Month: January 2016
Pulse of the Planet Daily Audio
Science of Football – Prolate Spheroid
You can throw a prolate spheroid – aka a football – a lot further than a basketball, or an inflated pig’s bladder!
January 28, 2016HighTech in the Time of Cholera
Translating high-tech solutions for use in very low-tech environment.
January 27, 2016Design Robotics
It’s like attaching different bits to a drill, but on a whole other scale.
January 26, 2016Computer Assisted Design
Custom parts? No problem. Using robots and computers, architects are developing new sets of tools and new ways of designing and constructing buildings.
January 25, 2016Trees of the Future
The trees that we plant trees today have been through drastic, dramatic climate change, and they’re really a product of it.
January 22, 2016Trees That Don’t Grow in Brooklyn
What kinds of trees wouldn’t you want to have in an urban environment?
January 21, 2016Urban Planner
A canopy of trees helps to moderate the climate we experience as we’re walking down a street.
January 20, 2016Lyme Disease – Prevention
If you’re going for a walk in the woods, here are some tips on how to avoid being bitten by ticks.
January 19, 2016Lyme Disease – Year Round
Depending upon where you live, disease-carrying ticks can be active year round.
January 18, 2016The Story Behind the Dream
The surprising backstory of Martin Luther King’s most famous speech.
January 15, 2016Untold Stories
Oral histories often reveal untold stories of people you may never find in a history book or a newspaper headline, but whose lives and work were truly significant.
January 14, 2016Hidden History
The stories of everyday people form an important and often overlooked part of our history.
January 13, 2016Lyme Disease – Spreading
For years, Lyme has often gone undiagnosed.
January 12, 2016Plough Monday – Tradition
Imagine a holiday like Halloween, with a bit of Mardi Gras thrown in, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Plough Monday was like – in 18th century rural England.
January 11, 2016Plough Monday – Purpose
Once a year, riotous behavior gave farm workers an escape from social constraints in 18th century England.
January 8, 2016Smells – Memories
One of the strongest triggers of memory is odor.
January 7, 2016Smell – Miasmas
If it smells bad, it probably is bad for you. That was the prevailing wisdom once and for many years, it influenced the ways we tried to prevent the spread of disease.
January 6, 2016Three Kings Day – Parranda
It’s Christmas caroling – Puerto Rican Style! In the days leading up to the Feast of Epiphany, the sounds of Parrandas are heard throughout the island.
January 5, 2016Three Kings Day – The Magi
One of our listeners returns to his homeland of Puerto Rico each year for the celebration of the Epiphany.
January 4, 2016Smell – Relentless Sense
We’ve developed lots of ways to cover our ears, but not so many ways to cover our noses.
January 1, 2016Yoiks – Carrying On The Tradition
The nomadic Sami herdsmen of Scandinavia have preserved their oral history in a unique form of story-song called a “yoik.”