A champion of citizen scientists – sophisticated but uncredentialed – she cofounded the NYC Bat Group and conducts bat tours of Central Park for the Museum of Natural History. A conversation at KGB’s Red Room. Produced with Lori Schwarz. Music: Mike Casey Continue reading »
Category Archives: Science & Medicine
Episode 293: Dr. Budd Heyman
He directs prison health services at Bellevue Hospital, treating inmates from New York City jails. “We have mostly chest pains, broken jaws, kidney failure, altered mental status.” Broken jaws. From fights. Delivering high-quality care in high-stress circumstances. Music: the Wisterians. Produced with Dr. Ruth Oratz. Continue reading »
Episode 289: Michael Dowling
Despite a distinguished career in health policy, he calls hurling “one of the greatest loves of my life.” It is Ireland’s national sport, a game of speed, skill, and impressive injuries. Or maybe because of that career: “You’ve got to be in great shape to play this,” he tells the Irish Arts Center. Music: Those Sensible Shoes. Continue reading »
Episode 287: Dr. Mar Cortes
She practices rehabilitative medicine, as a clinician and a researcher, helping patients recover from strokes and spinal cord injuries. Why yes, she has taken a patient sky-diving. (Medicare wouldn’t cover it.) A conversation at KGB’s Red Room. Produced with Lori Schwarz. Music: Guy Ruby. Continue reading »
Episode 280: Leslie Vosshall
This neurogeneticist esteems Rita Levi-Montalcini, who won a Nobel Prize for her work on human growth factor. She experimented with eggs, and then she ate the eggs. Science during wartime. In hiding. In a basement lab. Great stories at KGB’s Red Room, produced with Lori Schwarz. Music from Leslie Goshko. Continue reading »
Episode 270: Davida Smyth
When Antonie van Leeuwenhoek devised his microscope in 1676, it was not to study bacteria, says this microbiologist: “He designed it so he could look at thread; he was a draper.” Thus an amateur – a tailor – sparked a scientific revolution. A conversation with a champion of citizen scientists at KGB’s Red Room, produced … Continue reading »
Episode 266: Robert Fullilove
As a college kid in 1964, he went to Mississippi for Freedom Summer. Later he began working with the Bard Prison Initiative, and he’s now a dean at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. In a sense, his work remains the same: the pursuit of of social justice. Music from Valerie and Ben Turner: Piedmont Bluz. Continue reading »
Episode 262: Einat Lev
Is scientific thought regional? Do people in Iceland devise different ideas from people in India? No, says geophysicist Einat Lev: science is science around the world. Yet she’s visited 40 countries, most with no volcano. Paradox or pleasure? A conversation at KGB’s Red Room, produced with Lori Schwarz and 500 Women Scientists. Music from Francois … Continue reading »
Episode 257: Charles Branas
The Senate and the Supreme Court thwart meaningful action on gun violence, but the chair of the epidemiology department at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health asserts that his field offers a way forward. Ignorant despair (mine) versus sophisticated hopefulness (his). Music from Lily Henley and Duncan Wickel. Photo by Michel DiVito. Continue reading »
Episode 254: Sarah Pearson
Doing pure is science akin to doing art, says astrophysicist Sarah Pearson: both lack obvious utility; both enable us to see the world in new ways. The first in our women scientists series, produced with Lori Schwarz at KGB’s Red Room and 500 Women Scientists. Music from Miss Maybell and Charlie Judkins. Continue reading »
Episode 237: Blanche Pitt
ICAP at Columbia University sees its international public health work as part of broad commitment to social justice. Nobody personifies those values more than Blanche Pitt, who directs ICAP’s projects in South Africa. With music from Kevin Nathaniel Hylton. Person: Mark Heywood Place:: Joseph Stone Auditorium Thing: South African Constitution Randy’s People: Gilbert & … Continue reading »
Episode 232: Steven Hamburg
The head scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, he knows the literature thoroughly and yet asserts, “The tension between what I read and what I observed was the area where I made my biggest contribution.” Science and the creative process. Plus another sort of creativity from musician Hannah Read. Photo by Leslie Von Pless. Person: … Continue reading »