Science Straight Up
In conjunction with Telluride Science, "Science Straight Up" delves into how science impacts our everyday lives. Your hosts, veteran broadcast journalists Judy Muller and George Lewis talk to leading scientists and engineers from around the world.
Episodes
33 episodes
Chromatin: Your DNA in a Package
The double helix structure of DNA discovered in 1953 explained the basic mechanism for how our genetic information can be inherited through replication. But, we've since found that those genes have on/off switches. Understanding how our g...
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Season 5
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Episode 9
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24:28
Can we opt out of Aging?
Mankind has long searched for the fountain of youth. Recent studies indicate that both immunological and global aging processes can be reversed in humans now using repurposed medicines that are known to be safe. The key is the thymus, the...
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Season 5
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Episode 8
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26:18
Clean Energy's Reliance on Dirty Magnets: The Source and a Solution--Dr. Peter Ladwig, Niron Magnetics
As climate change worsens, the need for a transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources gets more urgent. But clean energy often has its own environmental costs. The risks posed by nuclear reactors and mining lithium for batteries ...
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Season 5
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Episode 7
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22:15
Methane: Supercharging Nature's Solution to Reverse Climate Change
Methane is a greenhouse gas that's 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. And unvortunately, methane concentrations in our atmosphere are rapidly increasing. Yet, methane may also offer a potential climate solution. With a much shorter half-...
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Season 5
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Episode 6
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21:44
Storm Chasing From Space--Dr. Susan van den Heever, Colorado State University
Life on Earth is fundamentally impacted by thunderstorms, from the life-sustaining fresh water they supply, to the life-threatening severe weather they produce. T In spite of the critical role of thunderstorms in our weather and climate system,...
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Season 5
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Episode 5
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27:00
Quantum Simulations of the Origins of Life: Life-Giving Molecules From Planetary Impacts--Dr. Nir Goldman, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
Before there was life on Earth, there was something called "the period of maximum bombardment" when comets, meteors and other space objects crashed into the planet. Some of those carried materials necessary for life to emerge. Dr. N...
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Season 5
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Episode 4
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22:00
Inspired by Nature: The Chemistry That Powers our Planet--Dr. Jenny Yang, UC Irvine
Our planet has always been powered by sunlight. Plants use light and water and air to grow through the process of photosynthesis. Dr. Jenny Yang, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine proposes that we imitat...
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Season 5
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Episode 3
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24:24
The Ethics of Emerging Technology: The Era of Artificial Intelligence--Dr. Teresa Head-Gordon
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are relatively new, powerful, and disruptive technologies that are rapidly entering practice in our daily lives and shaping our future in areas ranging from employment, health, politics, an...
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Season 5
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Episode 2
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22:49
"Beam me up, Scotty:" Demystifying the Quantum World
Our fifth season of "Science Straight Up" kicks off with Dr. Michael Wasielewski of Northwestern University talking about the basics of quantum theory and how it will change our lives. We can't beam people aboard the starship just yet, bu...
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Season 5
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Episode 1
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19:01
The True Colors of Cancer--shining a new light on disease--Dr. Stephen Boppart
Cancer biopsies are scary. The patient gets tissue removed from his or her body, the sample gets sent off to the lab and then there's the agonizing wait for the results. Dr. Stephen Boppart of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, ...
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Season 4
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Episode 7
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25:03
RNA Therapeutics: Recoding Drug Design, One Gene at a Time--Dr. Athma Pai
Our experience with mRNA vaccines during the COVID pandemic showed us the possibility of designing other RNA-based drugs in a flexible and efficient manner. Dr. Athma Pai of the UMass Chan Medical School talks about how her research int...
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Season 4
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Episode 6
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24:35
Where do you Want to Live? innovation, Data and Building the Cities of the Future
Dr. Amy Mueller and her team are measuring the vital signs of cities, gathering data that will inform future additions and improvements to our urban areas. How do we build cities in a sensible, sustainable way? Key to this work is getting commu...
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Season 4
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Episode 5
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24:38
Quantum Dots 101: How to Make a Lightbulb That is a Million Times Smaller Than an Ant
Quantum Dots are marvelous little crystalline structures that work as electrical semiconductors and emit light. But that's not all they do. Dr. Jennifer Hollingsworth of the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies at the Los Alamos N...
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Season 4
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Episode 4
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23:15
Can the Soil Save Us? The Dirt on Local Agricultural Climate Solutions
American agriculture contributes about 10 percent of this country's greenhouse gas emissions, but done right, it can absorb rather than produce carbon and help overcome the problem of man-made climate change. This exciting possibility is ...
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Season 4
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Episode 3
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20:20
Solving Big Problems with Small Things: tiny programmable sponges
Dr. Omar Farha of Northwestern University and NuMat Technologies talks about Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOF's) that he prefers to call "programmable sponges." Hailed as a potential defining material of the 21st century, these nano-sized structur...
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Season 4
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Episode 2
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18:05
The Science of Aging: Can You Teach an Old Cell New Tricks?
We've long thought that aging was just a part of life but now science is beginning to view aging as a disease that can be treated. This, as research on aging is exploding and some scientists speculate people could live 150 years or more. ...
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Season 4
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Episode 1
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23:40
A New Spin on Electrons: How They Change Life and Power our Lives
We talk about chirality, how some molecules have left-handed properties and others have right-handed properties. It turns out that electrons, carrying energy and information vital to life, spin in different directions when interacting wit...
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Season 3
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Episode 4
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28:30
Tiny Gatekeepers of the Nano Universe: How Nuclear Pores in our Cells Separate Friend From Foe
We hear from three eminent researchers who take us into the nano universe where they study miniscule openings in the cells of our bodies…passageways called nuclear pore complexes. These complexes are incredibly smart c...
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Season 3
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Episode 3
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28:30
Harnessing the Power of Immunity
Dr. Jayajit Das of the Ohio State University and Nationwide Childrens Hospital talks about harnessing the power of immunity using powerful computer technology to orchestrate the body’s response to disease. He is interviewed by noted broad...
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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29:00
Ice and Fire: Volcanoes of the Arctic Ocean
A guy named Jon Snow came to Telluride to talk about ice and fire. No, not the Jon Snow from Game of Thrones, but rather Dr. Jonathan Snow, arctic explorer, professor and chair of geology and geophysics at Louisiana State University. ...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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28:30
Scientific Exploration with Artificial Intelligence
"Hey, Siri, what's the lowdown on A.I.?" Every time we use an electronic assistant like Siri or Alexa, we're tapping into the burgeoning world of artificial intelligence. We've assembled a panel of three people with plenty of re...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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29:00
Vital Signs: Healthy Air, Climate and Environmental Equity in Cities
This year, the summer months have brought record high temperatures, fires, floods and other climate extremes. A U.N. climate change report has sounded a "red alert" for humanity. We're joined by one of the contributors to that repor...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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29:00
Serendipity in Science and why Basic Science Matters
Scientists speak of those moments of discovery when all their hard work, all their experimenting, and all their trial and error yield sometimes surprising results. Hosts Judy Muller and George Lewis chat with three noted researchers about...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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29:00
The Big Chill: How Cryopreservation Will Change Our Way of Life
The science of cryopreservation and cryogenics promises new life through fertility treatments, preserves plant and animal species and provides cell therapy for ailments ranging from cancer to spinal cord injuries. It can also help with organ tr...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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29:00