Word of Mouth

A special broadcast of NPR's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday host Ira Flatow, recorded in front of a live audience at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.  

In part one, Flatow talks about the declining state of science coverage in the news, and his hope that new media will be the new outlet for spreading the gospel of science. In part two, I sit down with Flatow and we talk about his career, the challenges of expanding online platforms, and address questions form the audience. 

Jake Jones and Andrew Kenney are New York photographers heading out for the open road in June. They’ll send an original, freshly photographed, newly minted postcard to anyone who helps fund their trip on Kickstarter. The cost: 2 dollars per postcard, per state.

The new TLC reality show, Livin’ for the Apocalypse, follows so-called “preppers” – people getting off the grid, hoarding food, and otherwise making ready for the end of days… there is one key component that preppers can’t buy in a survival kit: Love. Companionship.  Someone to help propagate the species. 

Want to look ten years younger in ten weeks?  Good luck. Hundreds of skin-care products make bold, supposedly measurable claims to heighten hopes and defy age.  Now, the FDA is paying more attention about what goes into anti-wrinkle creams, and what consumers are actually getting out of them.

All that "40 is the new 30" boosterism aside, midlife is not the start of a downward spiral. David Bainbridge is a clinical veterinary anatomist at Cambridge University, and the author of several books including Middle Age: A Natural History. He believes middle age might be a pivotal part of the human evolutionary process, and potentially the most productive years of our lives. 

If only ten percent of humans are left-handed, why have 50 percent of the world’s top hitters in baseball been southpaws?  Danny Abrams has a theory. He’s Assistant Professor with the Applied Math department at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.  

Here's What's Awesome...

Defending "awesome."  Seriously..."awesome" is, well, awesome.

Facebook: a new place for organ donors to connect to those who need them? Or another way for Zuck to mine our personal (and internal!) data???

How French tweeters used WWII code to get around election law.

Last week, we reviewed new experiments in spoken word with Marc Masters of music review site Pitchfork. He told us about the new spoken word album Sex Magic – a poetic reading of lyrics from the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s 1991 release, Blood Suger Sex Magik…

Afterwards, we asked listeners to suggest songs for us to “Blankenship,” our new term for reading song lyrics as poetry.   Here’s the best one we came up with.

M.I.T.'s Media Lab is a melting pot of engineers, artists, and scientists looking for ways to integrate technology into our everyday lives. The lab has produced the tech behind myriad high-tech gadgest, programming languages for children, and even laid the groundwork for popular video games and Lego robots.

Sting and Trudie have the rainforest, George Clooney has Sudanese refugees, and Alan Alda has… well, science contests for kids.

Mike Doughty’s 2005 album Haughty Melodic was a breakthrough for the singer-songwriter…before going solo, Doughty had founded and fronted the 90’s band Soul Coughing…which he disbanded in 2000, much to the chagrin of die-hard fans. But  there was a reason beyond the typical story of egos and bad record deals for that band’s demise…one that Doughty hints at in haughty melodic’s biggest hit, "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well.”

Part 1: Drones in the U.S. and Snapstagram

Ever get the feeling that someone is watching you? Well, you may want to get used to it. While the US government has been putting un-manned drones to heavy use in war zones in recent years, the flying robots will soon be soaring American skies.

Now that The Hunger Games has killed off the competition for spring box office, Hollywood is gearing up for summer. We’ll get the Batman finale, a Spiderman re-boot, new animated heroes from Pixar and Disney, and comedies from Will Ferrell, and Adam Sandler.  Garen Daly is film consultant for Zeotrope Media is here to preview of some films that won’t break box office records.

Student loan debt as a campaign issue: this week, President Obama visited college students in Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa and made urgent appeals to keep interest rates low for current and future college students.  The house will vote Friday (4/27/12) on legislation that could keep the interest rate on government-subsidized undergraduate student loans from doubling in July.