Big Picture Science
Episodes
Brain Dust
09 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE Know your brain? Think again. Driven by a hidden agenda, powered by an indecipherable web of neurons, and influenced by other brains, your g...
Skeptic Check: Your Inner Lab Coat
26 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE Sherlock Holmes doesn’t have a science degree, yet he thinks rationally – like a scientist. You can too! Learn the secrets of being irrita...
Quantum: Why We Want 'Em
19 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE Einstein thought that quantum mechanics might be the end of physics, and most scientists felt sure it would never be useful. Today, everythin...
Skeptic Check: New UFO Evidence
29 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It was a shocker of a story, splashed across the New York Times front page: The existence of a five-year long, hidden Pentagon investigation of UFOs...
DIY Spaceflight
22 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE For a half-century, space has been the playground of large, government agencies. While everyone could dream of becoming an astronaut, few cou...
Geology is Destiny
15 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE The record of the rocks is not just the history of Earth; it’s your history too. Geologists can learn about events going back billions of y...
Are Animals Really That Smart?
08 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE You own a cat, or is it vice versa? Family friendly felines have trained their owners to do their bidding. Thanks to a successful evolutiona...
Weather Vain
01 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Not that they haven’t tried. History is replete with attempts to contro...
DIY Diagnosis
25 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE Got aches and pains? Critters in the Cretaceous would have been sympathetic. A new study reveals that painful arthritis plagued a duck-bille...
With All Our Mites
11 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE You are not alone. You can’t see ‘em, but your face is a festival of face mites. They’ve evolved with us for millennia. And a new s...
Time Travel Agents
27 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Hey, let’s meet last week for coffee. Okay, we can’t meet in the past … yet. But could it be only a matter of time before we can? In an attem...
Skeptic Check: Nibiru! (Again!)
13 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Will your calendar entry for November 19th be your last? Some people say yes, predicting a catastrophic collision between Earth and planet Nibiru on ...
Venom Diagram
30 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We all get defensive sometimes. For some animals, evolution has provided a highly effective mechanism for saying “back off!”. A puncture by a pa...
Sex Post Facto
23 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Birds do it, bees do it, but humans may not do it for much longer. At least not for having children. Relying on sex to reproduce could be supplanted...
On Defense
09 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The military is a dangerous calling. But technology can help out, so researchers are constantly trying to make soldiers safer. Writer Mary Roach inv...
Skeptic Check: Aliens - The Evidence
25 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Once again the aliens have landed … in theaters. It’s no spoiler to say that the latest cinematic sci-fi, Arrival, involves extraterrestrials vi...
Born Legacy
04 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We know how the stars shine, but how do you make a star? We take an all-night ride on a high-flying jet – an airborne observatory called SOFIA –...
Elements Never Forget
28 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It’s elementary, Watson. Things are in flux – from the elements in the air you breathe to party balloons. We investigate the massive, historic...
Musical Universe
21 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In space, no one can hear you scream, but, using the right instruments, scientists can pick up all types of cosmic vibrations – the sort we can turn...
Skeptic Check: Busting Myths with Adam Savage
07 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Can an opera singer’s voice really shatter glass? Can you give your car a rocket-assisted boost and survive the test drive? How do you protect you...
Caught in a Traps
31 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
"Locked and loaded” is how one scientist recently described the San Andreas fault. Find out when this famous west-coast rift might cause “the big...
Eclipsing All Other Shows
17 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
They say that the experience of watching a total eclipse is so profound, you’re not the same afterward. If life-changing events are your thing and ...
Skeptic Check: How Low Can You Go?
26 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Baby, it’s cold outside… but you still might want to be there. Some people claim that chilly temperatures are good for your health, and proponent...
Science Fiction
12 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
No one knows what the future will bring, but science fiction authors are willing to take a stab at imagining it. We take our own stab at imagining th...
Gene-y in a Bottle
05 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You can’t pick your parents. But soon you may be able to change the DNA they gave you. CRISPR technology is poised to take DNA editing to new leve...
