Kgnu - How On Earth

In 2015, the New Horizons Spacecraft flew past Pluto. Because Pluto is so far away, it took nearly 10 years of travel for the spacecraft to reach that distant dwarf planet -- and that was after a decade of work to get the spacecraft to the launch pad. Planetary scientists Alan Stern and David Grinspoon have written a new book, called: “Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto”. The book tells the story of developing and operating the New Horizon mission. How on Earth’s own Joel Parker is also a scientist on the New Horizons mission, and he had a chance to chat with Alan and David about their book. Last week we heard the first part of this interview. In today’s show, we present Part 2 of that interview.  You can also listen to the full extended interview. Host/Producer:  Alejandro Soto Engineer:  Chip Grandits Add'l Contributions/Executive Producer: Joel Parker

Chasing New Horizons  (starts 1:00) brings the reader Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto to  hear the details and meet the personalities behind building, launching, and flying this audacious mission.  How on Earth's Joel Parker (also an astrophysicist on the New Horizons mission) speaks with authors and fellow scientists Alan Stern and David Grinspoon. (Booktalks at Boulder Bookstore and Tattered Cover). You can also listen to the full extended interview. GoldLab Symposium (starts 13:00) This year's symposium theme is Complexity:  The Intersections Between Health and Policy. Boulder Entrepreneur and symposium founder Larry Gold speaks with How on Earth's Shelley Schlender about this year's annual symposium that explores the frontiers of science and health with an eye toward ideas that will inspire even the greatest world expert, with an ear toward being understandable to anyone in the room. Host/Producer/Engineer:  Shelley Schlender Add'l Contributions/Executive Producer: Joel Parker

Here we provide the full interview by How on Earth’s Joel Parker of planetary scientists Dr. Alan Stern (Southwest Research Institute) and Dr. David Grinspoon (Planetary Science Institute), about their new book: "Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto". Their book describes the the story of Pluto and NASA's New Horizons mission, bringing the reader backstage to hear the details and meet the personalities behind building, launching, and flying this audacious mission. Excerpts of this interview were first broadcast on KGNU on May 15th and May 22nd.

With graduation season is upon us, today’s edition of How on Earth is the second of a two-part annual “Graduation Special”. Our guests in the studio today are scientists who will receive their Ph.D. in a STEM-related field.  They talk about their thesis research, their grad school experiences, and what they have planned next. HyunJoo Oh - CU Boulder, ATLAS Institute Topic: Computational Design Tools and Techniques for Paper Mechatronics     Nathan Parrish - CU Boulder, Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences Topic: Low Thrust Optimization in Cislunar and Translunar Space   Diana Perry - Stockholm University, Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences Topic: Swedish Seagrass Ecosystems in a Changing Climate: Coastal Connectivity and Global Change Sensitivity   Host / Producer / Engineer : Joel Parker Listen to the show:

With graduation season is upon us, today’s edition of How on Earth is the first of a two-part annual “Graduation Special”. Our guests in the studio today are scientists who will receive their Ph.D. in a STEM-related field.  They talk about their thesis research, their grad school experiences, and what they have planned next. Oliver Paine - CU Boulder, Department of Anthropology Topic: Exploring C4 Plant Foods: The Nutritional and Mechanical Properties of African Savanna Vegetation   Diba Mani - CU Boulder, Department of Integrative Physiology Topic: Adjustments in Motor Unit Activity and Mobility Induced by Electrical Nerve Stimulation in Young and Older Adults   John Nardini - CU Boulder, Department of Applied Mathematics Topic: Partial Differential Equation Models of Collective Migration during Wound Healing   Host / Producer / Engineer : Joel Parker Listen to the show:

Attention all Nature Lovers and Amateur Naturalists, Friday April 27th kicks of the City Nature Challenge, where Boulder will compete with 65 cities throughout the world to identify the most species within their area over a 4 day period. It's a competition to identify biodiversity powered by the enthusiasm of citizen scientists. Chip Grandits speaks with Dave Sutherland and Melanie Hill two members of the Wild Boulder Team, which is organizing the City Nature Challenge for Boulder. Citizen science is enhanced with iNaturalist a crowd sourcing platform developed by the California Academy of Sciences with applications for you smartphone which can help you can tap into a global network of amateurs and experts to help identify what species that thing is which you can never quite identify. Host: Chip Grandits Producer: Chip Grandits Engineer: Chip Grandits Additional contributions: Joel Parker Executive Producer: Joel Parker Listen to the Show:

