August 15, 2008
Christopher Alexander
His groundbreaking book A Pattern Language urged architects consider emotional and spiritual ideas when designing. It was the beginning of an elaborate, nuts-and-bolts philosophical system. Alexander failed to revolutionize the practice of architecture, but he inspired a movement in computer programming that affects how all of us use the Web. Studio 360's Lu Olkowski talked to the architect and some of his disciples, including "wiki" inventor Ward Cunningham.
- Comments [3]
August 01, 2008
Cheetah Legs
South African Oscar Pistorius runner failed to qualify for the Olympic games by just 7/10 of a second. Pretty good -– especially for a man without legs. But his state-of-the-art prosthetics, called "Cheetah legs," have caused controversy in the world of sports: for some, they raise questions about what it means to be human. Produced by Ave Carrillo.
Cheetah Legs in Motion:
(Video courtesy of Rice University)
- Comments [2]
July 04, 2008
Bell Labs
In the second half of the 20th century, it was a hotbed of unfettered creativity, churning out inventions, patents, and Nobel Prizes. From the TV to the fax machine, to the telephone itself -- if Bell Labs didn't invent it, they probably perfected it. Michelle Mercer looks back at the little lab from New Jersey that could. (Originally aired: May 12, 2006)
- Comments [5]
June 27, 2008
Patient and Portraitist
- Comments [3]
June 20, 2008
Hedy Lamarr
Hollywood likes to cast stars as pioneering scientists; it really happened in the 1940s. Hedy Lamarr was once billed as the most beautiful woman in the world, and she’s partly responsible for the telecom innovation behind cell phones, GPS, and WiFi. Produced by Eric Molinsky.
- Comments [3]
May 23, 2008
When Particles Collide
This summer, in a 17-mile long tunnel outside Geneva, Switzerland, a particle accelerator called the Large Hadron Collider is gearing up to smash protons at nearly the speed of light. Physicists hope it will help solve mysteries of the universe and lead to an elusive Unified Theory. Studio 360's Eric Molinsky looks into the colorful and complex design of the largest machine on the planet.
- Comments [2]
May 23, 2008
Janna Levin
Kurt talks with a Columbia University astrophysicist who's eagerly awaiting data from the Large Hadron Collider. Levin, also an author, wrote the historical novel A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines.
- Comments [1]
May 23, 2008
Telford
Studio 360 commissioned the author Lydia Millet to write a short story inspired by the LHC's "grand opening." What happens if the worst happens? Millet's acclaimed 2005 novel Oh Pure and Radiant Heart was about the physicists who created the atom bomb. Actor Martha Plimpton (nominated for a Tony for her role in "Top Girls" on Broadway) reads "Telford." And Janna Levin considers if the LHC will create a black hole.
- Comments [2]
May 09, 2008
Biomimicry
Natural historian Janine Benyus believes that imitating nature’s best ideas can provide solutions to human problems. Could we store electricity like an electric eel to build a nontoxic battery? Benyus told Studio 360's Sarah Lilley how copying nature’s design is the key to our own sustainability.
May 09, 2008
Smell You Later
Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez are not your average fragrance writers; in Perfumes: The Guide, they called Paris Hilton’s scent "barfbag floral." Turin is a biophysicist; Sanchez is a perfume critic. Kurt brought them to a nearby drugstore to unlock the mysteries of body spray, handiwipes, and crayons.
Weigh in: What’s your favorite (non-perfume) scent?
- Comments [20]
April 18, 2008
Forgive Me Father
The Vatican recently called pollution of the environment a modern-day sin. Kurt calls Father Jim Martin, a Jesuit priest, to ask what kind of penance polluters are in for.
April 18, 2008
Power Cart
Mouna Andraos is an artist and web designer who’s always been fascinated by street vendors since her childhood in Lebanon. She created a working portable generator that uses a crank and a solar cell to charge cell phones and laptops, and even run small appliances. Ada Lee Halofsky hit the New York City streets with Andraos to see Power Cart in action.
- Comments [3]
April 18, 2008
Bacteria Biofuel
Frances Arnold is a biochemical engineer at Cal Tech working on one part of the energy crisis. In a process called “directed evolution,” Arnold’s team is altering the genetic codes of bacteria to evolve a strain of organisms than can digest grass and excrete biofuel.
