Episode 49 - Existential Risk

Released: 4 February 2021

Duration: 58 minutes 44 seconds

Co-hosts Paul Carr and Daniela DePaulis are joined by author Thomas Moynihan. The subject is the idea of human extinction and how it evolved into our present day understand of Existential Risk.

Guest Bio:

Thomas Moynihan

I am a writer and researcher from the UK. In 2019, I completed a PhD at Oriel College on the history of human extinction. Currently, I am a visiting Research Associate in History at St. Benet's College, Oxford University, and I am working for Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute with a grant from the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative. 
 
I am interested in the history of existential risk and of existential hope: that is, how people first came to understand the perils and promises that face us as a species. I see this as the central philosophical drama of the modern world: how we came to appreciate our position—and precarity—as intelligent beings within an otherwise seemingly silent and sterile universe. 
 
My goal is to reveal how contemporary research into global risks can be seen as part of the wider story of our ‘coming of age’ as a civilisation and a species.

Links:

Thomas Moynihan - https://thomasmoynihan.xyz

X-Risk at MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/x-risk

Mary Shelley - The Last Man

Churchill - Shall We All Commit Suicide?

The Order of the Dolphin

Frank Drakę: A Speculation on the Influence of Biological Immortality on SETI

Natural Selection of Stellar Civilizations by the Limits of Growth

The Jaws of Darkness

The Ethics of METI

Credits:

Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis

Producer: Paul Carr

Music: Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Solar Arkestra, DJ Spooky

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

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

Episode 32 - Nathaniel Comfort and the Biography of DNA

Released: 28 July 2016
Duration: 43 minutes, 45 seconds

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James Garrison speaks with latest holder of the Library of Congress Baruch Blumberg chair of astrobiology, Nathaniel Comfort. His current book project is the biography of DNA.

Links:

Our Interview with David Grinspoon

Nathaniel Comfort

Our Interview with Steven Dick
Mike Russell
New Study Outlines "Water World" Theory of the Origin of Life
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Dr. Barbara McClintock
Steven Benner

Genotopia
Ingenous: Nathaniel Comfort

Credits:

Host: James Garrison
Producer: Paul Carr
Announcer: Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky and Frank Dorritke

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 2 - What About Fact A?

Release Date: 16 January 2013

Geoffrey Landis

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There is no persuasive evidence that aliens from other star systems have ever visited our planet - a situation Michael Hart dubbed "Fact A."  However, as Enrico Fermi pointed out in 1950, this is something of a surprise.  This podcast is the first in a series examining what has become known as the Fermi Paradox.

We'll talk to award winning SF author and NASA scientist Geoffrey Landis about one of his proposed solutions to this paradox, and set the stage for further explorations.  We'll also sample some powerful music by 21st Century Jazz artist Jason Robinson from his new CD "Tiresian Symmetry" and experimental sound sculptor Sleep Research Facility from the new CD "Stealth,"  based on sounds recorded in a B2 bomber hangar in the UK.

Links:

Episode 2 Script (actual spoken content may vary)
Download .mp3 file
The Wow! Signal Podcast on iTunes

The Fermi Paradox Part 2

Geoffrey Landis
A collection of Geoffrey Landis' short stories: Impact Parameter

The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory by Geoffrey Landis

Jason Robinson

Cuneiform Records (order Tiresian Symmetry here)

Sleep Research Facility
Hypnos Records

The Drake Equation (SETI Institute)

Carl Sagan on the Drake Equation
The Fermi Paradox, part 1 (Dream of the Open Channel)

Episode 1 (Antonio Paris is Not from Outer Space)


Subscribe to the Wow! Signal Podcast
Be on the Podcast
Music Wanted

Contact the Wow! Signal Podcast