Mon, 24 June 2019
In today's episode Kelly interviews Dr. Judy Illes to learn more about the latest work being done addressing the ethics of brain-computer interfaces. Dr. Illes is the Canada Research Chair in Neuroethics, and Director of Neuroethics Canada at the University of British Columbia.
Direct download: Episode_64_Weekly_Weinersmith_Soonish_Series_Dr._Judy_Illes_on_Neuroethics_v2.mp3
Category:Science -- posted at: 1:15pm EDT |
Mon, 17 June 2019
In this week's show Kelly talks to Dr. Bryan Caplan about the impact of automation on jobs, and talks to Zach about his collaboration with Bryan on a graphic novel called "Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration". Also - if you visit WeeklyWeinersmith.com you can download a chapter on Advanced Nuclear Reactors! This chapter was cut from Soonish due to page limits, and is now available for download for free.
Direct download: Episode_63_Weekly_Weinersmith_Soonish_Series_-_Dr._Bryan_Caplan_on_Automation_and_Jobs.mp3
Category:Science -- posted at: 8:56am EDT |
Mon, 10 June 2019
Dr. Jordan Miller and his collaborators recently published a paper where they use a gel that hardens in response to light to create structures that are non-toxic, and so should be compatible with the human body. The paper made the front cover of Science! Check out this week's episode to learn more about the bioengineering work happening in the Physiologic Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials Laboratory at Rice University.
Direct download: Episode_62_-_Weekly_Weinersmith_Soonish_Series_-_Dr._Jordan_Miller_on_Bioprinting.mp3
Category:Science -- posted at: 8:21am EDT |
Mon, 3 June 2019
In this week's episode, Kelly interviews Rosario Ballesteros-Casas, the Chief Executive Officer of VRAmericas. VRAmericas is working on AR and VR (virtual reality) applications to help train our workforce.
Direct download: Episode_61_Weekly_Weinersmith_Soonish_Series_Rosario_Ballesteros-Casas_on_VRAmericas.mp3
Category:Science -- posted at: 11:57am EDT |
Tue, 28 May 2019
Episode 60 – Weekly Weinersmith Soonish Series – Skylar Tibbits on Projects Happening at MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab
In today’s episode we’re going to chat about some of the cool projects happening at MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab, which is the lab for which our interviewee (Professor Skylar Tibbits) is the Founder and co-Director.
Direct download: Episode_60__Weekly_Weinersmith_Soonish_Series__Skylar_Tibbits_on_Projects_Happening_at_MITs_Self-Assembly_Lab.mp3
Category:Science -- posted at: 11:27am EDT |
Mon, 20 May 2019
On today’s show Joy Dunn joins us to discuss Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Ms. Dunn spent about 10 years at SpaceX, where she worked on and led teams working on the Dragon spacecrafts, and became known as the “Mother of Dragons”. She is currently Head of Manufacturing at Commonwealth Fusion Systems.
Direct download: Episode_59_Joy_Dunn_on_Commonwealth_Fusion_Systems.mp3
Category:Science -- posted at: 7:43am EDT |
Mon, 13 May 2019
Dr. Lindy Elkins-Tanton joins Kelly to talk about how we go about learning about asteroids, and about the Psyche mission in particular. We also spoke with Dr. Elkins-Tanton about the role of artists in communicating space research to the general public in ways that scientists can't.
Direct download: Episode_58_WW_Soonish_Series_Dr._Lindy_Elkins-Tanton_on_Psyche.mp3
Category:Science -- posted at: 6:15am EDT |
Sun, 5 May 2019
Welcome to the reboot of The Weekly Weinersmith, celebrating the paperback release of our book Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. In this podcast series, we’re going to revisit each of the 10 technologies discussed in Soonish, expanding on topics touched on in the book, exploring related matters, and checking out new advances since the book came out. That is - the stuff in the podcast will be different from the book, so go buy it. The first chapter in Soonish is on Cheap Access to Space, and it was one of the hardest ones to write, because private launch companies were making advances so quickly it was hard to keep up. But at some point, we had to put our pencils down, and we submitted the book to our editor in 2016. A few months before our book came out in hardback in 2017 a company called Rocket Lab completed a test flight of its Electron rocket. They’ve now entered high frequency launch operations, and as of May 5, 2019, they’ve launched 28 satellites into space. Amazingly, Peter Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab (!), took the time to talk to me about how his company is democratizing space launch.
Direct download: Episode_57_WW_Soonish_Series_-_Peter_Beck_on_Rocket_Lab.mp3
Category:Science -- posted at: 3:49pm EDT |
Sun, 5 May 2019
Welcome to the reboot of The Weekly Weinersmith, celebrating the paperback release of our book Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. In this podcast series, we’re going to revisit each of the 10 technologies discussed in Soonish, expanding on topics touched on in the book, exploring related matters, and checking out new advances since the book came out. The first chapter in Soonish is on Cheap Access to Space. We mostly talk about ways to reduce the price of launching things into space, but reducing launch costs is only one part of a current movement called "NewSpace". In this first podcast episode, we interview Dr. Elizabeth Frank about NewSpace. Dr. Frank earned her PhD at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and did her postdoc at the Carnegie Institution for Science (working on NASA's Messenger, which orbited Mercury). She then spent 2 years working at Planetary Resources, Inc., and is now an Applied Planetary Scientist at First Mode. |
Mon, 21 August 2017
Kelly and Zach discuss Zach's new book "Science - Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness"
Direct download: Episode_55_-_The_making_of_Science_Abridged_Beyond_the_Point_of_Usefulness.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:51pm EDT |