Our Floral Planet

We admire the ornamental beauty of flowers in a garden, but those blooms are more than lush color. The seemingly fragile, delicate petals are part of a resilient, adaptive innovation that arrived on the scene 250 million years ago and transformed life on the planet. Much life, including us, would not have evolved without flowering planets. Yet the power of the petal is often overlooked. How does our perspective on nature’s web change if we give flowers the credit they deserve? Celebrated biologist David Haskell shares the story of how nature’s revolutionaries evolved their vibrant hues and intoxicating scents to lure bees, butterflies and other animals into cooperative partnerships.  Guest: David George Haskell – biologist, professor at Emory University, and author of “How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature’s Revolutionaries" You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Breakthroughs around the detection of cosmic neutrinos — the “ghost” particles that may reveal why matter, not antimatter, fills the universe — recently earned a physicist the Nobel Prize in Physics. But one group of  neutrino hunters isn’t waiting for supernovae to churn up these high-energy particles. A massive new experiment that spans three states will create neutrinos and fire them into liquid argon to better understand their mysterious behavior. And after the better part of a century, scientists may finally have glimpsed the primary component of nearly all matter: dark matter. Are we close to understanding what it is? Finally, we glimpse the proton-smashing at the Large Hadron Collider as it hints at undiscovered physics and puts a stress test on the Standard Model.   Guests:  Kate Shaw – experimental particle physicist at the University of Sussex who works on the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, DUNE   Kimberly Palladino – astrophysicist, professor of physics at the University of Oxford, and the project scientist for LUX- ZEPLIN an international collaboration searching for dark matter   Harry Cliff – particle physicist at the University of Cambridge and a researcher with the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN   You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A growing online movement of sunscreen skeptics believes that sunblock is toxic, even suggesting that it might cause skin cancer. Medical experts, concerned by rising skin cancer rates, are rushing to push back against these claims. Meanwhile, new research suggests that too little sunlight could be detrimental to health and links it to some cardiovascular disease and cancer. How do we navigate through the darkness of these seemingly conflicting messages about sunlight? We enter the slippery world of skin care to break down the science of sunlight and sunscreen and uncover some surprising effects that UV rays have on our bodies.   Guests:  Brian Underwood – journalist and Beauty and Grooming Director of Men’s Health and Women’s Health, and author of the article, The Anti-Sunscreen Movement is Coming for You   Rowan Jacobsen – science writer and the author of “In Defense of Sunlight”   Dr. Michelle Henry – cosmetic dermatologist and dermatologic surgeon, Clinical Instructor of Dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College  You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Healthy rivers and riparian ecosystems are teaming with life, but should rivers themselves be considered alive? The question is central to the growing rights-of-nature movement that claims that ecosystems and entities, like rivers, have legal rights. After Ecuador enshrined the rights of nature in its constitution, lawyers employed the new personhood status to stop mining companies from clearing a section of the Los Cedros River and its surrounding biodiverse cloud forest. Granting rivers moral standing comes as over-damming, pollution, and climate change have put them in crisis globally. Writer Robert Macfarlane explores how seeing rivers as living beings rather than just resources – a change he calls “a great act of moral imagination” – could help save our watersheds and rivers, upon which all life depends.    Guest:  Robert Macfarlane – Writer and Professor of Literature and Environmental Humanities at the University of Cambridge, and author of “Is a River Alive?”  Originally posted June 23, 2025 Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake  You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Extreme heat is taking its toll on the natural world. We use words like “heat domes” and “freakish” to describe our everyday existence. These high temperatures aren’t only uncomfortable - they are lethal to humans, animals, and crops. In search of an answer to our episode’s question, we discuss the dilemma of an ever-hotter world with an author who has covered climate change for more than twenty years.  Guest:  Jeff Goodell – author of “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.”  Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake  Originally aired October 2, 2023  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new space telescope will soon give us an expanded field of view of some of the strangest phenomena in the cosmos. The launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will initiate this instrument’s contributions to the understanding of black holes, dark matter, and dark energy. It will also further the search for exoplanets. The project’s principal and deputy investigators join us to describe the telescope’s science goals, and astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson provides his big picture view of the most exciting recent discoveries in astronomy and cosmology.   Guests:  Julie McEnery – Astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center and senior project scientist for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.   