Episode 46 - Extraterrestrials

Released: 6 April 2020
Duration: 53 minutes, 55 seconds

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Author and podcaster Wade Roush talks about his forthcoming book from MIT Press, Extraterrestrials. The book covers astrobiology, SETI, the Fermi paradox and more for a literate but non-specialist audience.

Guest Bio

WADE ROUSH, a Boston-based science and technology journalist, is a columnist at Scientific American and the producer and host of Soonish, an independent podcast about the future. He has served as Boston bureau reporter for Science, senior editor and San Francisco bureau chief at MIT Technology Review, chief correspondent and San Francisco editor for Xconomy, and acting director of MIT’s Knight Science Journalism program. He holds a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT.

Links:

1950 New Yorker Cartoon by Alan Dunn

The Extraterrestrials page at MIT Press
The Extraterrestrials page at Amazon
Six Strange Facts about Oumuamua
Sofia Sheikh and the Nine Axes
The Vanishing Sources
Where is Everybody?
Stephen Webb's Book on the Fermi Paradox
Nathalie Cabrol
Seth Shostak on the Zoo Hypothesis

The MIT Technology Review
The Hub and Spoke Podcast Network
The Soonish podcast

The podcast contact page
Wow! Signal Live

Credits

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Lloyd Rogers and Jason Robinson

The Wow! Signal is released under the Creative Commons Attribution License

Burst 2 - Through the Lens of the Drake Equation

Release Date: 7 December 2014

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In this short Wow! Signal Burst, Paul Carr talks us through where we are on the seven terms in the Drake Equation, which are more about what we don't know then what we know - so far.
Music: Elbow Grease by Jason Robinson

Calculating the Odds of Intelligent Alien Life (video narrated by Jill Tarter)
Confessions of an Alien Hunter by Seth Shostak
seti.org
Geoff Marcy on the third term in the Drake Equation
The Jaws of Darkness

Duncan Forgan on using the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) to eavesdrop on ET (free bonus audio content)

Release Date: 16 November 2014

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I interviewed Duncan Forgan in June of 2013 on multiple topics. I used part of this interview on asteroid mining in Season 1, Episode 8, and another part on the Fermi Paradox in Season 1, Episode 9. However, this relatively brief segment concerning SETI with the Square Kilometer Array remained without a home, and so we are releasing it as free bonus audio content. This won't appear on the RSS feed, but you can download it, or listen to it with the player above.

The discussion to this 2010 paper by Duncan Forgan and RC Nichol:

A Failure of Serendipity: the Square Kilometre Array will struggle to eavesdrop on Human-like ETI

Episode 12 - The Golden Age of Exoplanets

Released 19 March 2014

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Geoff Marcy

Searching for Earth-like exoplanets with the Kepler telescope and trying to find laser pulses from distant civilizations with planet hunting legend Geoff Marcy. ESA's Ana Heras tells us about the science goals of ESA's proposed PLATO mission.

See Detailed Show Notes

Episode 9 - Listening to the Silence

Released: 27 July 2013

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The Fermi Paradox, Part 2, with Universe Today's Fraser Cain and University of Edinburgh's Duncan Forgan.  Why, as far as we can tell, has the Earth not been colonized by superior alien civilizations?This question is called the Fermi Paradox, and it is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. We discuss just how strong the Fermi Paradox is, and the kind of research program it will take to resolve it.

The Wow! Signal Podcast podcasting seal of approval goes to: Penn's Sunday School.