- Comments [3]
April 18, 2008
Cal-Earth
In Hesperia, California, architect Nader Khalili created a housing movement for the future. Khalili, who passed away in March, prototyped his dome-shaped adobes on a commission from NASA for a lunar colony. Then he realized that his “superadobes” could take root on Earth. Studio 360’s Eric Molinsky visited Cal-Earth with some friends who dream of living in giant igloos made of dirt.
Weigh in: Would you live in a superadobe?
- Comments [25]
April 18, 2008
Coney Island Sunshine
The New York subway system has one of the best environmental designs of recent years: Coney Island's Stillwell Avenue terminal, one block from the Atlantic Ocean, is topped by a state-of-the-art photovoltaic glass roof. Kurt checked it out with architect Greg Kiss.
Audio Slideshow: Stillwell Avenue Terminal
- Comments [6]
March 28, 2008
On the Spectrum
Jonathan Mitchell is a writer in Los Angeles. He’s written a novel about his life experience with Asperger’s syndrome, an autism-spectrum disorder. Independent producer Tamar Brott met Mitchell in a writing class a few years ago.
And Kurt begins his conversation with researcher Blythe Corbett, of the U.C. Davis M.I.N.D. Institute in Sacramento, a center dedicated to autism research.
- Comments [1]
March 28, 2008
Autism and Creativity
Documentaries like “Autism: The Musical” are showing how the arts can help autistic children express themselves and interact with others. Corbett explores the connection between autism and forms of creativity. She also addresses some of the controversies surrounding autism including the debate on childhood vaccinations and the emerging neurodiversity movement among adults on the disorder spectrum.
Amanda Baggs' "In My Language:"
- Comments [1]
March 28, 2008
Windows to the Soul
Scientist are looking for ways to better understand an autistic person’s perception of the world. In a recent study, Ami Klin and Warren Jones of the Yale School of Medicine tracked autistic viewers’ gazes as they watched the 1966 film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” David Gruber visited their lab and tried on the apparatus. Produced with Eric Molinsky.
February 22, 2008
Not Losing His Religion
He was the godfather of science writing. Sir Thomas Browne's exacting observations and gorgeous prose anticipated modern science writers like Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, and Oliver Sacks. But Browne lived in the 1600s, and his way of reconciling the scriptures with science looks surprisingly like what we call "intelligent design." Produced by Sarah Montague (with performances by actors Daniel Gerroll and Jonathan Hadary).
- Comments [2]
February 01, 2008
Synesthesia for the Rest of Us
- Comments [1]
January 25, 2008
Introducing Nikola Tesla
Part visionary, part mad scientist, and absolute genius, Tesla should be as famous as Edison – but he’s been largely forgotten. Kurt talks with Samantha Hunt about her new novel The Invention of Everything Else. Tesla is the protagonist, and despite the outlandish biographical details all through the book, there was very little she had to make up.
- Comments [9]
January 25, 2008
Tesla vs. Edison
Tesla’s biggest innovation was introducing alternating current as the standard for modern electric power, breaking Thomas Edison’s monopoly on DC power. Mike Daisey is an author and monologuist who performs a one-man show about Tesla, and he tells us how AC/DC isn’t just a band.
- Comments [3]
January 25, 2008
Transmit This
A lot of us learned that Guglielmo Marconi invented radio, but Nikola Tesla transmitted electromagnetic waves before Marconi –- the Supreme Court decided the case in 1943. Jim Stagnitto, the Director of Engineering for WNYC, gives Kurt a tour at the top of the Empire State Building to check out a radio transmitter in action.
Kurt and Jim atop the Empire State Building:
January 25, 2008
Tesla and Twain
Tesla was a flamboyant character who held salons where he played fast and loose with technology. Mike Daisey tells the story of Tesla, Mark Twain, and an X-ray gun.
- Comments [1]
January 25, 2008
Mr. Spock and Dr. Strangelove
Samantha Hunt describes the turning point in Tesla’s life when he began acting like a mad scientist, almost taking a page from the movies. And biologist Vincent Pieribone thinks that Hollywood’s most dangerous fantasy about “mad scientists” is that scientists have any power at all.
