Lab Out Loud®

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Randy Olson (Credit: Sandy Huffaker for the New York Times

For our 100th podcast interview (including 52 interviews with Periodicity), we talk with former marine biologist turned filmmaker and author Randy Olson.  Since we last talked with Randy about Flock of Dodos, he has since put out another movie (Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy) and a book (Don’t Be Such a Scientist: ).  We talk with Randy about his new book and the importance of how scientists communicate.

We’d like to thank NSTA for their continued support of Lab Out Loud.  If you haven’t already done so, make sure to join or renew your membership.  If you have any comments from our third season, or have any suggestions for next year, please contact us.

Links:

• Don’t Be Such a Scientist
• Randy Olson – Wikipedia Entry
• Don’t Be Such a Scientist
• Don’t Be Such a Scientist (amazon.com)
• Don’t Be Such a Scientist (Facebook group)
• Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy
• Flock of Dodos
• Muffymoose.com
• Eager to Tell Stories of Science, a Biologist Evolves (NY Times)
• Invisibly Emptied Oceans (Dot Earth, NY Times)
• Their Own Worst Enemies
• Science-Based Medicine (book review)
• Randy Olson’s Forthcoming Book: Don’t Be Such a Scientist (book review)
• WSST’s Periodicity
• Periodicity Episode 46: Flock of Dodos

Barnacle Sex Music Video (Barnacles Tell No Lies)

Direct download: LOL48.mp3

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Daniel Loxton

Our guest this week is Daniel Loxton, editor of Junior Skeptic and author/illustrator.  Daniel joins us to talk about Junior Skeptic, shepherding and his new book: Evolution: How we and all Things Came to Be.

Links:

• Wikipedia Entry on Daniel Loxton
• Evolution: How we and all Things Came to Be (Amazon.com)
• Junior Skeptic Explains Evolution (Wired)
• Junior Skeptic
• Follow Daniel on Twitter

Praise From GeekDad (Wired):

Evolution

Daniel Loxton’s Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be (Kids Can Press, 2010) is the best overview of evolution for children of which I’m aware.  There have been other recent kids’ books on Darwin, motivated by last year’s 150th anniversary of Origin of the Species.  Instead of focusing on Darwin, Loxton sticks with explaining the mechanics of natural selection, both what it can accomplish and explain and what it can’t.  Beautifully illustrated and elegantly written, any child interested in the story of life will be fascinated by it. There’s no need to take my word for it: This review is a couple of weeks later than I’d hoped, because my 6-yr-old kept stealing it and carrying it around the house to study.






Direct download: LOL47.mp3

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Paleontologist Scott

You may know this week’s guest as Paleontologist Scott from the PBS hit show “Dinosaur Train”. In episode 46, Paleontologist Scott talks about the show, being a paleontologist, and his new book Dinosaur Odyssey.

Links:

• Scott Sampson’s Website
• Purchase Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life
• Dinosaur Train (PBS)
• Dinsosaur Train Videos
• Dinosaur Train (Wikipedia Entry)
• Dinosaur Fossil Reveals True Feather Colors (wired.com)
• Listen to Colouring in Dinosaurs (Quirks and Quarks)
• Masiakausaurus
• Dinosaur Planet (IMDB)

Dinosaur Train Characters "Buddy" and "Tiny"

Direct download: LOL46.mp3

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Cory Doctorow (photo by Joi Ito, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0)

We first met Cory Doctorow in 2008 when he was giving a book tour for “Little Brother” in Milwaukee, WI.  Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger, and the co-editor of Boing Boing. We talk with Doctorow about science and science fiction, privacy, and his new book “Makers”.

Links:

• Doctorow’s craphound.com
• Doctorow’s Novels (at Amazon.com)
• News about Makers
• Download Little Brother
• Wikipedia Entry
• Gruntzooki Flickr Stream
• Doctorow on Twitter
• Doctorow’s writing at the Guardian and Salon.com
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
• Boing Boing

Direct download: LOL45.mp3

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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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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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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

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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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Dr. Sean B. Carroll returns to the show this week to celebrate Darwin Day (Feb. 12, 2009).  With two new books out (Remarkable Creatures and Into the Jungle), Dr. Carroll discusses the power of storytelling in teaching science.  In fact, he even treats us with a story of how Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace and Henry Walter Bates all contributed in developing the theory of evolution.

