Archive 2011
Click on the show title below to access the show archive stored on the Georgia Tech SMARTECH system.
| Wednesday Dec. 14th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Graduate School: The Final Frontier We sat down in the studio with Jorge Cham, the creator of Piled Higher and Deeper (Ph.D. Comics), a comic strip about life in graduate school. Jorge was on campus introducing his new movie inspired by the comic strip. We’ll play this interview and talk about the graduate school experience. |
| Wednesday Dec. 7th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Listener Calls Due to technical problems with Jorge Cham interview we took listener calls on a variety of topics |
| Wednesday Nov. 30th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Sorry, Pete is out of town again, but we will be back next week with a brand new show (for real this time). |
| Wednesday Nov. 23rd, 2011 noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Pete is out of town, but we will be back next week with a brand new show. |
| Wednesday Nov. 16th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Pete is at the New Orleans Fringe Festival using humor to teach basic statistics in a one man show entitled Feel the Power of the Dork Side. |
| Wednesday Nov. 9th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Faster than a Speeding Neutrino Eric Prebys, our favorite physicist from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will join us again to discuss the recent CERN results that reported neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. |
| Wednesday Nov. 2nd, 2011 noon-1pm |
That’s No Beer Cooler: Modern Organ Transplants Drs. Christian Larsen and Thomas Pearson from Emory University will explain why it is important to get out of the way of the guy running through the hospital corridor with a cooler and other recent advances in transplant surgery. |
| Wednesday Oct. 26th, 2011 noon-1pm |
He Started Out as a Child Bill Cosby joined us last week before his appearance at the Ferst Center for the Performing Arts at Georgia Tech.Given our interest in using humor to teach science and engineering, we explored his thoughts on how to improve education with a bit of humor. |
| Wednesday Oct. 19th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Nerds in Space Sandy Magnus, who received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Georgia Tech, was the last woman to fly on the Space Shuttle. She joins us to talk about the value of the space program and her experience on the shuttle and the international space station. |
| Wednesday Oct. 12th, 2011 noon-1pm |
The Battle against Cancer: News from the Frontlines Walter Curran, Director of the Emory Winship Cancer Institute, and Timothy Fox, Director of the Division of Medical Physics join us to discuss recent developments in the fight against this very challenging disease. |
| Wednesday Oct. 5th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Phunny Physics We’ve interviewed biologists and electrical engineers who became comedians, now it’s the physicists turn. Norm Goldblatt, who was actually interviewed about his comedy in Physics Today, joins us to about the relationship between physics and humor. |
| Wednesday Sept. 28th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Analytical Humor Doug Glick from the Anthropology Dept. of Binghamton University talks to us about anthropology and his recent published analysis of how Eddie Izzard’s humor works and why it is so funny. |
| Wednesday Sept. 21st, 2011 noon-1pm |
Blackout Episode 5:You’re in Control Co-host Charlie Bennett from the Georgia Tech Library joins Pete to discuss the importance of control experiments in science as well as other topics including: carbonating soda, gay squid, octapus junk, politicians defying science, and statistical samples. |
| Wednesday Sept. 14th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Blackout Episode 4:Unexpected Results Mathematician/comedian Lew Lefton joins us to talk about the mathematical perspective on the World and unexpected scientific results. |
| Wednesday Sept. 7th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Blackout Episode 3: Dragoncon and Educational Outreach Episode 3 of the antenna upgrade period, with guest host Charlie Bennett, in which we weren’t always broadcasting at full power. Today we discussed the science track at Dragoncon and the future of educational science outreach. |
| Wednesday Aug. 31st, 2011 noon-1pm |
Blackout Episode 2: STEM Standards Episode 2 of the antenna upgrade period, with guest host Charlie Bennett, in which we weren’t always broadcasting at full power. Today we discuss new education standards in K-12 Science, Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) and everything from scientific disciplines and learning styles to innovation. |
| Wednesday Aug. 24th, 2011 noon-1pm |