Today's show offers two feature interviews: New Theory of How Cancer Evolves Inside Us (start time: 0:58): It is commonly known that cancer afflicts old people more than youth. Conventional wisdom has held we get cancer with age largely because we accumulate lots of genetic mutations over many years, and it’s the mutations that cause cancer. Our guest, Dr. James DeGregori,  deputy director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, discusses with host Susan Moran his new theory--one that challenges conventional wisdom--about why and how we get cancer. In his new book, called Adaptive Oncogenesis: A New Understanding of How Cancer Evolves Inside Us, DeGregori argues that cancer is as much a disease of evolution as it is of mutation. Mutated cells outcompete healthy ones in the ecosystem of the body’s tissues. Dr. DeGregori is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Studying Health Impacts of Oil&Gas Wells (start time: 12:5

As part of the Conference of World Affairs, which is being held this week at the campus of the University of Colorado, Boulder, we are speaking today with astrophysicist Adam Frank. Frank is a professor at the University of Rochester, where he studies the final stages of evolution for stars like the sun. He is also the author of an upcoming book, “Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth”, which will be published in June of this year. We spoke with Frank about ideas from this new book, including how the science of astrobiology can provide insights into how humanity can address planetary scale challenges like climate change. Host: Alejandro Soto Producer: Alejandro Soto Engineer: Maeve Conran Executive Producer: Joel Parker Listen to the show here:

Hacking the Planet (start time: 10:24): It’s tough to wrap one’s mind around just how monumental and consequential the problem of climate change is. So dire that scientist and engineers for years have been exploring ways to “hack” the planet--to manipulate the global climate system enough to significantly reduce planet-warming gases or increase the Earth's ability to reflect solar radiation. This audacious scheme, called geoengineering, only exists because many scientists think that human behavioral change, industry regulations, international treaties and national legislation, have not done enough -- can not do enough – to keep us from careening toward climate catastrophe. Our guests today have given this huge challenge a lot of thought and some research. Dr. Lisa Dilling is an associate professor of Environmental Studies at CU Boulder and a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES. Dr. David Fahey is a physicist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administratio

Shelley Schlender talks with renowned skeptic Michael Shermer about his new book, The Moral Arc:  How Science and Reason lead humanity toward truth, justice and freedom.  This is an extended version of the interview.  (27 minutes)

This is an exended interview with a survivor of treatment resistant post traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD.  Karen says she is cured of her PTSD now, thanks to a treatment that includes lots of psychotherapy, plus three times when she took a dose of the psychoactive chemical, MDMA.  MDMA is classed as a federally illegal drug.  However the FDA has approved the drug for use in clinical trials of an intense psychotherapy protocol that includes MDMA.  Now here’s Karen’s story.

This is an extended interview with Marcella Ot’alora.  Ot'alora is a Boulder psychotherapist, and the principal investigator for the Boulder branch of the FDA approved, nationwide studies of using MDMA in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD.  MDMA is classed as a federally illegal drug.  However the FDA has approved the drug for use in clinical trials of an intense psychotherapy protocol that includes MDMA.  Now here’s more detail, from Marcella Ot’alora.

In the years ahead, doctors across the U.S. might be prescribing a currently illegal drug as therapy for the hard-to-treat condition known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  The new “medicine” would be MDMA, an ingredient in the party drug ecstasy.  The treatment is showing success for many of the study participants (go here for an extended interview with a study participant named Karen).  The lead funder of these FDA approved studies is the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, also known as MAPS (go here for more about MAPS, plus how to enroll or learn about the studies).  The Principal Investigator for the Boulder studies is psychotherapist Marcella Ot’Alora (go here for an extended interview with Ot'Alora.)  On Ot’Alora’s team is Boulder psychiatrist Will Vanderveer  How on Earth’s Shelley Schlender shares this in-depth interview with psychiatrist Will Vanderveer.   Host: Alejandro Soto Producer: Alejandro Soto Engineer: Chip Grandits Contributors: Shelley Schlender Executive Pro

You may be among many who wistfully harken back to the “golden days” of the past. For some people the past does look rosier, or perhaps the present looks grim, but, according to Steven Pinker, a Harvard University cognitive psychologist, that “golden age” of the past is a reflection of faulty memory. We — most people in the world, anyway — are actually far better off than we were decades and surely centuries ago. That’s based on many metrics of progress, including literacy, safety, gender equality, lower poverty, and many more. Pinker presents in his new book an abundance of data as evidence of such progress. This progress, he argues, is rooted in the ideals of the Enlightenment some 250 years ago. Pinker’s book is called “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.” Last week we played a couple of segments of an interview that How On Earth host Susan Moran and KGNU journalist Joel Edelstein conducted with Dr. Pinker. In today's feature, we play that interview in full. Hosts: J

