Episodes
-
Did you know that there are ten quintillionâor 10,000,000,000,000,000,000âindividual insects on the planet? That means that for each and every one of us humans, there are 1.25 billion insects hopping, buzzing, and flying about.
A new book called The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture celebrates the diversity of the insect world, as well as the many ways it has changed oursâfrom fashion to food to engineering.
Guest host Sophie Bushwick talks with entomologist and author Dr. Barrett Klein about the beauty of the insect world, how it has shaped human history, and what we can learn from these six-legged critters.
Further ReadingCheck out Dr. Barrett Klein's artwork on his website.Watch a Ted talk about imagining a world without insects. -
Before the pandemic, Peter Kiesewalter didnât think much of moths. Like a lot of people, heâd thought of them mostly as pests. But when his brother Tobi, an interpretive naturalist for Ontario Parks and moth enthusiast, showed him macro photos heâd taken of them, he was blown away. â[They were] absolutely stunning,â Peter says. âThe amount of colors and hair were just extraordinary.â
Peter is a Grammy-nominated musician based in New York City. Heâs composed music for ABC News, Monday Night Football, and even a âWinnie The Poohâ show. As COVID-19 spread in 2020, work for him and his partner Whitney La Grange, a professional violinist, dried up. So they hunkered down at the family cottage in Ottawa, Canada, along with Tobiâs family. Peter was looking for a new show idea, and when his brother opened up the world of moths to him, he was hooked. âI had to find a way to interpret moths artistically,â he said. âAnd I started to find connections between them and us.â
That led to âThe Moth Project,â a concept album and stage show that combines moth science and visuals with a whole ecosystem of musical genres: 80s pop, funk, classical, covers, even spoken word. Each song ties a stage of a mothâs life (emergence, flight, migration) to a universal human experience. But for Peter, a lot of these songs turned out to be far more personal than he initially thought.
SciFri producer and host of our Universe of Art podcast D Peterschmidt sat down with Peter and Tobi Kiesewalter and Whitney La Grange to find out how this album came together and how understanding moths could better help us understand ourselves.
If you want to see âThe Moth Projectâ live, you can find out about upcoming shows here.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. Our show art is illustrated by Abelle Hayford. And support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
Missing episodes?
-
When you think of famous scientists of the early United States, you likely think of Benjamin Franklin, inventor of the lightning rod, bifocal glasses, and even the glass harmonica.
He and his son are the subject of the play âFranklinland.â It explores their sometimes contentious relationship, Benjamin Franklinâs accomplishments as a scientist, and how the scientific method can be used to understand the ongoing experiment of the United States. Itâs running now until November 3 at the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York City.
Ira Flatow is joined by the playwright of âFranklinland,â Lloyd Suh, to learn how he joined all of these elements for the stage.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. Our show art is illustrated by Abelle Hayford. And support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
Would you be interested in a cookie infused with smog from your favorite city? Maybe a loaf of sourdough made from wheat tainted by wildfires?
Those are just a few of the projects from the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, based in Amsterdam and Portugal, where artists use innovative ingredients to represent environmental crises and imagine what the future of food could look like.
Ira talks with Zack Denfeld, co-founder of the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, about how art and food can help us envision a more sustainable food system.
Read the full story about how artists and chefs are putting ecological crises on the menu.
Plus, one of Vincent Van Goghâs most famous creations is âThe Starry Night,â an oil painting of a quaint French village at night with a blue night sky that dramatically swirls around the yellow stars and moon.
Itâs easy to admire this painting as a casual viewer, but if you research fluid dynamics, one thing in particular stands out: those iconic swirls in the sky. To a physicist, they look an awful lot like the swirls that atmospheric turbulence produces. And some researchers have been wondering if Van Goghâs swirls actually match the mathematical models of turbulence theory.
Well, a team of researchers from China and France set out to analyze all the swirls in âThe Starry Night,â and it turns out that Van Gogh had a knack for depicting the forces of nature. Their results were published in the journal Physics Of Fluid.
