Big Picture Science

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Antarctic scientists have long known the region’s ice sheet holds clues to the planet’s ancient past. Yet even the field’s foremost experts were shocked when they extracted a six-million-year-old ice core — twice as old as expected and the oldest recorded so far. Researchers say it will provide one of our best looks ever into Earth's climatological record. In a relatively more recent past, the discovery of 40,000-year-old notches and lines carved into artifacts and cave walls in Germany, examples of protowriting, suggest humans began documenting ideas thousands of years earlier than thought. Those timescales pale however, when compared to the age of the Earth’s most ancient rocks, which have a story to tell too. Find out how the planet’s most venerable rocks, formed billions of years ago, reveal the geological conditions that allowed life to get a foothold. 

Guests:

Huw Groucutt – Archeologist, Department of Classics and Archeology, University of Malta

Ed Brook – Paleoclimatologist and professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University

Simon Lamb – Earth scientist and professor of geography in the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University at Wellington, New Zealand.   Author of “The Oldest Rocks on Earth: A Search for the Origins of Our World.”

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

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What’s it like to live on a block of ice, especially when it thaws? An environment writer shares his forty-year experience in the Arctic, including the time a paddling polar bear tracked him on a river. He describes the stunning beauty of America’s last truly wild place and the dramatic changes to the landscape he recently witnessed. Recent research has backed up his eyewitness accounts, as an arctic scientist presents the latest data collected from a part of world warming four times faster than the rest of the planet.

Guests:

Jon Waterman – Author of Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder Amid the Arctic Climate Crisis

Twila Moon – Deputy Lead Scientist and Science Communication Liaison at the National Snow and Ice Data Center

Descripción en español

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Originally aired March 17, 2025

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before everything could come up roses, there had to be a primordial flower – the mother, and father, of all flowers. Now scientists are on the hunt for it. The eFlower project aims to explain the sudden appearance of flowering plants in the fossil record, what Darwin called an “abominable mystery.”

Meanwhile, ancient flowers encased in amber or preserved in tar are providing clues about how ecosystems might respond to changing climates. And, although it was honed by evolution for billions of years, can we make photosynthesis more efficient and help forestall a global food crisis?

Guests:

Eva-Maria Sadowski - Post doctoral paleobotanist at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin

Regan Dunn - Paleobotanist and assistant Curator at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum

Royal Krieger - Rosarian and volunteer at the Morcom Rose Garden, Oakland, California

Ruby Stephens - Plant ecology PhD candidate at Macquarie University in Australia, and member of the eFlower Project

Stephen Long - Professor of Plant Science, University of Illinois

Descripción en español

Originally aired March 13, 2023

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thinking small can sometimes achieve big things. A new generation of diminutive robots can enter our bodies and deal with medical problems such as intestinal blockages. But do we really want them swimming inside us, even if they’re promising to help? You might change your mind when you hear what else is cruising through our bloodstream: microplastics! 

We take a trip into the human body, beginning with the story of those who first dared to open it up for medical purposes. But were the first surgeons really cavemen?

Guests:

Ira Rutkow – Surgeon and writer, and author of “Empire of the Scalpel: The History of Surgery”

Dick Vethaak – Emeritus professor of ecotoxicology, water quality and health at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University, Amsterdam) in The Netherlands

Li Zhang – Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Michael LaBarbera - Professor in organismal biology, anatomy and geophysical sciences, University of Chicago

Descripción en español

originally aired June 20, 2022

Opening theme by Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As protagonist Ryland Grace fights to save Earth - and possibly the universe - in Project Hail Mary, author Andy Weir discusses the science behind his sci-fi story and what it’s like to see it adapted for the big screen. From a diversity of aliens thriving in extreme environments, to our sun’s shortening lifespan, to the conundrum of keeping astronauts alive during intergalactic missions, we consider the possibility of science fiction becoming future reality. A NASA astrobiologist who consulted on the book weighs in on how Earthly creatures have inspired some of our favorite science fiction aliens. Plus, science fiction author Becky Chambers discusses how she balances science fact with fiction in her work.

Guests:

Andy Weir – science fiction writer, author of Project Hail Mary, The Martian, and Artemis

Andy Fraknoi – professor of astronomy at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco

Becky Chambers – science fiction writer, author of To Be Taught if Fortunate, the Wayfinders series, and the Monk and Robot novellas

Shawn Domagal-Goldman – NASA acting director, astrophysics division 

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices