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How to Raise Your Robot

January 27, 2011
People who build robots say that, in the future, we'll all have at least one of them working for us. They have learned that they need to create a kind of robot evolution in order to transform a basic robot... continued

We Set a Record

January 27, 2011
Greenland's ice sheet, which could be a major cause of rising sea levels, melted at a record rate in 2010. And a look at an ice field atop the highest mountain in the eastern European Alps suggests that the glacier... continued

From Poison to Pistons

January 27, 2011
E. coli bacteria is the primary cause of food poisoning. We may be able to get even for all those stomach aches we've had by turning it into automobile and jet fuel. The biotech company Joule Unlimited, which is privately... continued

Words

January 27, 2011
We've talked about the kind of language your computer uses, but what about the words that humans use? Google has created a huge database, consisting of 500 billion words, using over five million digitized books that are available to the... continued

Watch That Wind

January 26, 2011
Summer is hurricane season, which seems far away right now. But it never hurts to be prepared, because hurricanes do more than devastate the landscape--they're bad for pregnant women and their unborn children as well. Exposure to hurricanes can cause... continued

Throwing Made Us Human

January 26, 2011
During the football playoffs, we began to wonder how humans, unlike any other species on Earth, learned to throw long distances. New research suggests that this unique evolutionary trait is entangled with language development in a way critical to our... continued

Africa Splitting in Two

January 26, 2011
It isn't just war in the Sudan that is tearing apart Africa, it's earthquakes as well. Cracks began to be seen years ago, but it recent months they've increased, meaning that the continent is breaking apart in slow motion. On... continued

When a Star Explodes

January 25, 2011
If a star were to explode near the Earth, we would be hit with millions of deadly particles and cosmic rays, causing mass extinctions due to the high radiation of cosmic rays, which strips away our planet's protective ozone layer.... continued

Animal Extinctions Mean Bad Health for Humans

January 25, 2011
Extinction--of animals (NOTE: subscribers can still listen to this show), plants (and maybe even humans) is in our future (and may be starting right now), and protecting biodiversity is more than an act of environmental preservation--it can be a matter... continued

When Beetlejuice Explodes

January 25, 2011
Over the years, people have speculated that the sun has a twin (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show). The red giant star Betelgeuse ("Beetlejuice") is predicted to explode (become a super nova) shortly. If that happens, we will... continued