Florence Flooding, Algorithms, Dino Demise. Sept. 14, 2018, Part 1
Last month, California passed a bill ending the use of cash bail. Instead of waiting in jail or putting down a cash deposit to await trial at home, defendants are released after the pleadings. The cat...
14 Sep 201846min
Undiscovered Presents: I, Robovie. Sept 11, 2018.
A decade ago, psychologists introduced a group of kids to Robovie, a wide-eyed robot who could talk, play, and hug like a pro. And then, the researchers did something heartbreaking to Robovie! They wa...
11 Sep 201834min
Grazing, Work-Life Imbalance. Aug. 7, 2018, Part 2
Each spring, animals move from their winter grazing grounds in search of greener pastures. For birds, where and when to start that journey is based on genetics, and signals from stars, and magnetic fi...
7 Sep 201847min
Tick Repellents, Robot Relationships. Aug. 7, 2018, Part 1
If you were given a robot and asked to break it, would you do it? The amount of Furby destruction videos on Youtube suggest it wouldn’t be that hard. But that’s not true for all robots. According to r...
7 Sep 201847min
Eric Kandel and the Disordered Mind, Death. Aug 31, 2018, Part 2
The human brain contains an estimated 100 billion neurons. When those cells malfunction, the disrupted process can lead to schizophrenia, PTSD, and other disorders. In his book The Disordered Mind, No...
31 Aug 201846min
Outdoor Influencers, Northwest Passage, Undersea Volcanoes. Aug 31, 2018, Part 1
NASA is exploring a deep-sea volcano off the coast of Hawaii as a test run for human and robotic missions to Mars and beyond. The mission, dubbed SUBSEA, or Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Scienc...
31 Aug 201846min
SciFri Special Edition: A Time Traveler Cocktail Party. Aug 28, 2018.
In 2009, Stephen Hawking decided to throw a party for time travelers, famously sending the invitations after the date of the party. For the 30th anniversary of Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, the S...
28 Aug 201822min
Yellow Fever and Ebola, Trans-boundary Aquifers, Probiotics. Aug 24, 2018, Part 2
From 1976 to 2017, the Democratic Republic of the Congo experienced eight outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus. Then, for 10 weeks earlier this year, the virus reemerged in the country, killing 33 peop...
24 Aug 201848min