The Crater Good
29 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It was “one giant leap for mankind,” but the next step forward may require going back. Yes, back to the moon. Only this time the hardware may co...
100% Invisible
15 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In astronomy, the rule of thumb was simple: If you can’t see it with a telescope, it’s not real. Seeing is believing. Well, tell that to the ast...
Eve of Disruption
01 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Only two of the following three creations have had lasting scientific or cultural impact: The telescope … the Sistine Chapel ceiling … the electr...
Spacecraft Elegy
24 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Exploration: It’s exciting, it’s novel, and you can’t always count on a round-trip ticket. You can boldly go, but you might not come back. Tha...
Skeptic Check: Glutenous Maximus
17 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Eat dark chocolate. Don’t drink coffee. Go gluten-free. If you ask people for diet advice, you’ll get a dozen different stories. Ideas about w...
Winging It
03 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ask anyone what extraordinary powers they’d love to have, and you’re sure to hear “be able to fly.” We’ve kind of scratched that itch with ...
Cosmic Conundra
06 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Admit it – the universe is cool, but weird. Just when you think you’ve tallied up all the peculiar phenomena that the cosmos has to offer – it ...
Skeptic Check: Not So Sweet
27 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Obesity, diabetes, heart disease … maybe even Alzheimer’s. Could these modern scourges have a common denominator? Some people believe they do: s...
Thinking About Thinking
20 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE Congratulations, you have a big brain. Evolution was good to Homo sapiens. But make some room on the dais. Research shows that other animal...
Going All to Species
13 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
ENCORE Meet your new relatives. The fossilized bones of Homo naledi are unique for their sheer number, but they may also be fill a special slot in ...
Skeptic Check: Amelia Earhart
23 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
She’s among the most famous missing persons in history. On the eightieth anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, mystery still shrouds her...
No Face to Hide
09 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Face it – your mug is not entirely yours. It’s routinely uploaded to social media pages and captured on CCTV cameras with – and without – you...
The Light Stuff
02 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The light bulb needs changing. Edison’s incandescent bulb, virtually unaltered for more than a century, is now being eclipsed by the LED. The crea...
The Fix is In
26 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The moon jellyfish has remarkable approach to self-repair. If it loses a limb, it rearranges its remaining body parts to once again become radially s...
Skeptic Check: Fear Itself
19 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Shhh. Is someone coming? Okay, we’ll make this quick. There are a lot of scary things going on in the world. Naturally you’re fearful. But som...
What Lies Beneath
28 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What you can’t see may astound you. The largest unexplored region of Earth is the ocean. Beneath its churning surface, oceanographers have recentl...
And To Space We Return
07 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Earth may be the cradle of life, but our bodies are filled with materials cooked up billions of years ago in the scorching centers of stars. As Carl S...
Hidden History
31 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Archaeologists continue to hunt for the city of Atlantis, even though it may never have existed. But, what if it did? Its discovery would change ancie...
Moral's Law
24 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
"If it bleeds, it leads” is the tried and true tenet of news. Indeed, headlines are often no more than a long list of moral atrocities. Yet one ma...
Skeptic Check: Science and the Election
10 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This year’s election is divisive, but one subject enjoys some consensus: science and technology policies are important. So why aren’t the candida...
Skeptic Check: Skeptic Seth
26 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Are you skeptical? Sure, you raise an eyebrow when some Nigerian prince asks for your bank numbers, or when a breakfast cereal claims that it will tu...
The Evolution of Evolution
12 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Darwinian evolution is adaptive and slow … millennia can go by before a species changes very much. But with the tools of genetic engineering we can ...
Asteroids!
05 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone knows that a big rock did in the dinosaurs, but smaller asteroids are millions of times more common and can also make a violent impact. Ye...
They Know Who You Are
22 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
You’re a private person. But as long as you’re on-line and have skin and hair, you’re shedding little bits of data and DNA everywhere you go. Fi...
Are We Over the Moon?