- Comments [2]
January 25, 2008
The Death Ray
Mike Daisey completes his life story of Tesla with this tale about the scientist’s real Dr. Strangelove moment: inventing the ultimate superweapon. But did it work? The government thought it might, and the Cold War got hotter.
- Comments [1]
December 07, 2007
Blue Morph
James Gimzewski thinks really small. The thickness of a hair, 60 or 90 millionths of a meter, is enormous in his world. Gimzewski is a UCLA nanoscientist who spent years taking pictures of atoms. He teamed up with media artist Victoria Vesna to explore the secret lives of butterflies. Produced by Claes Andreasson.
- Comments [9]
November 23, 2007
Proust was a Neuroscientist
Science writer Jonah Lehrer is just 26, but he’s already worked as a line cook at Le Cirque and in the lab of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. In Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer looks at the surprising ways artists like Paul Cezanne and Walt Whitman had insights into neurological concepts that scientists have taken years to prove. Produced by Sarah Lilley.
October 26, 2007
Music in Space
Astronaut Ed Lu plays Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata on board the International Space Station in 2003:
(Video courtesy of NASA)
October 26, 2007
Aha Moment: Quest of the Snow Leopard
When Studio 360 listener John Simmons was a kid, he loved insects and reptiles and even turned his parents’ basement into a natural science museum. He recently retired as a museum collections manager in Lawrence, Kansas, and he says his life-long passion for science and exploration all began with one book. Produced by Jenny Lawton.
(Photo courtesy of the University of Oregon Libraries)
Weigh in: Is there a work of art that has changed your life?
- Comments [2]
October 19, 2007
Tendues and Torque
- Comments [1]
August 31, 2007
Hoberman Sphere
Simulation of the Hoberman Sphere deployed in space:
(provided by Paul Bernhardt, Naval Research Laboratory)
July 20, 2007
Aha Moment: Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet
When Richard Rifkind was a kid, Hollywood made dramatic biopics about scientific pioneers like Paul Erlich, who invented an early cure for syphilis -- impressive men with impressive beards and German accents. Rifkind became a scientist himself, a leading cancer researcher. His treatment for lymphoma, 40 years in development, was approved this year by the FDA. Now retired from research, Rifkind is making movies himself to nurture the love of science. Produced by Jenny Lawton.
July 13, 2007
Photographing Mars
December 15, 2006
Brain Music
We are always listening to our own silent thoughts, but we never think of those thoughts having a sound we could actually hear. Apostolos Georgopoulos is a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota who has come up with a way to translate the electrical activity of the brain into music. Produced by Brian Newhouse.
September 22, 2006
Janna Levin
Janna Levin spends her days chasing down the mysteries of the universe, like chaos theory and black holes. And to take a break from the awesome responsibility of mapping the universe, she makes stuff up -- not as a scientist, but as a novelist. Her first novel is called A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines -- and it combines the tricky worlds of mathematical theory and historical fiction. Kurt Andersen asks Levin about what novels can do that science can't.
September 14, 2006
Tale of Two Brains
Right-brained people are supposed to be artistic and spontaneous, while left-brainers are literal and analytical; in other words, Captain Kirk and Spock. This ubiquitous bit of pop science wisdom came out of Nobel Prize-winning neurology, and it spawned the bestseller Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. But does the story of the two brains stand up in the age of the MRI? Produced by Dave Johns.
- Comments [2]
September 14, 2006
Physics for Poets
People often depict scientists as coldly rational. Physicist Michael Salamon, who works at NASA's Universe Division, takes issue with that. He explains why Walt Whitman misunderstood the beauty of the universe, and why Maxwell's Equations are like a sexual experience. Produced by Lu Olkowski.
June 30, 2006
Method In The Madness
In the official Hollywood template, you pretty much can't be a genius without also being nuts. Is there a connection between great creativity and mental illness? Tamar Brott speaks with Kaye Redfield Jamison and other psychiatrists to separate the truth from the myth.
June 23, 2006
Plastics
Did you ever wonder who decides the color of your shampoo bottle? As part of our on-going series about creativity and science, Lu Olkowski talks with a polymer chemist who creates pigment formulas for plastics at the Engelhard Corporation.