Guest host Anna Rothschild sits down with Dr. Francois Schmitt, research professor in physics at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and co-author of the recent study, to talk about the hidden physics in this famous painting.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The first segment was produced by Rasha Aridi and Robin Kazimer, and the last segment was produced by D Peterschmidt. Our show art is illustrated by Abelle Hayford. And support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
Octopus mating behaviors can be quite deadly. Many species are cannibalistic, making the entire prospect of mating dangerous, and female octopuses often die after laying one clutch of eggs. Their cannibalistic tendencies mean that octopuses donât socialize as much as other animals.
But the larger Pacific striped octopus (LPSO) is different. For one, they live together in colonies. And mating is not only a safer proposition, it involves beak-to-beak âkissing.â Plus, females can lay eggs repeatedly, even tending to embryos at various stages of development.
But because these behaviors are so uncharacteristic of most octopuses, the scientific community didnât officially recognize their existence until 2015, despite the decades-long effort of a Panamanian diver and artist named Arcadio Rodaniche. When he tried to share his findings about the LPSO at a symposium and publish them in a journal, he was flatly rejected. But his persistent research and documentation of the species would eventually be validated when researchers were able to obtain and observe the octopuses in captivity.
SciFri producer Kathleen Davis sits down with freelance science writer Kenna Hughes-Castleberry to talk about an article she reported for Science Friday about the late Rodaniche and his yearslong effort to get official scientific recognition for the LPSO.
An illustration of a larger Pacific striped octopus by Arcadio Rodaniche. Image courtesy of Denice Rodaniche.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music and produced the original segment, along with Val Diaz. Our show art is illustrated by Abelle Hayford. And support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
In July, researchers discovered the oldest known cave art. It was found in a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, and it shows three human-like figures and a wild pig. The painting was dated at 51,200 years oldâ5,000 years older than any other known cave art.
The finding continues a trend of researchers unearthing older and older examples of human-made art, including those found outside of Spain and Southern France, where most cave art discoveries have been made.
Guest host Maggie Koerth is joined by Dr. Isobel Wisher, a postdoctoral researcher with the Evolution of Early Symbolic Behavior project at Aarhus University in Denmark, to discuss how this field of archeology has changed over the years, how new technology is making these ancient cave paintings more accessible to the public, and what they can tell us about the human experience.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music and produced the original segment. Our show art is illustrated by Abelle Hayford. And support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
Looking into space can be pretty daunting. How do we make sense of the vast expanse above our heads, the millions of stars we might be able to see, and the billions more we canât?
Now, what about listening to space? Thatâs the task that Sam Harnett and Chris Hoff gave themselves, for their series âCosmic Visions.â Theyâre the team behind âThe World According to Sound,â a podcast thatâs brought our listeners close to the sounds of science over the last few years.
This new series takes listeners through the history of astronomy and the study of the cosmos, from ancient Babylon to the Hubble Telescope. Harnett and Hoff join guest host John Dankosky to talk about why different ways of knowing are helpful for scientists, how images of nebulae share a striking resemblance to photos of the American West, and what their favorite space sounds are.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music and produced the original segment. Our show art is illustrated by Abelle Hayford. And support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
When you think about connections between science and war, the obvious links are in technologyâadvanced radar, spy satellites, more powerful explosivesâand in medical innovations that seek to heal the wounds caused by conflict. But in a new book, Stories are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, author Annalee Newitz says that stories and narrative can be weapons too, used in battle on a psychological battlefield.
Ira talks with Newitz about the history of psychological warfare, from Sun Tzu to Benjamin Franklin, and its modern American incarnation under the guidance of Paul Linebarger, who was also a science fiction author known by the pen name Cordwainer Smith. They discuss the characteristics of a psyop, how techniques of psychological warfare have been co-opted into modern politics, and whether thereâs a route toward âpsychological disarmament.â
Read an excerpt from Stories are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The original segment was produced by Charles Bergquist. Our show art is illustrated by Abelle Hayford. And support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
âTwisters,â the long awaited follow-up to the 1996 movie âTwisterâ is out now. Itâs about a scientist (Daisy Edgar-Jones) who goes back to her home state of Oklahoma to try and stop a massive tornado outbreak from wreaking havoc on its citizens. On the way, she meets a quirky cast of storm chasers, and butts heads with a band of unorthodox âtornado wranglersâ led by a YouTube personality (Glen Powell). âTwistersâ delights in name-dropping tornado jargon, and its science advisory team said they hoped to make the movie as accurate as possible.
The movie makes science thrilling, but it also shows the ways that tornadoes affect peopleâs lives in the real world. For example, earlier this week, the Chicago area was hit with multiple tornadoes during a night of extreme weather, leaving thousands without power, and four tornadoes hit upstate New York, killing one person. This comes after a powerful, and some say unusual, tornado season in the Midwest. But just how tornadoes will continue to change is still unknown.
Digital producer Emma Gometz talks with Dr. Bill Gallus, a meteorology professor at Iowa State University, to decode some of the science from âTwistersâ and understand how real-life tornadoes are changing.
Plus, on the International Space Station, resources are precious. That includes every single drop of waterâwhich is why astronauts drink their own filtered and recycled pee. That might sound a little undignified, but things get worse when astronauts go out for a space walk. If nature comes calling, their only option is a super-strength diaper.
Inspired by the stillsuits that recycle water in Frank Herbertâs âDuneâ series, researchers have come up with a way to keep astronauts clean, dry, and hydrated while theyâre hard at work. Theyâve designed a system that turns astronautsâ pee into nice, clean drinking water while theyâre suited up.
The researchers reported on their prototype in the journal Frontiers in Space Technology. Guest host Rachel Feltman talks with Sofia Etlin, a researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine, about the inspiration behind the stillsuit and how it works.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. Those original segments were produced by Emma Gometz and Rasha Aridi. Our show art is illustrated by Abelle Hayford. And support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
Itâs officially summertime, and the season of reading is finally here! Two science writers and voracious readers have compiled their summer reading recommendations, just for Science Friday fans. Before you head out for a week at the beach, start packing for that road trip, or stock up for a long staycation, weâve got the list of science-y summer reads, straight from those familiar with the best on the shelf.
Joining guest host Diana Plasker to offer listeners their recommendations are Riley Black, a Salt Lake City-based science writer and the author of several books, including The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World; and Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of several books, including The Poison Squad: One Chemistâs Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
You can check out the full list here.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
In the 2015 film âInside Out,â audiences met 11-year-old Riley and her team of emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger, each represented by a different character. They lived inside Rileyâs mind to help guide her feelings and actions, and towards the end of the film, their emotional control center gets an upgrade with a puberty button.
Thatâs where the new film âInside Out 2â picks up. Riley is now 13 years old and dealing with the slew of emotions that come with puberty. In the new film, moviegoers meet a new crew of characters: Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui, who is always bored.
But whatâs the science behind Rileyâs newfound teenage angst? Guest host Annie Minoff talks with psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour, who served as a science advisor to the film.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The original segment was produced by Rasha Aridi. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
For decades now, one music star has managed to show up on tracks spanning multiple genres and appear alongside many famous artistsâwhile also remaining bafflingly under-recognized. Any guesses?
Of course, weâre talking about none other than the common loonâa waterbird with striking red eyes and black-and-white checkerboard plumage. This birdâs calls have been used in songs by artists like Michael Jackson, Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, Doja Cat, and Lana Del Rey. Theyâve also been used as a sound effect in Hollywood blockbusters like âHarry Potterâ and the TV show âGame of Thrones.â
So how did this birdâs call become a regular in everything from hip hop and EDM to pop music? A story in Audubon Magazine dove into this, and guest host Arielle Duhaime-Ross talks with author Maddie Burakoff, an associate editor at Audubon.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The original segment was produced by Rasha Aridi. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
One of the biggest, most intriguing questions in the world is quite simple: Are we alone in this universe? Astronomer and astrobiologist Dr. Aomawa Shields looks for signs of life in outer space by analyzing the climate and habitability of small exoplanets far beyond our solar system.
Shieldsâ path to science was a winding one. Through childhood and into her adult years, she toggled between two loves: acting and space. In her new memoir Life On Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe, she describes her search for signs of life in the cosmos and her quest to build a meaningful life here on Earth. She charts her life story from childhood to astronomy to acting and back to scienceâand what sheâs learned about herself and the universe along the way.
Guest host Swapna Krishna talks with Shields, professor at the University of California Irvine, about her research, the power that comes from combining the arts and science, and what sheâs learned from pondering the universe.
Read an excerpt from Life On Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The original segment was produced by Rasha Aridi. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
One year ago, we launched Universe Of Art. And to our surprise, a lot of listeners have written in since the start of the podcast, telling us about the science-inspired art theyâve made in their spare time. And today, we're featuring three of those listeners and their art.
Our first artist is Todd Gilens, a visual artist and designer who collaborated with the city of Reno, Nevada, to create a mile-long poem, called âConfluence,â printed on the cityâs sidewalks bordering the Truckee River. He was interested in how water shapes landscapes, and how urban architecture can mirror those natural processes. He later found the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory, a University of California field station near Mammoth Lakes, and spent several field seasons with them to learn about stream ecology.
Then, we'll meet Craig Colorusso, a punk rock guitarist-turned-sound artist who creates public sculptures and experiences that enhance visitorsâ connection to nature. Two of his projects, Sun Boxes and The Bridges At Coler, use solar panels to play reflective, calming music he composed. âYou have this idea where you are in nature and you are listening to something that is powered by nature,â he said. âI think thatâs perfect.â
And then weâll meet a listener who prefers to go by Chris, who was an engineer and avid artist who made mosaics and crocheted before developing Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). Itâs a debilitating condition characterized by extreme fatigue that canât be improved by rest, and can also include brain fog, pain, and dizziness. Chrisâ condition is considered severe, and caused her to lose the use of her hands, and thus her preferred art mediums. However, she could still use her left hand with a rollerball mouse and realized that she could use programs like Chaotica to create fractals that she adds to collages in Photoshop, resulting in the colorful and psychedelic images. âTheyâre just beautiful and Iâm doing art again and Iâm so happy about it,â she said.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
You can read a transcript for this episode here.
Think back to your favorite childhood TV showâwas it âBlueâs Cluesâ? âLittle Bearâ? âWinnie the Poohâ? Animated TV shows are important for kids because they can teach them to read, draw, spell, and talk. Plus, the ways these shows tell stories and create colorful, fictitious worlds can broaden childrenâs knowledge and capacity to imagine.
But childrenâs shows arenât accessible to all deaf children, which means they could miss out on a common learning experience. Among other things, that can set kids back in learning both American Sign Language (ASL) and English language skills during their formative early childhood years.
Melissa Malzkuhn is third-generation Deaf and the founder and director of the Motion Light Lab at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. Her lab is creating ASL-focused childrenâs media that is made by and for the Deaf community, using motion capture technology, avatars, animation, and signing storytellers. She talks with Science Friday guest host Arielle Duhaime-Ross about ASL access in childhood, the science of learning, and how sheâs creating âHere Comes Mavo!ââthe first animated TV series with signing characters.
Many thanks to Jennifer Vold for interpreting and to Jenna Beacom for consulting on this segment.
Editorâs note: Regarding capitalization for âDeafâ and âdeaf,â we believe this is an unsettled issue. For about 30 years, it was common to use capitalization to denote cultural deafness. In recent years, some national deaf organizations, like the National Deaf Center, have decided to use lowercase in their messaging to be more inclusive. Some individuals, however, prefer the capitalized version. We ask our guests to self-describe and capitalize at their request, and use âdeafâ for non-self-describing communities.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The original segment was produced by Rasha Aridi. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
NASA is preparing to send humans to Mars. Although the launch date has been pushed back over the years, the agency says it wants to get there in the 2030s. And it has a lot on its to-do list. NASA needs to build new rockets, new habitable living spaces, new spacesuits, and new radiation shielding, just to name a few items.
