We have a new podcast! It's called Universe Of Art, and it features conversations with artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
A See-Through Squid Success Story
Adult octopuses have about 500 million neurons, which is about as many neurons as a dog. Typically, more neurons means a more intelligent and complex creature. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Unlike dogs, or even humans, octopuses’ neurons aren’t concentrated in their brains—they’re spread out through their bodies and into their arms and suckers, more like a “distributed” mind. (Scientists still haven’t quite figured out exactly why this is.)
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of unanswered cephalopod questions. Now, researchers have successfully bred a line of albino squid that were first engineered using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, creating a see-through squid.
Their unique transparency allows scientists to more easily study their neural structure, and a whole lot more.
SciFri experiences manager Diana Plasker talks with Joshua Rosenthal, senior scientist at the University of Chicago’s Marine Biological Laboratory, based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, about this see-through squid success story.
When Eye-Grabbing Results Just Don’t Pan OutYou know the feeling — you see a headline in the paper or get an alert on your phone about a big scientific breakthrough that has the potential to really change things. But then, not much happens, or that news turns out to be much less significant than the headlines made it seem.
Journalists are partially to blame for this phenomenon. But another guilty culprit is also the scientific journals, and the researchers who try to make their own work seem more significant than the data really supports in order to get published.
Armin Alaedini, an assistant professor of medical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, recently co-authored a commentary on this topic published in The American Journal of Medicine. He joins Ira and Ivan Oransky — co-founder of Retraction Watch and a medical journalism professor and Distinguished Writer In Residence at New York University — to talk about the tangled world of scientific publishing and the factors that drive inflated claims in publications.
How Art Can Help Treat Dementia And Trauma
We might intrinsically know that engaging with and making art is good for us in some way. But now, scientists have much more evidence to support this, thanks in part to a relatively new field called neuroaesthetics, which studies the effects that artistic experiences have on the brain.
A new book called Your Brain On Art: How The Arts Transform Us, dives into that research, and it turns out the benefits of the arts go far beyond elevating everyday life; they’re now being used as part of healthcare treatments to address conditions like dementia and trauma.
Universe of Art host D. Peterschmidt sits down with the authors of the book, Susan Magsamen, executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at the Pederson Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and Ivy Ross, vice president of design for hardware products at Google, to talk about what we can learn from neuroaesthetic studies, the benefits of a daily arts practice, and the kinds of art they both like making.
Testing Mars Rovers In Utah’s Red Desert
Take a 20-minute drive down Cow Dung Road, outside of Hanksville, Utah, and you’ll stumble across the Mars Desert Research Station. This cluster of white buildings—webbed together by a series of covered walkways—looks a little alien, as does the red, desolate landscape that surrounds it.
“The ground has this crust that you puncture through, and it makes you feel like your footprints are going to be there for a thousand years,” said Sam Craven, a senior leading the Brigham Young University team here for the University Rover Challenge. “Very bleak and dry, but very beautiful also.”
This remote chunk of Utah is a Mars analogue, one of roughly a dozen locations on Earth researchers use to test equipment, train astronauts and search for clues to inform the search for life on other planets. While deployed at the station, visiting scientists live in total isolation and don mock space suits before they venture outside.
To read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.
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Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
783: Your ‘Biological Age’ Could Be Different Than How Old You Are
782: High-Speed Rail Gets A Boost In The U.S.
781: Using A Lab On Wheels To Study Weed From Dispensaries
780: Jelly Creatures That Swim In Corkscrews | Keeping Wind Turbines Safe For Birds
779: Zapping Nerves Into Regrowth | Celebrating the Maya Calendar In Guatemala’s Highlands
778: Fine-Tuning Grapes For Iowa’s Wine Industry
777: How To Recycle Rare Earth Elements
776: New Evidence Questions Dark Energy’s ‘Constant’ Nature
775: New Guidelines Recommend Earlier Breast Cancer Screening
773: New Rule Sets Stage For Electric Grid Update | Harnessing Nanoparticles For Vaccines
772: How Climate Change Is Changing Sports
771: Why Is Tinnitus So Hard To Understand And Treat?
770: Finding Purpose In A ‘Wild Life’
769: Archeopteryx Specimen Unveiled | Trees And Shrubs Burying Great Plains' Prairies
768: JWST Detects An Atmosphere Around A Rocky Exoplanet | Boeing Plans To Fly Humans To The ISS Next Week
767: Challenging The Gender Gap In Sports Science
766: What Martian Geology Can Teach Us About Earth
765: How Louisiana Is Coping With Flooding In Cemeteries
764: Inside Iowa State’s Herbarium | Science-Inspired Art From ‘Universe of Art’ Listeners
763: Science From Iowa’s Prairies | Planning To Go See Cicadas? Here’s What To Know
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