Science, Actually Presents
The Nerd and the Scientist
Astrophysicist Kovi Rose and scicommer Benjamin Salles love space, and bad puns, and are united in their shared belief that they’re brilliantly funny.
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Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pulsar : Guest : Rowina Nathan
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This week’s guest, Rowina Nathan, joins Kovi and Benjamin to talk about pulsar timing, the gravitational wave background, and what it means to be the Pink Astrophysicist! While there are many pulsars to work with, she only works with ‘the best ones’ – some of them, well, they have quirky personalities that make them difficult to work with. What led Rowina to study gravitational waves? Why does she find pulsar timing more elegant than blackhole collision nonsense? What’s her favorite flavor of nuclear pasta? Tune in!
We’re Gonna’ Need A Bigger Rocket : Guest : Dimos
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Our first ever guest returns and becomes our first return guest! Dr. Dimos Katsis is back, and this time he’s talking about Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket which is planning on launching for the first time ever next month, December 2024. New Glenn is so big, it can fit Blue Origin’s current rocket – the New Shepard – inside its payload. New Glenn’s never flown before, never tested multiple stages before, never tested it fairings before, never launched a satellite before, and never used explosive-launched harpoons to help land its insanely massive first stage on a boat. That’s right – harpoons. Join Kovi and Benjamin for the ride as they learn about – quite literally – the next very big thing in space.
Bah Bah Black Hole Have You Any Mass : Guest : Ciaran O’Hare
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During their last Standard Model episode Kovi said, “we really need to get an expert to talk about this.” So they did! This week’s guest is Ciaran O’Hare – an ARC DECRA fellow at the University of Sydney. He works on aspects of dark matter particle physics and astrophysics, including direct detection, axions, and dark matter halo models. Although Kovi and Benjamin pretty much wrapped up all you need to know about the Standard Model and quarks and neutrinos in their last episode – they thought maybe this guy could help a little. Fun sidenote : in this episode you can actually hear Benjamin’s mind explode.
Episode 42 – Life, the Universe, and Everything : Standard Model
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Episode 42 – the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Well, we don’t actually have that answer just yet – but we’re working on it – and the best we have thus far is the Standard Model. In this episode Kovi and Benjamin talk about the fundamental building blocks of matter, electromagnetism, the strong force, the weak force, why gravity’s such a jerk it can’t be worked into the Standard Model, and Kovi makes the decades long process of learning, researching, creating theories, getting a massive bathtub built inside a mountain, and making a new discovery seem very simple.
My Podcast Brings All The Nerds To The Yard : Fastest Things
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Time goes by fast when you’re having fun – just like this episode! This episode goes by fast as Kovi and Benjamin have fun talking about the fastest things in the universe! Hypervelocity stars, the solar wind, supernova ejecta, fast radio bursts, neutrinos and more. They even cover the fastest manmade objects – both on purpose and by accident – and the fastest crewed vehicle in history.
Laika’s Latkes : Art in Science
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Both science and art rely on imagination and creativity to explore new ideas, solve problems, and innovate. Art helps make abstract or complex scientific concepts more accessible through visual representation (e.g., illustrations, diagrams, models). In Kovi’s and Benjamin’s 40th EPISODE of the Nerd and the Scientist, they talk about different way scientific theories and information is presented to the general public in a variety of ways – from data plots to paintings, from sculptures to video games, and more.
I’m space walking here! : Science of Superheroes
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Kovi and Benjamin like the superheroes, too! Comic books aren’t exactly where one would go to learn science, but – believe it or not – a great many times they get the science right! The Flash felt more and more tired and leaded the closer he got to the speed of light. The tensile strength of Spider-Man’s webbing is about 1,000 megapascals – close to the 1,200 megapascal tensile strength of an actual spider. Energy cannot be destroyed, only converted into some other form – as demonstrated by Thor’s hammer hitting Captain America’s shield, creating light, heat, and a shockwave. Apart from the power source, Iron Man’s suit is pretty close to possible given today’s technology. And don’t get us started on The Atom ‘picking up’ a piece of white dwarf star in order to make the device needed to give him his powers.