Jason Rhodes – JPL project scientist for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, focusing on dark energy, dark matter, and cosmic evolution.   Neil deGrasse Tyson – Astrophysicist and director of New York City’s Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, and author of "Lost in Space: 5,000 Facts for Navigating the Universe".   Anna de Graaff – Astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy    You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The abrupt defunding of USAID in 2025 caused global shockwaves. The cuts thrust recipient countries who were dependent on foreign aid for medical care into health crises. One area that has been particularly hard hit is Malawi, a country in southeastern Africa where doctors and community organizers are struggling to fill the gaps in essential services left in the wake of the USAID cuts. The loss of local outreach clinics and lack of fuel for ambulances has caused severe delays—and sometimes tragic outcomes—in providing care to mothers and children. A year out from the cuts, we look at how Malawi is rethinking its relationship to foreign aid as it considers how to continue providing vital health services.  In the first of a series supported by the nonprofit Pulitzer Center and in collaboration with Science Magazine, we provide an on-the-ground look at the impact of USAID defunding on health services in key spots across the globe.   Guests:   Catherine Offord – journalist, Science Magazine. Her article, “An Uncertain Path,” appeared in the July 16 issue of the magazine   Voices heard in the show:   Fanizo Simenti – community health worker at Katenje Health Post, Kasungu district   Emily Mvula – former recipient of services provided by USAID MOMENTUM   Issah Omar Nicks – nursing officer overseeing the maternity ward at the Makiyoni Health Center, Salima District   Aran Nkhata – medical clinician in charge of Makiyoni Health Center, Salima District   Flywell Elenesto – cold chain technician for Salima District, Malawi   Sungeni Thole – nurse midwife technician at Makiyoni Health Center, Salima District   Anthony Masamba – MP and chair of The Parliamentary Committee on Health   Show theme by Jun Miyake. Episode image by Thoko Chikondi.  You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They are known for holding branches in their paws and gnawing on them like corn cobs. They build lodges and dams which occasionally flood roads. Cute, comical, and considered pests, beavers were nearly hunted to extinction for their pelts before conservation efforts allowed their populations to rebound. Now environmentalists and engineers are reintroducing North America’s largest rodent to drought-prone habitats across the country. As the paddle-tailed animals’ dam-building has revealed itself to be a potent bulwark against climate change-induced water scarcity, the beaver is being hailed as an ecological hero.   Join us as we stomp through soggy meadows getting to know the OG geoengineers. From their water pressure-sensing tails to their intricate branch-weaving, find out why, as our nation’s wetlands disappear, and new federal policies strip protection for many of those that remain, many think that partnership with a wild species could help build ecological resiliency.  Guests:  Leila Philip – Journalist and author of “Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America”  Denise Burchsted – research scientist, and engineer, Keene State College  Clay Frazer – restoration ecologist with Native Range Ecological  Michael Waasegiizhig Price – traditional ecological knowledge specialist at the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. He is Anishinaabe and a longtime tribal college educator serving at Leech Lake Tribal College and White Earth Tribal and Community College.  Originally aired July 28, 2025  You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether in miles or pounds, meters or kilograms, we take daily measure out our lives. But how did these units ever come to be, and why do we want to change them? From light-years to leap seconds, we look at the history of efforts to quantify our lives and why there’s always room for greater precision. Plus, we debate the virtues of staying imperial measurements vs. going metric.   Guest:  James Vincent - Author of Beyond Measure, the Hidden History of Measurement  Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake  Originally aired March 24, 2023  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are we alone in the universe? Is there other intelligence out there? COSMIC, the most ambitious SETI search yet, hopes to answer that. We hear updates on this novel signal detection project being conducted on the Very Large Array in the desert of New Mexico. Also, we chat with award-winning science fiction writer Ted Chiang about how he envisions making contact with aliens in his stories, including the one that was the basis for the movie Arrival. And find out why some scientists don’t want only to listen for signals, they want to deliberately transmit messages to aliens. Is that wise and, if we did it, what would we say?   Guests:  Chenoa Tremblay – Postdoc researcher in radio astronomy for the SETI Institute and member of COSMIC science team  Ted Chiang – Nebula and Hugo award-winning science fiction writer, best known for his collections, Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation  Douglas Vakoch – Founder and president of METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to transmitting intentional signals to extraterrestrial civilizations  Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake  Originally aired April 3, 2023  Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.  You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices