8
Jun 2021
What matters more in getting cited — what you say or how you say it? In this remastered and remixed version of our first episode of the show, we're revisited by Ryan Kelly from the University of Washington's School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. He talks with us about his article "Narrative St...
11
May 2021
How did a Cold War era debacle help us better understand the dangers of climate change? In episode 99 of Parsing Science, we talk with Drew Christ from the University of Vermont about his research into how fossils plucked from forgotten experiment in the Arctic led to his discovery the last time Gre......
20
Apr 2021
What can DNA tell us about the migration of the earliest modern humans and other hominins? In episode 97 of Parsing Science, we talk with João Teixeira from the University of Adelaide about his research which examined the genomes of modern humans to investigate the interbreeding between ancient huma...
6
Apr 2021
Can science help solve a real-life mystery? In episode 97 of Parsing Science, we talk with Alexander Puzrin from ETH Zurich about his research into The Dyatlov Pass incident, a 62-year-old mystery involving the deaths of nine hikers in the freezing Russian wilderness, a tragedy that’s been attribute...
23
Mar 2021
Do monkeys know how much fruit your sunglasses are worth? In episode 96 of Parsing Science, we talk with Jean-Baptiste "JB" Leca from the University of Lethbridge's Department of Psychology about his field research observing interactions among macaques at a Hindu temple in Bali. There, the monkeys h......
9
Mar 2021
How much can you trust people's retelling of information the've read? In episode 95, Shiri Melumad from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business discusses her research showing that when – much like the children’s game “telephone” – news is repeatedly retold, it undergoes a stylist...
23
Feb 2021
Why do mosquitoes prefer us over other animals? In episode 94, we talk with Zhilei Zhao and Lindy McBride from Princeton about their research into how mosquitoes that can carry dangerous diseases - such as Zika, dengue, West Nile virus and malaria - are able to track us down so quickly while ignorin...
9
Feb 2021
What can a video game teach us about our epistemic philosophy? In episode 93, Luke Cuddy from Southwestern College’s philosophy program talks with us about the video game The Witness, which presents players with a multitude of increasingly sophisticated and frustrating puzzles that perhaps result fr...
26
Jan 2021
What effect did copying the U.S.'s legal system have on Colombia's incarceration system? In episode 92, Ángela Zorro Medina from the University of Chicago discussed her research into how transitioning to an adversarial model of criminal procedure – one controlled by the prosecutor and defense, rat...
12
Jan 2021
How are automated social media bots manipulating our political discourse? In episode 91, Emilio Ferrara from the University of Southern California discusses his research into bots' amplification of conspiracies theories across more than 240 million tweets regarding the 2020 U.S. presidential elect......
29
Dec 2020
What do changes in our beliefs about the death of our pets over the past century say about the relationship we have with our companion animals? In episode 90, Eric Tourigny from Newcastle University's School of History, Classics and Archaeology discusses his research into historic pet cemeteries a......
15
Dec 2020
How can drones help us find settlements long-lost to time? In episode 89, Jesse Casana from Dartmouth College's Department of Anthropology discusses his research into using multi-sensor drones to collect data about a major Native American settlement in what is now Southeastern Kansas. His article ......
23
Nov 2020
How did the earliest and largest clusters of galaxies form? In episode 88, Arianna Long from the University California - Irvine talks with us about her research into the emergence of massive dusty star-forming galaxies that developed billions of years ago. Her article “Emergence of an Ultra-Red Ul...
10
Nov 2020
How could a gene that causes one type of ALS be switched off? In episode 87, Tim Miller from the Washington University in St. Louis discusses his research into therapies that target the single strands of DNA or RNA which cause many cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou G......
27
Oct 2020
Can we knowingly fake ourselves out? In episode 86 of Parsing Science we talk with Darwin Guevarra from Michigan State University about his research exploring how placebos sometimes have the power to reduce neural markers of emotional distress, even in cases in which people are told told that they......
13
Oct 2020
How are Black women using social media to develop community and identity? In episode 85 we talk with Kyesha Jennings from North Carolina State University Department of English about her analysis of what the wildly popular meme "hot girl summer" - drawn from lyrics by hip-hop phenomenon, Megan Thee......