Take a Spacewalk on the Wild Side : Hertzsprung Russell Diagram
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Stars are so hot right now. Annie Jump Cannon, Henriette Leavitt, Antonia Maury, Florence Cushman, Cecilia Payne and others began cataloging and manually classifying stars in the late 1800’s – over 350,000 of them. During that time, two astronomers simultaneously discovered a pattern in all that data. Between 1911 and 1913, Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung and American astronomer Henry Norris Russel plotted the stars recorded by Cannon and her team, and placed them on a diagram – the axes of which were the spectral classes devised by Cannon on one side, and their luminosity on the other. The diagram beautiful illustrated that in the randomness of the stars observed in the universe there is a clear pattern into which all stars fall. The diagram helps bring understanding to the temperatures and colors, brightness, sizes, and even the ages and lifecycles of the stars. Over 100 years later the diagram still holds true, and is a tool used in science today.
Traveling At The Speed Of Thought : Guest : Janet Ivey-Duensing
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This episode’s guest, teacher and science communicator Janet Ivey-Duesnsing from Janet’s Planet, has Kovi and Benjamin traveling at the speed of thought! Listen in as Janet shares her journey from music, to science, to sparking an interest in science in thousands upon thousands of kids around the world.
What Happens On The Moon, Stays On The Moon : Telescope Evolution
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Kovi and Benjamin talk about stars and planets and galaxies all the time on this show – but how do we see them? In this episode the lads discuss the evolution of the telescope – from the first lenses thousands of years ago in ancient Greece, to the curiosities of eyeglass makers in the 13th-16th centuries, to some tourist in Venice in 1609 who saw a spyglass and thought he could make a better one. That tourist was Galileo Galilei, and after he turned his own hand-made telescope skyward, word spread like wildfire. Then there were reflecting telescopes and refracting telescopes, and after a long while radio telescopes and telescopes in space!
Go, Rocket, Go! : Guest : Melody Korman
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Executive Director of the Israel Space Forum, Space Mission Manager for the Rakia Mission, SpaceLab mentor and Flight Operations Manager for the Ramon Foundation, and Stargate SG-1 fanatic, Melody Korman, took time out of her ridiculously busy (and all-things-space packed) schedule to talk to Kovi and Benjamin about just some of the things she’s done. From helping kids get their science experiments to space, to being the one who tells astronauts what to do, these are the things Melody calls fun.
There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Tardigrade : Guest : Emily Kerrison
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Blazars are just quasars that are pointed at us? That’s it? Yep, that’s it according to our guest, PhD candidate Emily Kerrison, in our latest, ‘scintillating’ episode. Do you mean ‘scintillating’ as in ‘radio scintillation’? The same! Joining us from the University of Sydney, Australia, Emily tells Kovi and Benjamin the ins and outs of AGNs (Active Galactic Nuclei). Quasars, blazars, and BL Lac objects – oh my!
Astronaut? More Like Astro-CAN! : Why So Sirius?
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In talking about the show one day, Benjamin told Kovi a corny space pun. Kovi chuckled and told another one to Benjamin. “We should make an episode entirely us telling bad jokes!” they said to each other – and here we are. This week Kovi and Benjamin tickle your funny bone and tackle your patience as they share some of the worst space jokes in the universe. Buckle up, because these jokes are light-years from funny. Join us for an episode that’s guaranteed to make you groan, cringe, and possibly question your life choices.
Bada Bing Bang : Nebulae
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Things get messy-ier in this episode as Kovi and Benjamin discuss Messier Objects, supernova remnants, nebulae, and stellar nurseries where stars are born. Tycho’s Supernova is just as spectacular as the golden nose of the man who discovered it, there’s a Jewel Box out there just as sparkly as the jewel boxes here on Earth, and before you Google ‘Trumpler’, be sure to add a 14 to it if you want to see something absolutely beautiful tucked away in the Carina Nebula.
