Shocking Ideas

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2016

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Electricity is so 19th century. Most of the uses for it were established by the 1920s. So there’s nothing innovative left to do, right? That’s not the opinion of the Nobel committee that awarded its 2014 physics prize to scientists who invented the blue LED. Find out why this LED hue of blue was worthy of our most prestigious science prize … how some bacteria actually breathe rust … and a plan to cure disease by zapping our nervous system with electric pulses. Guests: Siddha Pimputkar – Postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Department of the Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center under Shuji Nakamura, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara Jeff Gralnick – Associate professor of microbiology at the University of Minnesota Kevin Tracey – Neurosurgeon and president of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York First released December 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:04.2	I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Safeguarding Sound Science, Evolution Edition.
0:09.6	Evolution is the unifying principle of biology, yet it still breeds controversy a century
0:15.3	and a half after Charles Darwin.
0:17.7	Join us as we meet the passionate researchers and communicators who are expanding our knowledge
0:23.0	and fighting to keep good science in our schools and politics. Subscribe to safeguarding sound
0:29.3	science on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you like to listen. Ah, the electron. It's invisible,
0:36.6	and yet you see it everywhere. This tiny particle
0:39.4	makes your gustow-grabbing life possible. Get electrons to flow, and they can light up the Brooklyn Bridge
0:44.9	or heat a burrito in the microwave. But scientists are sparking new ways to generate and use electricity.
0:51.3	One day bacteria might produce it, or we may send a pulse of it through your body
0:55.7	to cure disease. This research, plus the 2014 Nobel Prize winning physics that gave us the
1:01.5	blue LED. Your smartphone wouldn't light up without it. We have shocking ideas next on
1:07.3	Big Picture Science.
1:17.6	Before the Victorian era, electricity referred to only one of two things.
1:22.2	There was static electricity, such as you might generate by shuffling across a carpet in the winter, or combing your hair, or brushing your cat.
1:26.2	Hold on, kitty.
1:28.3	Ow! I'm trying to spiff you up.
1:30.3	Ow!
1:32.3	But you can't run your home on static electricity.
1:35.3	Now, children, once more, as mother wants to try out her new flat iron,
1:39.3	take off your sweaters really fast this time, then rub these balloons on your head.
	...

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