Today's pledge-drive show features parts of our recent interview with Steven Pinker. Enlightenment Now: If you think the world, including the U.S., is falling apart, that the ideal of progress is as quaint as riding to work on a horse and carriage, you’re hardly alone. But you’re wrong, argues  Harvard University cognitive scientist Steven Pinker in his new book. It's called Enlightenment Now: A Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. As he shows in many copious charts and graphs from studies and national statistics, most people are living longer, healthier, safer, freer, and happier lives. And while our problems are formidable, the solutions, Pinker claims, lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. Provocative? Yes. Pollyannaish? No, says Pinker. Today's show features two sections of a recent interview that How On Earth host Susan Moran and KGNU host Joel Edelstein conducted with Pinker. We will play the full interview on our March 20th science show. Meanwhile, Pinker will discus

It’s the endless stream of tailpipes on the L.A. freeway which  causes that unsightly smog, nagging cough and chronic respitory problems, right?  Perhaps not any more, a new scientific study helps build the case that the major culprit may now be purchases made at the corner drug store or hardware store.  Chip Grandits speaks with Dr. Brian McDonald of NOAA about perhaps changing tactics for the next stage in the human race’s campaign to keep the air clean and healthy in both the indoor and outdoor environments of the urban areas many of us call home. A couple headlines focus on related aspects of the changing climate in our Alpine environment and what it really means.  Does it seem like spring comes earlier every year, or is that just your imagination?  Well, the science says probably not, especially if you live in the Northern latitudes.  Science journalist Tom Yulsman, who writes about climate change and beyond in his blog ImaGeo for Discover magazine,  offers a headline  the declining snowpack in the Rock

Woodstock.  Lallapalooza. Lilith Fair.  Coachella.  Burning Man.  All famous music and art festivals.  What about...science festivals?  Perhaps a festival with all the “rock stars” of science and space exploration, and while you're at it, throw in a few music rock stars as well?  Well, that describes the Starmus Festival.  Starmus is the brain child of Dr. Garik Israelian, an astrophysicist who led the team that found the first observational evidence that supernova explosions are responsible for the formation of stellar mass black holes. We talk with Dr. Israelian about the past, present, and future of Starmus. Hosts: Joel Parker, Susan Moran Producer and Engineer: Joel Parker Contributor: Tom Yulsman Executive Producer: Susan Moran Listen to the show here:

Spaceport Earth. This week on How on Earth, we speak with Joe Pappalardo about his book “Spaceport Earth”. With the successes of Space-X and Blue Origin, private and commercial spaceflight is a fast growing business. Pappalardo talks with us about this new space industry and the advances and setbacks that have been faced. In particular, Pappalardo shares his knowledge about the spaceports, new and old, that are part of the new space endeavours. We also talk about how these new launch opportunities provide new ways to support the scientific exploration of both Earth and space. Hosts: Alejandro Soto, Joel Parker Producer: Alejandro Soto Engineers: Joel Parker Contributers: Shelley Schlender Executive Producer: Susan Moran Listen to the show here:

In today's show we offer two related features: Plastic Pollution in the Arctic, Green Chemistry  (start time: 7:48) Try to wrap your brain around this statistic: by mid-century the mass of plastic in the oceans will weigh more than the total mass of fish if we continue with 'business as usual,' according to the World Economic Forum. Plastic debris, ranging from plastic water bottles to fish nets to invisible fragments, is choking seabirds and mammals all the way up to the Arctic, and quite possibly harming human health. How On Earth host Susan Moran recently attended the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromso, Norway, where she interviewed one of the speakers, Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineer at the University of Georgia. Dr. Jambeck directs the Center for Circular Materials Management, where researchers are designing materials and processes that both reduce waste and, like nature itself, reuse waste. Grassroots Efforts Curb Plastic Pollution (start time: 20:24) In case you’re wondering what’s land-

This week on How on Earth, Beth interviews Dr Valter Longo, director of the USC Longevity Institute. Dr Longo has researched the fundamental mechanisms of aging in yeast, mice and humans using genetics and biochemistry techniques. He is also interested in identifying the molecular pathways conserved from simple organisms to humans that can be modulated to protect against multiple stresses and treat or prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease and other diseases of aging. In his new book, The Longevity Diet, he describes his research and how to apply it in your life, for health and longevity. Hosts: Beth Bennett, Joel Parker Producer: Beth Bennett Engineer: Joel Parker Executive Producer: Susan Moran Listen to the show: