Episode 45 - Among the Space People with Paola Castaño

Released: 29 March 2020
Duration: 54 minutes, 8 seconds

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Co-hosts Paul Carr and Daniela DePaulis welcome Dr. Paola Castaño to talk about her research among the science teams working on the International Space Station.

Guest Bio

Paola Costaño

Paola Castaño is a sociologist of science. She recently completed a Newton International Fellow funded by The British Academy at Cardiff University and is working on a book about the meanings and valuations of scientific research on the International Space Station. On the basis of ethnographic work following the life course of experiments sent to the station, the book examines the fields of particle physics, plant biology and biomedical research. She has a PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago, and has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, the Free University of Berlin, and Waseda University in Tokyo.

Links:

The International Space Station goes under the microscope
Human Research Program Investigators’ Workshop 2020: Day 1
Cosmic-ray positron fraction measurement from 1 to 30 GeV with AMS-01
Scott Kelly’s genes and NASA’s twin study on him, explained
Keyworkers

Daniela De Paulis on the Unseen Podcast
Daniela De Paulis discusses Cogito in Episode 35.
Cogito in Space
Castaño's article on Cogito

The Wow! Signal podcast on Reddit
Our YouTube Channel

Credits:

Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis
Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Blue Dot Sessions, Lee Maddeford, and Lloyd Rogers

Upcoming Moonbounce Live Streaming Event

Photo Credit Charles Duke/NASA

The Event

Multidisciplinary artist Daniela De Paulis is organizing a live moonbounce event in Scotland on the Isle of Lewis that will be held on the evening of February 8th 2020 as part of the Hebridean Dark Skies Festival. Wow! Signal Live will livestream the event with a panel of scientists and artists.

How to Watch Live

The scheduled time is 21:00 GMT. That means it will start at 4 P.M. on the East Coast of the USA, and 1 Pm on the West Coast. The live streaming event may start a little earlier than the live event. More details will be announced soon.

Following the live event, the audio from the panel discussion will be made available on our regular podcast feed at this site.

To view the live event, simply go to this YouTube link: https://youtu.be/1tZFOA5TfK0

Edit: a video with credits and improved audio can be found here:
https://youtu.be/a9WaPLffeMw

If you have questions for the panel, you can leave them in the YouTube chat, or at the usual Discord channel on our server.

Episode 43 - Adam Dipert Moves in Zero G

Released: 22 December 2019
Duration: 55 minutes, 36 seconds

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Adam Dipert is a veteran circus performer and dancer who recently received his PhD in physics from Arizona State University.  He has brought his various interests together by researching human movement in microgravity. We are going to let him tell you all about that.

Adam will be presenting about this work at the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces in Providence, Rhode Island, USA at Brown University, March 5-7 2020.  Link to conference here: http://www.choreotech.com/vision

Links:

Flower Sticks
Zero G
Kitsou Dubois
Orienting Beyond Gravity: Training with Kitsou Dubois
Partner Stilting Acrobatics
A video of Adam in Zero G
Skylab Astronauts Doing Gymnastics in Zero G
The Froude Number
Kristina isabelle

Credits:

Co-hosts: Daniela DePaulis and Paul Carr
Producer Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky

This podcast is released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.

Episode 40 - Extraterrestrial Languages

Released: 16 October 2019
Duration: 54 minutes, 51 seconds

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Extraterresrial Languages is a forthcoming book about the human quest to craft messages that can be understood across interstellar distances. We may want to tell ET about  ourselves, or it may be help ET send message to us that we will know how to interpret.

At the end, we also spend a couple of minutes catching up with Daniela de Paulis.

Daniel Oberhaus is a staff writer at Wired Magazine, where he covers space and energy. His first book, Extraterrestrial Languages, will be released by MIT Press on October 22, 2019. 

Support the podcast at Patreon.com.

Links

MIT Press Page for Interstellar Languages
Follow Daniel Oberhaus on Twitter

Daniela de Paulis
The 2017 Sonar message
There is Here
The Risks of METI and Religious Aliens
Marvin Minsky: Communication with Alien Intelligence
The Question: the ontological status of mathematics

Follow us on Twitter
Our YouTube Channel

Credits

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Co-Host: Daniela De Paulis
Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, George Hrab
Announcer: Erin Carr


Cogito in Space - Reportage teaser from Sandro Bocci on Vimeo.

The Wow! Signal is released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license

Episode 39 - Sofia Sheik and The Nine Axes

Released: 29 September 2019
Duration: 49 minutes, 52 seconds

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Download Sofia's paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.02683

A conversation with SETI researcher Sofia Sheikh about how we should evaluate technosignature search strategies. We cover three examples of technosignature searches and their relative advantages.

Sofia Sheikh is a third-year graduate student at the Pennsylvania State University working with Dr. Jason Wright. She did her undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became involved with the Breakthrough Listen Initiative. Her work incorporates both theoretical approaches to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and observational radio searches for technosignatures. She intends to be the first woman to complete a SETI PhD thesis.

Links

The Nine Axes of Merit
Sofia Sheik's Twitter Page
Andrew Siemion on SETI at the SKA
Breakthrough Listen
The Truth about Alien Megastructures
Sonar Calling GJ273B

Credits

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Announcer: Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Erika Lloyd, Jason Robinson
Hardware: Shure, Audio Technica, Pro Art, Behringer, Focusrite, Apple.
Software: Skype, Loopback, Reaper, Auphonic Desktop
Hosting: Libsyn

Burst 32 - Become a Boyajian's Star Scientist in Your Spare Time

Released: 18 February 2019

Duration: 6 minutes, 48 seconds

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Paul Carr summarizes why we want to know more about this star, and how you can get involved.

Links:

The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe (Tabby's TED Talk)
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1
The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star (Brad Schaefer)
Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder

The KIC8462852_Analysis subreddit

The script for this episode (Creative Commons)

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky

Episode 35 - There is Here

Released: 13 February 2017
Duration:90 minutes, 38 seconds

Doug Vakoch

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In this episode we explore Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or METI, with METI.org President Douglas Vakoch and interdisciplinary artist Daniela de Paulis. Nick Nielsen joins us for a discussion of Daniela's new project Cogito - how do we send our thoughts into the cosmos?

Links:

The Pioneer Plaques
The Drake Arecibo Message

Dwingeloo Radio Observatory in the Netherlands

The Voyager Golden Record
METI.org Strategic Plan
The Zoo Hypothesis

Marvin Minsky: Communication with Alien Intelligence
Hans Freudenthal: LINCOS - Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse, part 1 (.pdf)

Daniela de Paulis on the Unseen Podcast
Project Cogito in Space
Dwingeloo Radio Observatory

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Co-hosts: Daniela de Paulis and Nick Nielsen
Music: DJ Spooky, George Hrab, Erika Llloyd
Voiceover: Erin Carr

The Wow! Signal podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike license.

Episode 33 - Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder

Released: 8 August 2016
Duration:47 minutes 44 seconds

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Ben Montet

Host Paul Carr talks to astronomer Ben Montet,who has, with his colleague Joshua Simon, just published the result that Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) dimmed considerably over the four year course of the Kepler Space Telescope prime mission.

Guest Bio:

Ben Montet recently defended his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology, where his thesis work focused on understanding the properties of low-mass stars and their companions. During his thesis, he led teams which measured the occurrence rate of Jupiter-sized planets in wide orbits around low-mass stars, developed the first catalog of confirmed transiting planets from the K2 mission, and characterized the first non-inflated brown dwarf with a directly measured mass, radius, and atmospheric properties. In September, he will begin a Carl Sagan Fellowship at the University of Chicago.

Links:

Montet and Simon, KIC 8462852 Faded Throughout the Kepler Mission
Interview with Bradley Schaefer on Dimming of Tabby's Star
Boyajian, et. al., KIC 8462852 - Where's The Flux?
Interview with Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian.

Aliens, perhaps, but not the Aliens of the Gaps.

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Announcer:Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd

Burst 19 - Our Sky Now and Then

Released: 31 July 2016
Duration: 24 minutes, 11 seconds

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Palomar Sky Survey image from 1950 around the area in question

Host Paul Carr discusses the recent paper "Our Sky Now and Then" with lead author and astronomer Beatriz Villarroel,a PhD student at the University of Upsalla in Sweden, Ms. Villarroel's team was undertaking an alternative approach to SETI, looking for evidence of effects in astronomical data that could not be due to natural effects.

Links:

Our Sky Now and Then
The USNO B1.0 Catalog
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The Lost Star (Vizier)
The Nearby Infrared WISE object
Jason Wright: A WISE Search for Large Extraterrestrial Civilizations

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson

Episode 31 - Journey Into the World of Alien Hunting

Released: 22 June 2016
Duration: 41 minutes, 19 seconds

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SETI scientists featured in Earthling's Quest

Daniela De Paulis hosts a conversation with the team producing the crowdfunded feature-length SETI documentary Earthling's Quest, and one of the scientists profiled in the film, Douglas Vakoch. We urge you to consider contributing to the Kickstarter for this film.

• opening
• Daniela's intro
• introduction to the Earthling's Quest team: Alexander Ryneus and Per Bifrost (film co-directors), and Malla Grapengiesser (producer).
• Introduction of Douglas Vakoch
• Introduction on SETI and METI
• What is the focus of the documentary?
• Why is SETI so timely
• Possibilities of finding extraterrestrial intelligent life
• Why should we contact other life forms?
• Should we be afraid?
• closing remarks and discussion
• Brief announcements
• outro

The Earthling's Quest team

Links:

METI International
The SETI Institute
The Earthling's Quest Kickstarter

Our updated Team page

Credits:

Host: Daniela De Paulis
Producer: Paul Carr
Announcer: Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Erika Lloyd, George Hrab

Burst 17 - The Where's The Flux Kickstarter

Released: 18 May 2016
Durations: 3 minutes, 33 seconds

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A short Burst to briefly explain today's development and to ask listeners to seriously consider donating to the new Kickstarter to monitor KIC 8462852 with a network of telescopes using standardized photometry. The hope is that we will reliably detect the star in the act of dimming. Please share this and the link to the kickstarter widely, and drop a little coin on the effort. Together, we can catch Tabby's Star in the act and solve one of the biggest cosmic mysteries before us.

Links:

The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe (kickstarter.com)
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1 (Burst 13)
Interview With Tabetha Boyajian (Season 3, Episode 4)
Interview with Stella Kafka of the AAVSO (Season 3, Episode 5)

The script for this Burst

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson
Postprocessing: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com

The Wow! Signal is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license

Episode 29 - Catching Tabby's Star in the Act

Released: 3 May 2016
Duration: 35 minutes, 43 seconds

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Stella Kafka, director of the American Association of VariableStar Observers (AAVSO) tells us about

Stella Kafka

how her organization observes variable stars and how they hope to catch Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) in the act of dimming. Also, a brief update on BradleySchaefer's work

• Intro music: Dark Skies by DJ Spooky
• Intro announcement
• Welcome and quick summary
• Brief update on Bradley Schaefer's updated preprint
• Stella Kafka bio
• Interview with Stella Kafka
• Wrap up on AAVSO
• Nagging, begging, pleading
• Consider participating in the Unseen Podcast
• Thanking Patrons
• Outro music: Ockham's Shaving Kit by George Hrab

Links

AAVSO.org
Donate to the AAVSO

Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, part 1
The Fast and Slow Dimming of Tabby's Star
Interview with Tabetha Boyajian
Script for this episode

Support us on Patreon

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd, George Hrab
Announcer: Erin Carr
Hardware: Shure, Pro Art, Focusrite, Apple
Software: Skype, Reaper, Loopback, OS X Yosemite
Postprocessing: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com

Episode 28 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, part 3

Released: 6 April 2016
Duration: 43 minutes, 45 seconds
Thread: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian

In Tabbys' Star for the Perplexed Part 1, we explained why KIC 8462852 is a puzzling star. In Part 2, we talked
about some of the explanations put forth and their weaknesses. In the third and last (for now) part of the series, we talk to Tabby herself, and she answers several reasonably informed questions about her team's work, past, present and future.

• Introduction
• Interview with Yale's Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian concerning KIC 8462852
• Frequently Asked Questions on Tabby's Star
• Some of the better speculative solutions
• Wrap up
• Thanking Patreon Subscribers
• Nagging, Begging
• We want to hear from you
• Outro

Links:

Boyajian, et. al., Planet Hunters IX: KIC 8462852 - Where's the Flux?
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed (blog post)
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 2
The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe

KIC 8462852 Facebook Page

Schaefer, KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165 +/- 0.014 Magnitudes Per Century from 1890 to 1989.
LCOGT
The Swift Mission
The AAVSO
Planet Hunters

KIC8462852 Subreddit
Centauri Dreams
The Unseen Podcast: I'm not saying it was aliens, but...

 

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
VO: Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky and Sleep Research Facility

The spoken content of the Wow! Signal is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike license.

Episode 26 - Martin Elvis on the Science of Asteroid Mining

Released: 2 November 2015
Duration: 53 minutes, 33 seconds

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Host Paul Carr interviews Dr. Martin Elvis of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Martin Elvis has a substantial background in high energy astronomy and astrophysics, studying quasars and other huge, highly energetic phenomena deep in the universe. He tells us why he has turned his attention to asteroid mining, and explains his model for determining how many asteroids we should be going after, and how we can find them.

There is a case for much better surveillance of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) using space based infrared cameras.

Today's sophisticated solid-state Gamma Ray and X-ray spectrometers can give us quick spectra that determine elemental composition, but the techniques for finding water and other volatiles may require some digging.

Also, the Earth often has temporary moons, but catching then in the act is tricky.

Guest Bio:

Martin Elvis

Dr. Martin Elvis is a senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory based in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA. He discovered X-ray emission from quasars during his PhD work in Leicester UK, then moved to the USA where he has worked with ever more powerful telescopes in X-rays and across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. He has proposed models for the inner workings of quasars, which are supermassive black holes lit up by gas pouring down towards them. More recently he has begun to work on the problems of asteroid mining, inspired by the need to bring down the cost of the next generation of telescopes in space.