June 17, 2006
Magic Eye Paintings
As part of Studio 360's series on science and creativity, Sarah Lilley talks with scientists who admire the impressionist painter Claude Monet not just for his color choices, but for his ability to trick the human eye and brain.
June 02, 2006
Presenting Darwin
How do you convey the millions of years over which a species evolves in the span of a museum tour? Sarah Lilley looks at an exhibit on Charles Darwin that lets the science speak for itself.
May 26, 2006
Cyclorama
Artist Clifford Ross was disappointed with the pictures he took on vacation. So he built a new kind of camera with resolution years ahead of digital photography -- and he may have reinvented how we look at pictures. Produced by Andrew Adam Newman.
May 26, 2006
Hidden Worlds
Theoretical physicist Lisa Randall believes there are more dimensions to space - possibly 13 more -- than the three we experience. She's faced the challenge of describing a world that no one can see. Produced by Sarah Lilley.
May 19, 2006
Diamonds are Forever
They're not as rare as you might think. In fact, scientists have learned how to grow perfect diamonds in a laboratory. But that hasn't taken the shine off their allure, even for the experts who make them.
May 12, 2006
Cell Tower
Don Ingber is a cell biologist from Harvard Medical School, Children's Hospital. One day he saw a piece of modern sculpture and—Eureka!-he was inspired to make a major breakthrough in biology. Lu Olkowski reports on the unlikely epiphany.
May 12, 2006
Bell Labs
Think of just about any product in your house-your TV, radio, microwave, telephone—if Bell Laboratory didn't invent it, they probably perfected it. As part of our on-going series on science and creativity, Michelle Mercer looks back at the little New Jersey lab that changed the world.
April 06, 2006
Get Well Soon
Hospital architecture usually stirs up feelings of anxiety and dread—which may not encourage patients to recover quickly, according to several new studies. Jocelyn Gonzales reports on the architects and medical professionals who are designing a new wave of feel-good hospitals, as part of our on-going series on science and creativity.
March 02, 2006
Bionic Hearing
Michael Chorost was born with a severe hearing impairment, the result of a rubella epidemic in the 1960s. He used hearing aids, learned to speak, went to regular schools and got his Ph.D. in English. Then, a few years ago, Michael's residual hearing abruptly gave out. His world went silent. Jocelyn Gonzales has the story of how Chorost replaced his lost sense of hearing with an amazing machine.
February 23, 2006
Helms and Stein
Remember the old Saturday Night Live skit that asked, "What if Eleanor Roosevelt Could Fly?" Sound artist Jane Philbrick asked a question just as unlikely: "What if retired Senator Jesse Helms could recite a lesbian love poem by Gertrude Stein?" Andrew Adam Newman found out how Philbrick's quixotic project took her to the cutting edge of voice-synthesis technology.
February 09, 2006
Skyspace
Dr. Denis Pelli researches how we read, identify shapes, even why we find art compelling. Once a semester he takes a group of students to see a piece of installation art that he believes will teach them how to be better scientific observers. Laura Starecheski tagged along for the class trip.
January 12, 2006
M.C. Escher
The works of the late graphic artist M.C. Escher have been admired for decades by students and scholars alike. But Escher claimed to have failed his own high school exams. He considered becoming an architect before traveling to Spain, where he hit upon a better way to express himself. Produced by Sarah Lilley.
January 12, 2006
The Canon
Trent Wolbe talks with contemporary composer Steve Reich about the various symmetrical techniques that animate the music that inspires him as well as his own works. Produced by Trent Wolbe.
January 12, 2006
Symmetry & Sex Appeal
Are supermodels more symmetrical? Beauty expert Kelley Quan joins Kurt and Mario Livio to talk about how symmetry affects human attraction. Quan is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the online fashion magazine ZooZOOM.com, and she explains how symmetry -- or the lack of it -- can make people more attractive.
March 05, 2005
Toxic Materials
The life of the average artist is not known for a sense of security. Most will gain little money, status, or recognition. They may dream of these things, but what many artists should be yearning for more than anything is… health insurance. Sarah Lilley explains why
