry." It seems that audiences do too: Her latest book, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, was not only a bestseller, but was just turned in by Inquiring Minds
44 min listen
6 Jonathan Haidt - This is Why Your Political Opponents Hate You: Why is America so polarized? Why are our politicians so dysfunctional? Why do they sometimes even seem to downright hate each other? In this episode of Inquiring Minds, moral psychologist and bestselling The Righteous Mind author Jonathan Haidt explains by Inquiring Minds
40 min listen
12 Joshua Greene – The New Science of Morality: It's an old distinction: Science tells us what the world is like, but it can never tell us how we ought to behave in such a world. That's the realm of morality, and here we consult ethicists or perhaps priests—but something other than just data. It's pre by Inquiring Minds
49 min listen
15 Mark Ruffalo - Our 100 Percent Clean Energy Future: For Mark Ruffalo, environmental activism started out with something to oppose, to be against: Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. It all began when the actor, perhaps best known for his role as Bruce Banner (The Hulk) in Marvel's The Avengers, was raising by Inquiring Minds
56 min listen
$15 Mark Ruffalo - Our 100 Percent Clean Energy Future: For Mark Ruffalo, environmental activism started out with something to oppose, to be against: Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. It all began when the actor, perhaps best known for his role as Bruce Banner (The Hulk) in Marvel's The Avengers, was raising$
19 Kari Byron - How to Safely Blow Stuff Up When You're Pregnant: Most expecting women ask their doctors whether it's okay to eat blue cheese, or have the odd glass of wine, while they're pregnant. Or maybe whether to stay away from fish, because of the mercury. When she was pregnant with her daughter several years ago by Inquiring Minds
43 min listen
18 Eugenie Scott & Ann Reid - The Assault on Science Education: In recent decades, there have been countless infringements, and attempted infringements, upon accurate science education across the country. The "war on science" in national politics has nothing on the war playing out every day in public schools, even if by Inquiring Minds
49 min listen
14 Carolyn Porco - Why Seeing Earth From Space Matters: On Valentine's Day 1990, from more than four billion miles away, the Voyager 1 spacecraft snapped our photo. From that distance, there wasn't much to see; the resulting shot simply showed several light beams with a tiny speck in one of them. Earth. But t by Inquiring Minds
53 min listen
36 Harry Collins - Why Googling Doesn't Make You a Scientific Expert: Remember "Climategate"? It was the 2009 non-scandal scandal in which a trove of climate scientists' emails, pilfered from the University of East Anglia in the UK, were used to call all of modern climate research into question. Why? Largely because a curs by Inquiring Minds
55 min listen
22 Jennifer Francis and Kevin Trenberth - Is Global Warming Driving Crazy Winters?: Just when weather weary Americans thought they'd found a reprieve, the latest forecasts suggest that the polar vortex will, again, descent into the heart of the country next week, bringing with it staggering cold. If so, it will be just the latest weathe by Inquiring Minds
54 min listen
34 John Oliver - This World Will Be a Ball of Fire Before It Stops Being Funny: In late April, former Daily Show correspondent John Oliver kicked off his HBO news-satire program, Last Week Tonight. Oliver, who spent nearly eight years at The Daily Show and has a solid background in political satire, is off to a good start. His weekl by Inquiring Minds
46 min listen

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Losing the Nobel Prize

Losing the Nobel Prize

Description

Titles in the series (100)

More Episodes from Inquiring Minds