Brian and Dr. Carroll

Links:

• seanbcarroll.com
• Sean B. Carroll’s Lab
• About Sean B. Carroll
• The Science of Evolution (video from the New York Times)

Books:

• Remarkable Creatures (at amazon.com)
• Into the Jungle (at amazon.com)
• The Making of the Fittest (at amazon.com)
• Endless Forms Most Beautiful (at amazon.com)

• Read and Download full text of On the Origin of Species
• Download On the Origin of Species Audiobook from Librivox
  

Other Darwin/Evolution Coverage:

• NY Times: Evolution
• Nature Celebrates Darwin 200
• Discover Magazine does Darwin
• 12 Elegant Examples of Evolution from Wired Magazine
• Darwin and Wallace Shift the Paradigm from wired.com
• All of Science Owes Debt to Darwin from the San Francisco Chronicle
• The Evolution of Darwin’s Theory from the LA Times
• I Am Evolution (from NPR’s This I Believe)
• Darwin, Britain’s Hero, is still Controversial in US (from NPR)
• Celebration Darwin’s Evolution Revolution (NPR)
• At Home with Darwin… 200 Years On (BBC)
• National Geographic: What Darwin Didn’t Know
• National Geographic: Modern Darwins
  
• National Geographic: Darwin’s First Clues
• National Geographic: The Man Who Wasn’t Darwin (Wallace)
• Evolution Wine

Direct download: LOL26.mp3

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Bad Astronomer

Today’s guest calls himself the Bad Astronomer. Phil Plait is an astronomer, an author, and a well-known blogger at www.badastronomy.com. Phil talks to us about myths and skepticism in the science classroom.

Preview from the show:
Plait: I am in fact a skeptic. In the public mind – if you ask somebody “what’s a skeptic” – most people think it’s a cynic or a denier, somebody who just doesn’t believe in anything. And that’s not strictly true. All a skeptic is, is someone who demands evidence for a claim. If you come up to me and say the sky is pink, I’m going to say “what is your evidence for this?”. Or I’ll say, “that’s an interesting claim, but here’s the evidence against it.” It’s someone who applies critical thinking, logic, evidence, observation, the scientific method to any sort of claim.
Science is all about skepticism. They are hardly different – I mean skepticism is a tool of science. Richard Feynman (the physicist) said “science is a way of not fooling ourselves. It’s a way of figuring what’s out what’s really going on”. And skepticism is just a way of looking at things. It’s making sure that if you’re thinking about something, if there’s a claim that’s being made – whether it’s by a person or even yourself, there’s a way of examining it so that you can test its reality or not. And the problem is, it’s not something we teach our kids. In fact, we teach them exactly the opposite. We teach them to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. We go to movies where the skeptic is always a jerk, and the end is always the supenatural cause or trust in humanity or whatever.”

Plait: Scooby Doo was a great cartoon because in the end, it really wasn’t a ghost or whatever, it was always old man Marley wearing a mask, who didn’t want the developers to come in and destroy his farm or whatever.”

Plait: When you’re teaching kids to the test, and you’re saying “here’s how you do the math” without explaining why, “here’s what you’re supposed to get in the results in the lab” without explaining why, we’re not teaching our kids science. We’re teaching them nothing, we’re teaching them belief, faith – and that’s not what science is about. Science is not about belief, science is about evidence.

Follow the Bad Astronomer:

• Bad Astronomy Blog
• Contact Info
• Twitter
• Facebook Group

Posts from badastronomy.com discussed on the show:

• Standing an Egg on End on the Spring Equinox
• Are Apollo Moon Photos Fake?
• Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing “Hoax”

Books:

• Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing “Hoax”
  • read NSTA’s recommendation of the book
    
• Death From the Skies (pre-order from Amazon.com)

Skepticism on the Internet:

• The Skeptics Dictionary
• James Randi Educational Foundation
• PZ Myers: Pharyngula Blog
• Point of Inquiry Podcast
• Skeptical Inquirer Magazine
• Skeptoid Podcast
• Skepticality
• Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe

Direct download: nstalol12.mp3