29
Sep 2020
Should I have done something differently? Or could nobody have seen it coming? In episode 84 Satoris "Tori" Howes from Oregon State University-Cascades and Edgar "Ed" Kausel from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile join us to discuss their research into the malleability of narcissists' memory...
15
Sep 2020
Why do religious leaders abstain from some pleasures? In episode 83, Manvir Singh from Harvard University's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology discusses his research into why shaman healers among the a group of people off the coast of Indonesia observe costly prohibitions, such abstinence or......
1
Sep 2020
Does spanking really have lasting impacts on kids' later lives? In episode 82, Nicole Barbaro from Western Governors University Labs talks with us about her research into the factors that determine the answer to this question. Her study “The effects of spanking on psychosocial outcomes: revisiting...
18
Aug 2020
Is it an actual conspiracy, or just a theory about one? In episode 81, Tim Tangherlini from the University of California Berkeley’s Folklore Program discusses his research into how conspiracy theorists interpret and use what they believe is “hidden knowledge” to connect multiple human interactions...
4
Aug 2020
How do our brains respond when people behave in unpredictable ways? In episode 80, Jordan Theriault from Northeastern University discusses his research into a set of brain regions which, when activated by a variety of social tasks, can provide insights into how we judge the moral objectivity or su......
21
Jul 2020
What's that on your breath? In episode 79 of Parsing Science we talk with Neil Garg from UCLA about his research into the fundamental chemistry necessary for the creation of a small, electronic test of marijuana that works by way of a simple electrochemical oxidation process similar to that used i......
7
Jul 2020
What if mosquitos weren't just annoying bugs, but instead were bio-inspiring features? In episode 78, we talk with Richard Bomphrey from the University of London’s Royal Veterinary College about how mosquitoes can detect surfaces using the airflow caused by the movement of their own wings … and th...
23
Jun 2020
What impact did Black politicians have during the Reconstruction? In episode 77, Trevon Logan from The Ohio State University's Department of Economics discusses his research into the election of Black politicians after the Civil War ended in 1865, which led to increased tax revenues that were put ......
9
Jun 2020
Why do some of us choose to remain ignorant of information that - though perhaps unpleasant - could help us make better informed decisions in the future? In episode 76, Emily Ho from Northwestern University’s Department of Medical Social Sciences discusses her research into why we keep our heads i...
26
May 2020
Might a 66.7-million-year-old "turducken" be the world's oldest bird? In episode 75, Daniel Field from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge discusses his research into a bird that mashes up features from chickens, turkeys, and ducks. Its fossil provides the best evidence......
12
May 2020
Very few animals can combine information to adjust their predictions in a flexible way by using domain-general intelligence as humans do. In episode 74, Amalia Bastos from the University of Auckland discusses her research demonstrating that kea parrots can make predictions based in probabilities, ......
29
Apr 2020
Are drivers of more expensive cars really the jerks we make them out to be? In Episode 73, Courtney Coughenour and Jennifer Pharr from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas discuss their research into what differentiates drivers who are likely to yield for pedestrians in crosswalks from those who do...
14
Apr 2020
Are wild tigers now extinct in Laos? In episode 72, Akchousanh "Akchou" Rasphone from Oxford's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit discusses her research which concludes that improvised snares appear to have decimated the country's wild tiger population, a species whose worldwide population is now......
31
Mar 2020
Why is it that we treat various species of animals so differently? In episode 71, Verónica Sevillano with the Autonomous University of Madrid discusses her research applying social psychology and conservation biology to understand the relationships people have with animals. Her chapter, "Animals a...
17
Mar 2020
Can even a single-celled organism truly learn? In Episode 70, Jeremy Gunawardena with the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School talks with us about his replication of an experiment originally conducted over a century ago, which suggested that at least one single-cell organism - t......
3
Mar 2020
Why Velcro 3D glasses onto cuttlefish? In Episode 69, Trevor Wardill from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota discusses his research into the previously unknown ability of the cephalopod to see in stereo vision. His article, “Cuttlefish use stereopsis t...
18
Feb 2020
What factors best predict success at college among youth formerly in foster care? In Episode 68, Royel Johnson from Pennsylvania State University's Department of Education Policy Studies discusses systematic literature review of research on the college success of this historically underserved popu...