The Launch Pad Is For Loading And Unloading Only : Technologies Inspired by Science Fiction
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Kovi and Benjamin get all wibbly-wobbly as they talk about the timey-wimey scifi gadgets in scifi films and shows. Independence Day, Doctor Who, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. We don’t have a sonic screwdriver just yet – but we’re getting there, the HAL 900 was, basically, Siri and AI all wrapped up with a thirst for murder, and that goodness our phones can translate just about anything without the need of squeezing a Babel fish in our ears.
Where the Universe Ends : Interstellar Medium
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The science between the science! Kovi put on his special science goggles as he and Benjamin discussed the Interstellar Medium (ISM). The space between the stars is massive – but not empty! Going back to the 1860’s we began to learn there’s something out there, in 1904 we confirmed it, and since 1909 we learned that there’s gas, dust, cosmic rays, shock-heating from supernovae, nebluae and more. Where does a nebula end and interstellar space begin? What IS a nebula? Join the nerd and the scientist is they wrap up their third season (their 30th episode!) with some learnin’ and laughin’!
Look Who Knows So Much About Space : How Do I Become An Astronaut
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Astronauts go to space. Space tourists go to space. So… What’s the difference? Kovi and Benjamin have a conversation this episode about when space travel switched from only sending the best of the best military trained and/or highly science educated into space to just sending anyone who could afford a ticket. A space traveler was once a young, healthy, heavily trained person who’s been pushed to the physical limits in preparation for a solo flight. Nowadays anyone can go, old or young, as part of a crew just for the fun of it. Will Shatner’s overview effect was a beautiful thing to watch, and so long and thanks for all the fish.
Clifford, The Big Red Tardigrade : Golden Records
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Ever since we’ve been sending spacecraft out into the universe, we’ve sent little bits of cargo with them. Be it for hope and optimism, the preservation of our culture, or an olive branch of sorts to whomever might find it drifting out there in space, human beings have long been fans of the ultimate messages in a bottle. From the famous golden records on Voyagers 1 and 2, to an astronomer’s ashes speeding past Pluto, Kovi and Benjamin take a look at messages humans have sent to space and are planning to send to space. And if you’re planning a trip to Mars, watch out for Elon’s car.
Goodnight Moon : Search for Exoplanets
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Transits and microlensing and radial velocity – oh my! Are there other civilizations out there? Maybe. What there’s definitely a ton of beyond our Solar System are other worlds. This week Kovi and Benjamin talk about exoplanets – from the beginning of how we first began discovering them in the 90’s, to today where we not only have a catalog of thousands of exoplanets, but we know their sizes, masses, atmospheres, and have even snapped a photo of a few.
Ding Dong, Space : Aurorae
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This week Kovi and Benjamin discuss the aurorae many of us witnessed last week as a result of a particularly large solar storm. …and not just that! They also go on to discuss how aurorae are formed, why the northern and southern lights are different, what they look like on other worlds, and mention that even some brown and red dwarf stars that have aurorae. They even discuss the proper pluralization of aurora … aurorae. Trust us – it gets nuts.
The Tardigrade in the Hat : Space Infrastructure
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Getting things to space is relatively easy – just hop on a rocket – but still somewhat expensive. Once in space getting from place to place is hard – once you’ve launched you’re either going into orbit and staying there, or on your way to a far away destination – and takes a very long time. What can we do to make space travel quicker and cheaper, can we speed up communication with these far away places, and is that a giant dinner plate standing in the desert? Kovi and Benjamin answer all these questions – and talk about their dogs – in this episode.
Got Space? : The Passover Episode!
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We want to wish a Happy Passover to all of our listeners who celebrate, and in that spirit this week we’re talking about things that are ‘passing over’ us! Get it? Passover? Passing over? Trust us, it’s funny. Don’t touch that dial, as Kovi and Benjamin discuss all the different altitudes and orbital zones in which things actually do pass over us – from satellites to space stations, comets to asteroids, and a mind altering, life changing experience Kovi had in Texas.