Blackout Episode 1: Radio Waves Episode 1 of the antenna upgrade period, with guest host Charlie Bennett, in which we weren’t always broadcasting at full power. Daniel Smith, WREK’s chief engineer joins us to talk about radio waves and our ongoing upgrade of our antenna to 100,000 Watts of power. |
| Wednesday August 17th noon-1pm |
The Light Bulb Wars In light of the scandalous attempts by the government take your light bulbs away, we will be discussing the future of light bulbs. Ian Ferguson, Chair of the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte will discuss solid state lighting with us. |
| Wednesday August 10th noon-1pm |
Sadistic Statistics We’ll chat about statistics, why it is important to understand them in our data-driven World and why people hate them so much. |
| Wednesday August 3rd noon-1pm |
On the Shoulders of Giants Today’s title is often used to describe how scientific development is based on previous work, and most of that previous work is housed in libraries. Our favorite library guru, Charlie Bennett joins us to discuss where all this started: the ancient library of Alexandria. |
| Wednesday July 27th noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Pete is busy grading Senior Design Oral Presentations this week so tune in for a classic rewind of Inside the Black Box. |
| Wednesday July 20th noon-1pm |
Gender Equity in Engineering – Our Own Worst Enemy Electrical engineer turned economist Jenny Hunt from McGill University in Montreal joins us to discuss her work on why women leave science and engineering. Unlike many other studies, her work compared exit rates of women from science and engineering with those of other fields. The analysis indicates that to many men may be the reason many women leave engineering. Apparently, our previous hypothesis that Bill was responsible for women leaving engineering may be incorrect. |
| Wednesday July 13th noon-1pm |
Most Illogical Call in with your best example of logical or illogical behavior as fodder for discussion on how the use of logic is the fundamental difference between science and engineering and other human endeavors. |
| Wednesday July 6th noon-1pm |
Biology Education – More than Memorizing Latin Names Jennifer Kraft Leavy and Jung Choi from the Georgia Tech School of Biology joins us to discuss modern educational techniques in biology that are more engaging that Kingdom, Phylum , Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species. Jennifer research interests include inquiry-based learning techniques in biology education. |
| Wednesday June 29th noon-1pm |
Are You Smarter than a High School Student? No offense to Georgia Tech Alum Jeff Foxworthy and his show on being smarter then a 5th grader, but a lot of people in Louisiana are not smarter then High School Student Zack Kopplin. Zack Kopplin has been crusading for the repeal of a Lousiana Science Education Act that allows for the use of non-scientific text in teaching Intelligent Design and Creationism in schools. Zach joins us to discuss why the scientific theory of evolution is so hard for some many people to accept. |
| Wednesday June 22nd noon-1pm |
Trust in Your Robot Alan Wagner of the Aerospace, Transportation and Advanced Systems (ATAS) Laboratory of the Georgia Tech Research Institute joins us to discuss the computational model of trust. Humans and machines interact in ways that require trust, so a computational understanding of this subtle concept is required in such instances. |
| Wednesday June 15th noon-1pm |
The Miscibility of Science and Humor Scientist turned comedian, Tim Lee, will join us to discuss if science and humor actually mix. Tim will be performing at the Relapse Theater near the Georgia Tech campus on Saturday June 18th at 8pm. |
| Wednesday June 8th noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Pete is in Florida presenting the lighter side of nuclear waste transport this week so tune in for a classic rewind of Inside the Black Box. |
| Wednesday June 1st noon-1pm |
Nuclear Power – Boogey Man or Key to Energy Security Concerns over the recent problems at the Fukushimi Daiichi nuclear power plant has us weighing the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power. Glenn Sjoden, from the Georgia Tech School of Mechanical Engineering, will discuss the recent debate related to questions about nuclear power advancement for US energy security. |
| Wednesday May 25th noon-1pm |
TODAY’S SHOW IS CANCELLED This live program was preempted by Georgia Tech post-season baseball. We’ll be back next week with another episode of Inside the Black Box. |
| Wednesday May 18th noon-1pm |
Shake Rattle and Roll Engineering Bruce Ellingwood of the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering will join us to talk about engineered structures and how things like earthquakes and tsunamis affect them. |
| Wednesday May 11th noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Pete, Bill and Trent are taking off during the semester break so tune in for a classic rewind of Inside the Black Box. |
