Big Picture Science Podcast: Making Hard Science "Easy"

 Podcasting has hundreds of thousands of podcasts, but, even with that large number, it still has weaknesses in certain genres, including minority, LGBTQ+, and women's issues.

However, podcasting is strong in science. Science Vs, Taboo Science, Unexplainable, and numerous other excellent science podcasts.

There's one especially successful science podcast that has more than 578 episodes under its production belt.

That's Big Picture Science. It's a terrific podcast that exposes junk science, highlights new scientific discoveries, and finds the science in everyday life.

Case in point: The May 6, 2024, episode titled, "Nuts & Bolts." Here's the episode show notes: "How frequently do you think about fasteners like screws and bolts? Probably not very often. But some of them a storied history, dating back to Egypt in the 3rd century BC. They aren’t just ancient history. They help hold up our bridges and homes today. Join us as we dissect a handful of engineering inventions that keep our world spinning and intact."

With guests Roma Agrawal, a structural engineer and author of "Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way)," and Ron Gordon - watchmaker, New York City, the show made these inconsequential fasteners, well, fascinating.

Big Picture Science is produced at the SETI Institute’s radio studio in Mountain View, California. The program began with the title Are We Alone? in 2002 as a commercially-supported call-in show distributed to a handful of stations on Radio America by Bill Oxley and Seth Shostak, who actually broadcast from their respective living rooms in San Diego and Mountain View.

In 2004, Molly Bentley joined AWA as an editor and executive producer, and about that time, support from the NASA Astrobiology Institute allowed them to build their own radio studio and move away from single interview call-ins, to a thematic multi-interview produced show.

After a short stint on the Discovery Channel’s outlet on Sirius Satellite Radio, SETI began distributing Are We Alone? On the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS) and the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). The name of the program was changed from Are We Alone? to Big Picture Science in July 2011.

Big Picture Science is supported in part by Sami David, Rena Shulsky David, the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Skeptic Check is presented thanks to a donation from the Trimberger Family Foundation.

The opening theme, "Kinematics" is composed arranged, programmed and produced by Jun Miyake and adds to the mystique of the show.

The show's co-hosts are Seth Shostak and Molly Bentley. Shostak and Bentley have been doing for years, so they are comfortable as hosts, interviewers, and with each other. The co-hosts can geek out on hard science and still laugh at science nerdiness, and they can get tough with junk science theories and claims. In essence, they make an enjoyable combo, like vanilla ice cream on apple pie.

 Seth Shostak is the Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, in Mountain View, California. He has an undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University, and a doctorate in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology. For much of his career, Shostak conducted radio astronomy research on galaxies, and has published approximately fifty papers in professional journals. He also founded and ran a company producing computer animation for TV.

Seth Shostak has written several hundred popular magazine and Web articles on various topics in astronomy, technology, film and television. He has edited and contributed to a half dozen books. His first popular tome, “Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life” appeared in 1998. He has also authored “Life in the Universe” (2006, 2nd edition, textbook, with Jeff Bennett) and “Cosmic Company” (2003, with Alex Barnett). His most recent book is “Confessions of an Alien Hunter” (2009).

Molly Bentley oversees the production of Big Picture Science. She has worked as a science journalist for the BBC, including World Service, Radio 4 and Science/Nature Online. She has also written for New Scientist. Furthermore, she teaches a course on radio writing and podcast production at the University of California, Santa Cruz Science Writing Program.

She’s been an invited participant to a number of workshops about helping scientists communicate more effectively with reporters, including the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, Switzer Environmental Fellowship workshop, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Science Communication Workshop, sponsored by the Metcalf Institute and funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

She attended M.I.T.’s Knight Science Journalism workshops in 2007 and 2010. Her radio career began when she wandered into Wisconsin Public Radio and landed a job answering the phones for the early-morning call-in show, then graduated on to less insane hours as assistant producer of the national radio magazine, To the Best of Our Knowledge.

So, of my favorite episodes features a show with the fabulous, witty, and often wacky science writer Mary Roach. In "Animals Being Jerks," the subtitle says it all -- "They’re cute and cuddly. But they can also be obnoxious."

Then, we listen, amazed and amused, when Roach spins bizarre tales about how our animal friends don’t always bow to their human overlords and behave the way we’d want. The resulting encounters, such as when gulls disrupt the Vatican’s Easter mass, make for amusing stories. But others, such as wolves threatening farmers’ livestock, can be tragic.

On the April 15, 2024, episode, "For The Birds" we hear about migratory birds that travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Olympic athlete gasp. More importantly, we discover what can we do to save disappearing species? Plus, we learn how 19th century bird-lovers, appalled by feathered hats, started the modern conservation movement.

Finally, on the recent July 11, 2024, show -- "Aliens Now" -- the co-hosts talk to astrophysicist Adam Frank about the possibility of intelligent life on other planets. Don't worry. There are no discussion of anal probes, or aliens bursting out of your chest. Instead, Frank explains the Drake Equation and Fermi Paradox, which are the yin and yang of the "are there intelligent aliens" question. Frank explains that NASA is planning a telescope after the James Webb Telescope called the "Habitable Worlds Observatory," which focuses on finding other life in the universe. 

Check out Big Picture Science. It is one of the best science podcasts out there. After all, as Fox Mulder of The X Files once intoned, "Scully, the truth is out there."