The Force Is Strong With This Podcast : Star Wars ‘Science’
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At last, Kovi and Benjamin meet again for the first time for the last time. It is a period of science skepticism in the world. A fledgling podcast, recording from a hidden location, had just finished their second season. During the recording, the podcasters kept quiet so as not to be discovered until they met the ultimate nerd, the first person to BUY THEIR T-SHIRT – a comfortable, all cotton garment powerful enough to have a rubber duck on it. With onlookers getting suspicious, and even beginning to laugh, they kept their recording brief and then raced home aboard their spaceship – custodians of the stolen plans that can save the galaxy…
Comet Over Here : Radio Telescopes
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Benjamin used to be super impressed with Kovi’s profession, but when he learned that back in 1937 all you needed was some wood, piece of sheet metal, and a few parts from a broken down Model T… eh, now, not so much. Tune is as Kovi talks shop – we learn about the accidental invention of radio astronomy, how insanely big radio telescopes can be and how they work, and some incredible discoveries they’ve made along the way.
One Planet, Two Planet, Red Planet, Wet Planet : Water Worlds
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Kovi and Benjamin kick off season three of The Nerd and the Scientist with an episode about water worlds. Tune in as they discuss many of the worlds we know have water, and worlds for which the data suggests they have water – regardless of said worlds’ Kevin Costner content (KCC).
X Marks The Space : Inventions From Space Travel Part B (but still a Part-A!)
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There are so many things in our day-to-day lives that we take for granted that got their start as part of humanity’s greatest endeavor – exploring the universe. Before memory foam mattresses carried you off to sleep, they were the lining of pilot seats for NASA’s jet planes and even the space shuttle, the best Speedo bathing suit got its start in a wind tunnel, and the jaws of life that firefighters might use to open wrecked car doors first were used separating spacecraft. Join Kovi and Benjamin as they talk about how space inventions help us down here on Earth.
Ready, Set, Space : Inventions From Space Travel Part-A!
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There are so many things in our day-to-day lives that we take for granted that got their start as part of humanity’s greatest endeavor – exploring the universe. The first, true laptop computer flew on the space shuttle, the first Bowflex helped astronauts keep in shape on the ISS, thin foil blankets often seen at the end of marathons were first used as lining on spacecraft. Join Kovi and Benjamin as they talk about how space inventions help us down here on Earth.
Another One Bites The Space Dust : Star Trek ‘Science’
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Set phasers to science! You know that cellphone in your hand? You can thank Star Trek for that. Medical diagnosis equipment at the hospital? Thank Star Trek. Beaming? Yeah, it works. Right now. Here in the real world. Who ya’ gonna’ thank? That’s right – Star Trek? Join Kovi and Benjamin as they talk about Star Trek’s contributions to science, and how many Riker’s is enough.
The Ace Of Space : Thinkin’ ’bout thinkin’
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Are Kovi and Benjamin neuroscientists? NOPE! …but they think a lot, and got to thinking about thinking, which gave them a thought, “let’s talk about thinking!” Join the lads from Fun Fact Science and Science Actually as they figure out how our noodle noodles.
A Wrinkle In Spacetime : Guest Dr. Markus Mosbech
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What came first – black holes or the galaxies? Find out as Kovi and Benjamin are joined by Dr. Markus Mosbech, and discuss cosmology, astroparticle physics, and possible death and serious injury caused by dark matter.
Like A Good Neighbor, Space Junk Is There : Space Numbers & Debris
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How far away are things in space? A parsec is a measurement of distance – not time – unless you’re Han Solo. Eight Taylor Swifts flew by Earth the other day – or were those alpacas? Kovi and Benjamin make their way through all that madness just to talk about the Kessler Syndrome – aka space junk.
There’s No Space Like Home : To The Moon!
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Will the luna-cy ever stop? Get it? Luna? Moon? Hello? Holy smokes Kovi and Benjamin think they’re funny – and they’re in love with the Moon! It’s the biggest and most familiar object in the sky after the Sun, and we’ve been sending landers and rovers and robots and people there since the 1950’s – and next month, Canada’s sending a meme.