4
Feb 2020
How can research improve the lives of livestock, even as they're on their way to slaughter? In episode 67, Temple Grandin from the Colorado State University's College of Agricultural Sciences talks with us about her work on promoting improved communications between academic researchers and those i......
21
Jan 2020
Did you catch that? In episode 66, Katherine Wood from the University of Illinois discusses her research with the scientist behind the famous “Invisible Gorilla” experiments, Daniel Simons, into if and when people notice unexpected objects in inattentional blindness tasks. She discusses her and Si...
7
Jan 2020
Can your doctor's beliefs about the efficacy of a treatment affect how you experience pain? In episode 65, we’re joined by Luke Chang from the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. He talks with us about his research into socially transmitted placebo effects, throu...
10
Dec 2019
The global decline of births from 1990 and 2015 has to a reduction in the proportion of people aged 15-29. So might this explain why the world’s homicide rate has dropped by nearly 20%? In episode 64, we’re joined by Mateus Rennó Santos from the University of South Florida. He talks with us about ...
26
Nov 2019
Why are bold, broad, and terse depictions of science perceived as more important, robust and generalizable than nuanced ones? In episode 63, we're joined by Susan Gelman from the University of Michigan, who talks with us about her research into the use of generic language in scientific papers. Her......
12
Nov 2019
Sure, you might have a tongue piercing. But would you consider something far more extreme for a bump on the social ladder? In episode 62, we're joined by Dimitris Xygalatas from the University of Connecticut, who talks with us about how extravagant and painful rituals can foster greater subjective......
29
Oct 2019
How can what engineers learn from how barn owls pinpoint the location of the faintest sounds apply to their development of nanotechnologies capable of doing even better? In episode 61, we're joined by Saptarshi Das, a nano-engineer from Penn State University, who talks with us about his open-acces......
15
Oct 2019
When real-time fMRI neurofeedback improves people's symptoms long after treatment, might that influence the guidance that's provided to patients, and also inform the design of future clinical trials? In episode 60, we're joined by Michelle Hampson from Yale University's School of Medicine. She dis......
1
Oct 2019
In striving to develop expertise, are 10,000 hours of deliberate practice really required, and must it be guided by a teacher or coach? In episode 59, we're joined by Brooke Macnamara from Case Western Reserve University. She'll discuss her attempted replication of the study which led to the mantr...
17
Sep 2019
What can brain scans of radicalized jihadists tell us about how they react to what they perceive as attacks on their sacred values? In episode 58, we're joined by Nafees Hamid from Artis International who talks with us about his article “Neuroimaging ‘will to fight’ for sacred values: an empirical...
3
Sep 2019
What changes when we attempt to measure personality outside of the contexts where the instruments were developed and validated? In episode 57, we're joined by Karen Macours from the Paris School of Economics about her research into practical issues with using a popular Big Five personality measure......
20
Aug 2019
How can a satellite the size of a loaf of bread take the heat of operating in the extreme conditions existing in space without overheating? In episode 56, we're joined by Naia Butler-Craig from the Georgia Institute of Technology to discuss her open access article “An investigation of the system a...
6
Aug 2019
How do some fish see color in the black-and-white world of the ocean's depths? In episode 55, Zuzana Musilová, an evolutionary biologist at Charles University in Prague, discusses her research into the unique way that some fish in the deep ocean’s darkness may be able to see in color. Her article ...
23
Jul 2019
Can communication across networks of people be optimized to share information, while at the same time lessening the likelihood of information bubbles and echo chambers? In Episode 54, we're joined by Ida Momennejad and Ajua Duker from Columbia University and Yale University, respectively, to discu......
9
Jul 2019
Might we be better able to understand what's going on inside the "black box" of machine learning algorithms? In episode 53, Been Kim from Google Brain talks with us about her research into creating algorithms that can explain why they make the recommendations they do via concepts that are relatabl......
25
Jun 2019
"Nothing in life is certain," writes MIT mechanical engineer Seth Lloyd, "except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics." But is this necessarily so? In episode 52, we're joined by Andreas Schilling with the University of Zurich, who discusses his development of an amazingly simple de......
11
Jun 2019
Just how rampant is scientific misconduct? In episode 51, Elisabeth Bik talks with us about her research suggesting that as many as 35,000 papers in biomedicine journals may be candidates for retraction due to inappropriate image duplication. Her open-access article, “Analysis and Correction of In...