Links:

Fraser Cain

Episode 2 - the Fermi Paradox with Geoffrey Landis

Universe Today

Duncan Forgan

Duncan Forgan et. al. , The Effect of Probe Dynamics on Galactic Exploration Timescales

Self Replicating Probes Could Already Be Here

The Kardashev Scale
Haldane's Law
Clarke's Third Law
The Fermi Paradox, Part 1 (blog entry)

The NASA Kepler Mission
Terrestrial Planet Finder

The Episode 9 Script

Penn's Sunday School

Duncan Forgan

The Music

Ahleuchatistas

DJ Spooky

Jason Robinson

John Baez and Mark Egan's Telesto
Cuneiform Records 

Episode 4 - All the Lonely Planets

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A conversation about alien life with Dr. David Grinspoon, author of Lonely Planets.  We talked about

David Grinspoon

his career as an astrobiologist, about habitability of environments throughout the solar system from Venus to the moons of Saturn, a proposed Venus balloon, the Curiosity rover on Mars, his upcoming book, his band, and more.

We also play a little music by the House Band of the Universe, and introduce a new feature of the Wow! Signal podcast - the Wow! Signal Podcast Seal of Approval for Podcasting, the first of which goes to: Big Picture Science.

Links

Download the .mp3 file
Subscribe to the Wow! Signal Podcast

David Grinspoon's website, funkyscience.net
Lonely Planets - the Natural Philosophy of Alien Life
The Episode 4 Script

The Drake Equation (SETI Institute)
Carl Sagan on the Drake Equation (video)

Co-host this podcast
Be on the Podcast

Musical Contributors:

Jason Robinson
Ahleuchatistas
Cuneiform Records
George Hrab (via Meevio Music Alley)
Mike Griffin

Episode 1 - Antonio Paris is Not From Outer Space

Release date: 5 December 2012

Episode 1 of the Wow!Signal Podcast is out and available! Download the .mp3 file

Click here to subscribe.  Author and researcher Antonio Paris of aerial-phenomenon.org joins us to discuss what is wrong with UFOlogy and what can be done to revive it for the 21st century.

Our Guest

Our first episode features an interview with Antonio Paris, Founder and Director of Aerial Phenomenon Investigations.  We'll ask Antonio about his vision for the future of UFO investigation, his new book, some of his investigations, and his upcoming conference.

Antonio's official bio:

Antonio Paris is the Founder and Director of the Aerial Phenomenon Investigations Team. He is a Senior Intelligence Analyst for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, holds a Top Secret/SCI security clearance, and supports an array of classified US Government clients in Washington, DC. Antonio, moreover, is a former US Army counterintelligence officer and Department of Defense Counterintelligence Field Activity special agent. Antonio received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from The City University of New York and his Master's of Science in Space Studies (Planetary Science) from the American Military University. In the past year, Antonio has appeared in over a dozen radio, webcasts, and cable TV interviews, including consulting work for the popular TV series The Alien Files: Unsealed. Antonio, moreover, is the Author of Aerial Phenomena: Reviving Ufology for the 21st Century; and the director and producer for the documentary Area 51. He has been researching the UFO phenomena for over 10 years.

Antonio currently works in Washington, DC and resides in Annapolis, MD.

Shane Perlowin and Ryan Oslance

The Music

All music is presented by permission of the artists.  The podcast includes music by ambient/electronic artist Mike Griffin from The Pulse Meditations.  Mike's music can be found at hypnos.com.  Hypnos also stock hard to find CDs from a wide variety of ambient, electronic and experimental musicians.  This episode features music (including the spooky intro) from Ahleuchatistas' fine new album, "Heads Full of Poison" on Cuneiform.  Ahleuchatistas are an Asheville, NC based instrumental duo with Shane Perlowin on guitar and Ryan Oslance on drums.

Ahleuchatistas are starting a North American tour soon.  Check out their website for venues and dates.

Link Summary

Episode 1 Script
Download the .mp3 file

Antonio Paris/Aerial Phenomena: http://www.aerial-phenomenon.org/Aerial_Phenomena.html

Antonio's book at Amazon

UFOCon 2013
Newspaper article

Ahleuchatistas

Cuneiform Records

Mike Griffin

The Dream of the Open Channel

Voiceover Artist

The Wow! Signal Podcast by Paul Carr is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.