15 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When astronaut Gene Cernan stepped off the moon in 1972, he didn’t think he’d be the last human ever to touch its surface. But no one’s been ba...
Skeptic Check: After the Hereafter
08 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There are few enduring truths, but one is that no one gets out of life alive. What’s less certain is what comes next. Does everything stop with deat...
Raising the Minimum Age
18 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
We all try to fight it: the inexorable march of time. The fountain of youth doesn’t exist, and all those wrinkle creams can’t help. But modern sci...
Microbes: Resistance is Futile
11 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
You are what you eat. Whether you dine on kimchi, carnitas, or corn dogs determines which microbes live in your stomach. And gut microbes make up only...
Science Fiction True
04 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t believe everything you see on TV or the movies. Science fiction is just a guide to how our future might unfold. It can be misleading, as anyon...
Skeptic Check: The Me in Measles
27 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Wondering whether to vaccinate your children? The decision can feel like a shot in the dark if you don’t know how to evaluate risk. Find out why all...
Surviving the Anthropocene
13 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The world is hot, and getting hotter. But higher temperatures aren’t the only impact our species is having on mother Earth. Urbanization, deforestat...
How to Talk to Aliens
06 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
"Dear E.T. …” So far, so good. But now what? Writing is never easy, but what if your task was to craft a message to aliens living elsewhere in the...
Shocking Ideas
09 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Electricity is so 19th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not...
Living Computers
02 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the most dramatic technical development of recent times: Teams of people working for decades to produce a slow-motion revolution we call comput...
Moving Right Along
18 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
You think your life is fast-paced, but have you ever seen a bacterium swim across your countertop? You’d be surprised how fast they can move. Find o...
Surfeit of the Vitalest
11 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the century and a half since Charles Darwin wrote his seminal On the Origin of the Species, our understanding of evolution has changed quite a bit....
Tale of the Distribution
04 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
We all have at least some musical talent. But very few of us can play the piano like Vladimir Horowitz. His talent was rarefied, and at the tail end o...
Who's Controlling Whom?
14 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A single ant isn’t very brainy. But a group of ants can do remarkable things. Biological swarm behavior is one model for the next generation of tiny...
Land on the Run
07 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Hang on to your globe. One day it’ll be a collector’s item. The arrangement of continents you see today is not what it once was, nor what it will ...
Replace What Ails You
25 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Germs can make us sick, but we didn’t know about these puny pathogens prior to the end of the 19th century. Just the suggestion that a tiny bug coul...
Apt to Adapt
11 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
If you move with the times, you might stick around long enough to pass on your genes. And that is adaptation and evolution, in a nutshell. But humans ...
A Stellar Job
04 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The stars are out tonight. And they do more than just twinkle. These boiling balls of hot plasma can tell us something about other celestial phenomena...
You Think; You're So Smart
28 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Sure you have a big brain; it’s the hallmark of Homo sapiens. But that doesn’t mean that you’ve cornered the market on intelligence. Admittedly,...
Look Who's Not Talking
14 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We may be connected, but some say we’re not communicating. The consequences could be dire. A U.S. Army major says that social media are breaking u...
Happily Confused
30 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Do you feel happy today? How about happily disgusted? Maybe sadly surprised, or sadly disgusted? Human emotions are complex. But at least they’re th...
Climate Conversation
23 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The Paris climate talks are scheduled to go ahead despite the terrorist attacks, and attendees hope to sign an international agreement on climate chan...
Skeptic Check: Paleo Diet
16 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What’s for dinner? Meat, acorns, tubers, and fruit. Followers of the Paleo diet say we should eat what our ancestors ate 10,000 years ago, when our ...
Skeptic Check: Check the Skeptics
26 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
One day, coffee is good for you; the next, it’s not. And it seems that everything you eat is linked to cancer, according to research. But scientific...
Smiley Virus
19 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
For many, the word virus is a synonym for disease – diseases of humans, plants, and even computers. Ebola is an example: a virus with a big and terr...