Earth, The Happiest Planet In The Galaxy : Guest Dr. Dimos Katsis
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Kovi and Benjamin are joined by their very first guest, Dr. Dimos Katsis – former Blue Origin rocketologist, clean energy aficionado, and cohost of the LuxeSci podcast. We discuss Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, the science learned from it that can help future explorers on the Moon, and the New Glenn that’ll get us there.
Knock Knock, Whose There… It’s Space : Classifications Part Deux
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Purely by coincidence, the second episode of the first season and this episode – the second episode of the second season – are about how we classify things in space! Benjamin is, shall we say, just a little obsessed about how scientists categorize stars, planets, nebulae, black holes and quasars – and he asks Kovi to explain it all in a kind of quasi-quiz/Q&A conversation. Say it three times fast, “Chthonian…”
Space Nonsense : Conspiracies Part II
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The first episode of our second season! The second episode of a two-parter! Kovi and Benjamin dive once again into some of science’s weirdest NOPE’s and mull over spacecraft crashing into our planet, storms on Saturn caused by aliens, and all the doomsday predictions that have come and gone without a doomsday happening.
Duck, Duck SPACE! : Conspiracies Part I
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In the beginning there was only ice! (say Welteislehre three times fast!) Venus was comet before it was a planet! The Moon doesn’t turn! Bigfoot seen on Mars! Kovi and Benjamin discuss some of science’s biggest NOPE’s.
Don’t Space Me Bro : Calendars
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From ancient stone calendars to the cosmic calendar, can Kovi and Benjamin cram 10,000 years of humans documenting the seasons and the passage of time into 30 minutes? NOPE! They do try – and made up two commercials – so buckle up.
Space, Actually! : Space Myths Part II
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Saturn’s rings are the biggest in the Solar System, but not the only ones? Stars don’t twinkle? Mercury’s the closest planet to our Sun, but has glaciers? What the what? Listen to part two of Kovi and Benjamin’s debunking space myths extravaganza!
Don’t Be An Asteroid : Space Myths Part I
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Black holes don’t suck, the Sun is not on fire, and the Moon doesn’t have a dark side – just a plain ‘ol boring ‘far side’. Join Kovi and Benjamin for part one of a two part series where they share and debunk some common myths and misconceptions about space – even if it did look cool in Star Wars.
Oh, Hi Space! : Cultures & Constellations
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Taurus the cockatoo? Scorpio the ostrich? Perseus the elk? Orion the baby buffalo? Leo the horse? We’re familiar with the modern, western names of the constellations, but there have been countless cultures over thousands of years putting their unique stories on the same stars. This week Kovi and Benjamin discuss the emus, lost men, grills for cooking fish, and blue women that other civilizations saw in the night sky.
The Space Stuff Gets Better : Good Seeing
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Kovi and Benjamin had every intention to speak about what makes for good seeing (clear skies, low light pollution, and little atmospheric turbulence) – and eventually did – but spoke about the Voyager spacecraft’s famous Pale Blue Dot photo for a bit first.
An Astrophysicist Says What? : Asteroids
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Kovi and Benjamin bumble their way through an episode about asteroids, a nameless astrophysicist, and the Beatles. And what’s the deal with M-class? M-class asteroids, and M-class stars, and M-class Star Trek things – we should call it mmm-class…
Nerds In Space : Where Heavy Elements Come From
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The longer a star burns, the more its fuel fuses into heavier and heavier elements. But that takes a long time – so if you’re in a rush just find two neutron stars smack them together. Benjamin has questions about heavy elements! Kovi has answers! Do they stay on topic? ehhhhh….
Space In Da Face! : Classifications
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Kovi and Benjamin made a number two! Buckle up and buckle in as we talk about classification of celestial objects. When does a planet become a star? Can a star become a planet? In what way are supernovae like hot dogs?
New Space, Who Dis? : The Pilot Episode
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Kovi and Benjamin reunite to kick off their new show! It’s our first episode! The pilot episode! The one where we figure out what we’re doing, talk about space, try to sell you rubber ducks and fail, and basically have a great time.
Space Case Sarah Show
Before Kovi and Benjamin created their own show, they were the co-hosts for 29 episodes of the Space Case Sarah Show, hosted by scicommer Sarah Treadwell.