| Wednesday May 4th noon-1pm |
Another Caller Show we haven’t done a show focusing on listener calls in a while so we will take calls and discuss some other suggesstiong we have received from our listeners recently. |
| Wednesday April 27th noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Pete is off grading senior design projects this week so tune in for a classic rewind of Inside the Black Box. |
| Wednesday April 20th noon-1pm |
The Language of Pseudoscience Bob Blaskiewicz of the Georgia Tech School of Literature Communication and Culture joins us to discuss how language is used to disguise pseudoscience as science. |
| Wednesday April 13th noon-1pm |
Where Do Drugs Come from? Michael Thien, Vice President of Science, Technology and Global Pharmaceutical Commercialization for Merck Manufacturing will discuss how modern pharmaceuticals are discovered and developed. |
| Wednesday April 6th noon-1pm |
Nuclear Power to Save the World In the wake of the nuclear reactor accident in Japan it may not be easy to think of Nuclear Power as an important part of our energy future. However, Gwyneth Cravens, former antinuclear activist and author of “Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy,” will join us to dispel some myths about this important energy source. Gwenyth will be giving the keynote address at the upcoming American Nuclear Society Student Conference at Georgia Tech April14-17 in Atlanta. |
| Wednesday March 30th noon-1pm |
Inventure Time Craig Forest, one of the founders of the Georgia Tech Inventure program joins us with some of this years winners Daniel Chaney and Jacob Thompson and their innovative new inventions. |
| Wednesday March 23rd noon-1pm |
Poolside Research Alistair Dove, of the Georgia Aquarium will discuss aquariums and their role as research tools. Specifically he will discuss some of his recent work on Whale Sharks and some collaborations with Georgia Tech. |
| Wednesday March 16th noon-1pm |
The Devil’s in the Details Prompted by a listener call about Soybeans being a complete protein last week we will explore situations where small details can make a big difference in science and technology. One of our favorite guests hosts, Mathematician/Comedian Lew Lefton will join us to discuss this topic with our listeners |
| Wednesday March 9th noon-1pm |
Listener Topic Show Local comedian and listener Kim Huapaya will be in studio with her favorite questions about science and we will be taking listener calls about any and all topics. |
| Wednesday March 2nd noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Pete is in California talking with nerds from the microelectronics industry, but we will be back next week with a new show. |
| Wednesday Feb. 23rd noon-1pm |
Finding the Red Balloon Erica Briscoe and the Ethan Trewhitt of the Georgia Tech Research Institutediscuss their recent second place finish in the DARPA Network Challenge to use social media and the network to find 10 red balloons across the U.S. They will also discuss how tracking the flow of information and misinformation through social media can be used to gather information and mobilize people. |
| Wednesday Feb. 16th noon-1pm |
Classic Rewind Pete is out of town so we will be airing a previous show, unless Bill comes up with a cool idea. |
| Wednesday Feb. 9th noon-1pm |
Biomass vs. Petroleum Bruce Dale, the director of the Biomass Conversion Research Lab at Michigan State will join us to discuss current and future work on the efficient conversion of biomass to fuel, chemicals, material, food and feed. |
| Wednesday Feb. 2nd noon-1pm |
The Climate – Change or No Change Judith Curry, Chair of the Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and director of the Climate Etc. Blog will discuss both the scientific and non-scientific issues associated with global warming. |
| Wednesday Jan. 26th noon-1pm |
tlhIngan yIntaH Hol (Klingon – a Living Language) Mark Okrand creator of the Klingon Language and author of the Klingon Dictionary will discuss the linquistics and use of this language. In addition to being a fascination among use geeks, this language is actually more of a living language than Latin. |
| Wednesday Jan. 19th noon-1pm |
Geeks Who Can Talk to Normal People J.C. Reilly and Lisa Yaszek discuss Georgia Tech’s unique program on Science Technology and Culture (STAC). This program integrates science and technology with humanities to produce individuals with some unique skills important in our technology-oriented society. |
| Wednesday Jan. 12th noon-1pm |
SNOWED IN Atlanta was paralyzed due to a snow storm and nobody could make it to the studio. |
| Wednesday Jan. 5th noon-1pm |
Biomechanics: Molecular Toolkits without the Axle Grease Todd Sulchek, of the School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, will discuss the molecular basis for the mechanical action of cells and how diseases can affect such mechanical processes. |