Space for Everyone
12 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Is space the place for you? With a hefty amount of moolah, a trip there and back can be all yours. But when the price comes down, traffic into space m...
Martian Madness
05 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the starkly beautiful setting for the new film “The Martian,” and – just in time – NASA has announced that the Red Planet is more than ...
Skeptic Check: What, We Worry?
28 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We all have worries. But as trained observers, scientists learn things that can affect us all. So what troubles them should also trouble us. From vira...
Stranded
14 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine not knowing where you are – and no one else knowing either. Today, that’s pretty unlikely. Digital devices pinpoint our location within a ...
The Pest of Us
07 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Picture a cockroach skittering across your kitchen. Eeww! Now imagine it served as an entrée at your local restaurant. There’s good reason these di...
Solar System Vacation
10 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ever gone bungee jumping on Venus? Of course not. No one has. However your great-great-great grandchildren might find themselves packing for the cl...
Skeptic Check: Are You Sure You're Sure?
27 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Nuclear fission powers the Sun. Or is it fusion? At any rate, helium is burned in the process, of that you are certain. After all, you read that artic...
Forget to Remember
13 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
You must not remember this. Indeed, it may be key to having a healthy brain. Our gray matter evolved to forget things; otherwise we’d have the image...
Dogged Pursuit of Pluto
06 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Pluto is ready for its close up – but the near encounter during this historic flyby will last less than three minutes. Be ready for the action with ...
What the Hack
29 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A computer virus that bombards you with pop-up ads is one thing. A computer virus that shuts down a city’s electric grid is another. Welcome to the...
Skeptic Check: Evolutionary Arms Race
22 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
It’s hard to imagine the twists and turns of evolution that gave rise to Homo Sapiens. After all, it required geologic time, and the existence of ma...
It's All Relative
15 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A century ago, Albert Einstein rewrote our understanding of physics with his Theory of General Relativity. Our intuitive ideas about space, time, mas...
Math's Days Are Numbered
01 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine a world without algebra. We can hear the sound of school children applauding. What practical use are parametric equations and polynomials, any...
Invisible Worlds
27 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
You can’t see it, but it’s there, whether an atom, a gravity wave, or the bottom of the ocean … but we have technology that allows us to detect ...
Life in Space
20 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Discovering bacteria on Mars would be big news. But nothing would scratch our alien itch like making contact with intelligent life. Hear why one man i...
Skeptic Check: Monster Mashup
13 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Monsters don’t exist. Except when they do. And extinction is forever, except when it isn’t. So, which animals are mythical and which are in hiding...
Power to the People
23 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Let there be light! Well, it’s easy to do: just flip a switch. But it took more than the invention of the light bulb to make that possible. It requi...
Mars-Struck
09 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
You love to travel. But would you if doing so meant never coming home? The private company Mars One says it will land humans on the Red Planet by 2026...
Sesquicentennial Science
16 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Today, scientists are familiar to us, but they weren’t always. Even the word “scientist” is relatively modern, dating from the Victorian Era. An...
Digging Our Past
02 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What’s past is prologue. For centuries, researchers have studied buried evidence – bones, teeth, or artifacts – to learn about murky human histo...
Skeptic Check: Mummy Dearest
26 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Shh …mummy’s the word! We don’t want to provoke the curse of King Tut. Except that there are many curses associated with this fossilized pharaoh...
Big Questions Somewhat Answered
19 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Here are questions that give a cosmologist – and maybe even you – insomnia: What happened after the Big Bang? What is dark matter? Will dark energ...
Meet Your Replacements
05 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
There’s no one like you. At least, not yet. But in some visions of the future, androids can do just about everything, computers will hook directly i...
Skeptic Check: Got a Sweet Truth?
29 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The sweet stuff is getting sour press. Some researchers say sugar is toxic. A new study seems to support that idea: mice fed the human equivalent of a...
Shocking Ideas
15 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Electricity is so 19th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not...
Long Live Longevity
01 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s to a long life – which, on average, is longer today than it was a century ago. How much farther can we extend that ultimate finish line? Sc...