Dr. Elvis has published almost 400 papers in refereed journals and, with nearly 25,000 citations. He is one of the 250 most Highly Cited Researchers in astronomy and space physics, as determined by ISI. He has served as Chair of the High Energy Division of the American Astronomical Society and as Chair of the Space Telescope Users Committee. The asteroid 9283Martinelvis is named after him.

Links

The Proposed NEOCAM spacecraft

Martin Elvis - How Many Ore Bearing Asteroids?
Martin Elvis and Thomas Esty - How Many Assay Probes to Find One Ore Bearing Asteroid?
Elvis, McDowell, Hoffman and Binzel - Ultra-Low Delta-v Objects and the Human Exploration of the Asteroids
NASA - General Information on Asteroids
OSIRIS-REX Mission
REXIS - The Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer

The NEAR mission
The X-Ray/Gamma-Ray Spectrometer on NEAR
Planetary Resources: Asteroid Composition
The Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The NEOCAM sensor
NEOCAM (.pdf file)
Mainzer, et. al., Survey Simulations of a New Near-Earth Asteroid Detection System

NEOWISE

Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope

Planetary Resources: How We Choose our Near-Earth Targets

Granvik, et. al., The Population of natural Earth satellites

Season 2 - Episode 8: Incoming Asteroid!
Season 1 - Episode 8: Cosmik Debris

Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Guest: Martin Elvis
Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd
Postproduction: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com


The spoken content of this podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. All music is performed with the permission of the artists.

Episode 24 - SETI at the SKA

Release Date: 8 March 2015

Andrew P.V. Siemion

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We talk to UC Berkeley's Andrew P.V. Siemion about a recent paper in which he was lead author concerning SETI at the Square Kilometer Array. Andrew also answers a listener questions about SETI@Home and encourages us to run it on our smartphones.

Music by DJ Spooky, Erika Lloyd, and Jason Robinson

Detailed Show Notes.

Coming Soon - a new feed

Coming soon, a new spinoff podcast on a separate feed. Not live, but completely unscripted, basically unedited, weekly, only vaguely planned out. The co-host is you. Bad language is allowed. Let us know if you like the idea and would be willing to participate. The range of topics is the same general territory as the Wow! Signal plus anything remotely related. There will, I hope, be speculative fiction, some genuine weirdness, sly Terry Pratchett references, and lots of commercially unviable music.

Update 2 February 2015

The way this will work is a Google Hangout. The audio of the entire hangout will be recorded, except perhaps for a few seconds at the start. At present, the plan is that it is not going to be live. 

If you wish to participate, sign up for G+, and then let us know that you would like to participate in a podcast. We intend to overbook a bit - more people will be invited than the 9 we can accommodate, so the first 9 invitees to show up will be the co-hosts along with the host/engineer. If you participate and contribute, you will be invited back frequently, but not every time. If someone leaves the hangout early, I may re-invite you if you-email that you tried to get in and couldn't.

Once you are in, the agenda is up to you. Things like music, fiction and special guests will be worked out as we go.

Episode 22 - Let's Go Explore Venus!

Release Date: 21 January 2015

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Paul Carr talks to astrobiologist David Grinspoon and NASA physicist Geoffrey Landis about the science and technology of Venus exploration.

Detailed Show Notes and Guest Bios

Note: there were a couple of correctable audio defects found after the original file was uploaded to the host. These consisted of short silences. This has been corrected, so please re-download the file.

David Grinspoon with Lt. Uhura	Geoffrey Landis

Music by DJ Spooky and George Hrab

Burst 3 - MISS on Mars?

Release Date: 20 December 2014

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Nora Noffke, Associate Professor in the Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Old Dominion University, tells us about her recent hypothesis paper that argues that certain sedimentary structures seen by the Curiosity rover on Mars could be fossilized microbial mats.

Ancient Sedimentary Structures in the <3.7 Ga Gillespie Lake Member, Mars, That Compare in Macroscopic Morphology, Spatial Associations, and Temporal Succession with Terrestrial Microbialites

Dr. Noffke's page at ODU 

ODU Press Release

Music by Jason Robinson

Gillespie Lake (photo from NASA)

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 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

Episode 20 - Incoming Asteroid!

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JL Galache

Host Paul Carr is joined by panelists James Garrison and Tim Jones.

Astronomer JL Galache of the IAU Minor Planet Center and Duncan Lunan, author of the book Incoming Asteroid, enlighten us about the threat that Near Earth asteroids pose to Earth and what we can do about it.

Music by DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson and Erika Lloyd.

Detailed Show Notes with Links