But what if the one of the biggest challenges of these missions is not the engineering, but the mental health of the astronauts? Can all of the crew members get along with each other and stay alive over the course of three years in tight quarters and unforgiving environments? How will they cope with being separated from their families and friends for so long? And what lessons can they learn from astronauts whoâve lived on the International Space Stationâand from our collective experience of isolation during the pandemic?
A new documentary, out March 8, explores all these questions and more. Itâs called âThe Longest Goodbye,â and it dives into NASAâs Human Factors program, which includes a group of psychologists who are trying to figure out the best way to preserve astronautsâ mental health on a long and demanding mission.
Host D. Peterschmidt spoke to the filmâs director, Ido Mizrahy, and one of its featured astronauts, Dr. Cady Coleman, about how NASA is thinking about tackling loneliness in space and what we can learn from astronauts whoâve already lived on the space station.
Plus, a listener shares his experience about performing a drumroll for the solar eclipse.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
Last month, Netflix released its adaptation of the Hugo Award-winning sci-fi book The 3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu. It follows the journey of several scientists, from the Chinese Cultural Revolution to the present day, as they seek to understand why their fellow researchers are dying and why their scientific results no longer make sense. Along the way, they discover an ultra-advanced VR game and a dark secret that suggests we might not be alone in the universe.
Guest host Arielle Duhaime-Ross sits down with the showâs science advisor, Dr. Matt Kenzie, an associate professor of physics at the University of Cambridge, to talk about what exactly the three body problem is, why he gave the actors physics lessons, and what he hopes audiences take away from a show focused on scientists.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
âDune: Part IIâ is one of the yearâs most highly anticipated films, and it picks up where the first film left off: with Paul Atreides escaping into the desert on the planet Arrakis. Itâs a scorching-hot world thatâs covered in dunes, and home to giant, deadly sandworms.
Obviously âDuneâ and its setting are fictional, but could there be a real planet that resembles Arrakis? And if so, could it sustain life?
Science Friday host Ira Flatow talks with Dr. Mike Wong, astrobiologist and planetary scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, about what Arrakisâ atmosphere is like, the search for life in the universe, and what sci-fi films get wrongâand rightâabout alien planets.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The original segment was produced by Rasha Aridi. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
A scientist and a comedian walk into a barâfor an interview about the craft of science comedy. Ira talks to comedians Chuck Nice, Kasha Patel, and Kyle Marian Viterbo about their work bringing the joke format to science communication.
While all three have different approaches to scienceâwhether itâs sneaking the knowledge into âregularâ jokes, or going straight for the factual jugularâthey agree that the practice of stand-up has much in common with the scientific process.
âWe normally start with an observation or a question,â says Nice. âThe experimentation is the joke itself, seeing whether or not it will get a laugh⊠you have to tell it in front of an audience. And after that you go, âWow, that sucked. I canât believe that wasnât funny.ââ
Plus, why comedy can itself be a science, and what good comedy has in common with good (science) communication.
âItâs a long term skillset in playing with, and communicating, and connecting with your audience,â says Viterbo. âTo be able to really listen to our audience, which these days we need more of.â
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The original segment was produced by Christie Taylor. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridayâs science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
-
Gamers often spend hours embarking on quests, unlocking new levels, and collecting badges. But what about when aspects of games start popping up in other parts of lifeâlike work, school, and exercise?
Adrian Hon created the fitness app âZombies, Run!â and has thought a lot about how the principles of gaming have crept into so many different corners of our lives, and why it may not always be as innocent as it seems.
Ira Flatow and co-host Kathleen Davis talk with Adrian Hon, author of Youâve Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All. Hon is also the CEO and founder of the game developer, Six to Start, based in Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Read an excerpt of Youâve Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, And Schools Use Games To Control Us All.
Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. The original segment was produced by Shoshannah Buxbaum. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Friday's science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Do you have science-inspired art youâd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo to [email protected].
- Show more
